Musical Paradigm Shift:

One of my great loves is singing.

Not my own, and you're welcome for that!

The Mike comes from a musical family - his dad used to be in a band (Real Ralph and the Renegades and if you talk to OLD old timers 'round these parts? They remember him and the band fondly). Before that though, Ralph grew up hard. Music was the respite to picking cotton and making do in a family of 12 (or was it 13?) siblings.

Mike and his two brothers grew up in this musical family and did different things with it.

B, his oldest brother (by 6 years) took up the drums. This matters when you know that their dad is a guitar maestro. My Mike (the middle child) took up . . . uh . . . football. M, the youngest (by six years after Mike)? Drums also.

Despite all this musical family drama, I love them loads for the music loving they share. B the Elder and My Mike and M the Younger LOVE rock. Hard rock. Like hard rock that borders on crazy-assed satanic-like hard rock. Dare I say it? Marilyn Manson rock.

*shudders*

Not my thang. At all.

The thing is? They all hear musical notes and melodies that elude me.

My Mike will be sitting next to me, as we ease on down the road with the radio on, and he will say stuff like "did you hear that?". I'm all "hear what?" "The tuba/bass/cello/violins/wa-wa/chime/tamborine right there?".

HUH?

All I ever hear is the song I've always heard all these years.

Listening to music through The Mike's ears is a real treat - you hear it with a new paradigm.

I've watched M the Younger take little Ella's hands in his and tap the beat to music, as if he's playing the drums - like he's teaching her but not realizing he's teaching her. He *has* to play the beat. It's in his blood.

It's a beautiful thing to share music with my married family.

My father-in-law - we don't have much in common besides his middle child - my husband. I do think he knows that I appreciate his musical knowledge and abilities. Another kookie thing this family I married into does is goof-off through song lyrics. FIL will throw out an old Conway Twitty lyric and I'll respond with the next line of the song.

I can't play the music on an instrument, but I can name that tune in three bars.

Love me some sing'n - almost any era. The words of a song stick with me like the musical notes stick with my married family.

Here's the even weirder part though. I can't (as they say) carry a tune in a bucket. My Mike - the stereotypical middle child that chose football over the family's love of music?

He can sing circles around us. He has the gift of performing, like his dad and brothers, but his instrument is his voice.

Unfortunately, only *us* ever hear him sing unabashedly. He sings his guts out to Blue and Freckles and Scilly and the ceiling and the microwave.

When I say "Hey Hon - sing me (name that tune)" he gets all shy and 'ahh shucks'. When he thinks noone is looking and listening though, the world is his stage.

Don't tell him I told you. He'd die of 'ahh shucks' embarrassment.