Musical Autobiography

Since my dad was in the Air Force, my family listens to a lot of patriotic music. To this day I can no listen to Taps without crying. Both of my parents grew up in the south, I got a good helping of country. When my family moved to Florida, I got a taste of Jamaican. A friend of mine, his dad was from there and he came into our music class and played some of the music he played when he was in a “wee lad” as he put it.
After Florida, my dad was station at Okinawa, Japan. It is a small island just south of the main land. While going to DOD schools there. (DOD- Department of Defense) We had to take culture classes twice a week, and these classes where taught by native teachers there. These teachers would bring in the “elders” of their family and community and they would play their music, and do their dances. I can remember one of the teacher’s daughters was getting married, so she gave a week long lesson about the tradition of the wedding, and what types of music they would play. When I think back to it, there wedding ceremonies are kind of like ours with picking music. They would have the traditional music, but they would also have what was popular for them. They even had a Taiko Drumming classes, but I never got to take them I was too young to take them. If I ever find a place that gives them I will jump at the chance to be in it. When they are performing it is like they are dancing. There is just a beauty about it, and that some of the people doing it their family has been playing them for year some generations.
When looking back, I have had a lot of exposure of no western music. That just might be the reason why I am not really big on the western music, never had much exposure to it.