My brother blowing the Horn.

[Dutch Uncle]

(not sure if this is the right place. It might also fit under "Recovery: progress". I feel pretty good having worked through this, this morning. Ilaughed the misery away, for a good bit.)

Today I had a memory about the role of music in my FOO. This resurfaced because somebody asked where my love of music came from.

Well, certainly not from the FOO.
In the house where I grew up there was virtually no place for music.
I remember dad had a few records, negro-spirituals and the like, and my favorite one was "Banana Boat Song (Day O)"  by Harry Belafonte.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMigXnXMhQ4
1956 is says which prompts me to think that was probably the last record he ever bought.
I think it was even the only I liked, although I have hardly any memory of my dad playing his records. They were also locked in a cupboard. I did get them out sometimes, but it never prompted much reaction from dad.
I think my mom didn't have any records at all. I sure have no recollection of what her music taste was, or is.

Music only entered this world when my sis and bro went 'teen', and once a week we (well, they and me) watched the music-program with all the charts on National Television. Dad was at those times buried in his newspaper. (The rest of the time as well, so nothing special there) If he reacted, it was a grump that the music was too load. Or my bro and sis dancing and laughing, singing, enjoying themselves.

For some reason though, my parents wanted to have us a musical education, so we had to go to music-school. That was no fun at all. We had to study the flute, and Music notation. Three years we had to do this, and if we by then had showed enough stamina ("if you like it (still?) then...") then we would be allowed to study an intsrument of choice. (The phrase alone! Now that I type it I see the implicit message one might not like it! Not: "You can go to music school and have fun. You'll learn how to make music, awesome!", But "If you like it")
Anyway, my bro and sis did this before I even could have a go, and by the time I got to it, sis had ditched making music (she did the full three years I think) and bro actually got to the point where my parents bought him a trumpet.

When I remembered that I had to laugh. That must have been a passive-agressive choice by him, LOL. (bro was a nagger, in all his ways anyway). So he would practice practically inside the living room, blasting his PFFFWWWT, PRRROOP, PRRTTTATAAA, BIIIIP around at anyones inconvenience. LOL. Now I remember this, I actually give him credit for it. Dad still wouldn't move an inch (well, he retreated to his study, just as the rest of us scurried to our own private caves in the house) so the poor boy STILL didn't get any attention. This was his reward for three years of torture with the flute (assuming he hated it as much as I did. He probably did but just endured it for the prize to come: an instrument), continuing to take music (trumpet) classes and nobody gave a damn, pretended not to hear him blowing on the top of his lungs.
LOL. He made us all feel it, I guess: "Are you all still deaf and dumb?! Well ignore THIS!" Dad did so effortlessly, we followed.

This was around the time I started the flute classes and I hated it, as mentioned before. I went with a neighboring boy, classmate and sort-of-friend, but when he told my mom once that I had been punished for misbehaving (can't remember what, I was probably being passive-aggressive ) he wasn't so much my friend anymore.
I dropped out, but only after a lot of coercion from my mom (she did all the kids-things while dad worked) had pushed me so far over the limit that I had spend one complete hour of home-practice crying my eyeballs out, sobbing and hardly able to breath through the damned thing. After that hour I was finally left of the hook. (Well, after dad had given his consent later that day probably. No way mom could have decided that on her own.)
In hindsight I think that the whole episode of my bro having no fun at all with his trumpet (he would also heartlessly PFFFWWWT-PRRROOP right through my lessons, or fun things I did in the house), and the utter disinterest of my parents in him even playing an instrument made it (subconsciously) clear to me that this flute suffering was not going to bring me any good. What would be the point of having a reward that nobody cared for?

I think it's amazing I love music.
I probably am a child prodigy  .

[arpy1]

how well i remember the joy of hearing my dad practising his tuba for the police brass band concert, up in my brother's room with all of us downstairs (fingers in ears......) trying to do homework or watch telly...

yay music!!!

[Dutch Uncle]

 

Oh my, those who are blowing their horn. 

[Widdiful Falling]

I think the image of your brother, in the living room, tooting his own horn, is beyond hilarious!

I also think that it's awful for your parents to have forced you to take a specific instrument like that. Or music classes at all, without your consent. I have to wonder, though, why the flute? Is there some history there?

I always wanted to play the flute when I was younger. My M wouldn't let me play any mouth instruments, though, because I had a talent for singing. I got to play the piano, though, so at least there was something. I would have withered away if my love for making music wasn't fed.

[Dutch Uncle]

I have to wonder, though, why the flute? Is there some history there?

On the one hand, I think this was just 'standard' practice at the music-school. First-timers did flute class first (I think I was with twenty or more children in class). I don't think three years of flute was standard practice  .
On the other hand, the flute is cheap and my dad is a miser.

I never had realized that, but when i looked at the article on Dysfunctional Families in Wikipedia (with shaking hands...boy, that was a big step in coming out of the FOG, typing dysfunctional family into google...) "a parent being a miser" was stated. I first had to look up what a miser was, but my dad definitely is one. I always thought (and was taught) he was being thriftily, but no...