Music Pedigree

This is Amy, my neice in her "Queen of the Night" costume that she wore for an opera performance a couple years ago. She is a graduate student, getting her master's in vocal performance. Amy is following in my footsteps. Yes, I am an educator in a mental health profession. But I began in a very different field at quite a young age. It is just not something that I talk about very much any more.

I recently read a post on my friend's blog which asked the question, "What's up with classical musicians and The Pedigree?" So much flooded back over me as I read Joyful Woman's comments about her observations and puzzlement about musicians that I have found myself preoccupied remembering many things.

It may be a long, complicated, contorted trail, and it may bore even the likes of Freud. But I would like to reflect here, in the next few posts, both my response to Joyful Woman's question, and my experience in the vortex of this question. I am especially thinking about this as I think about Amy getting ready for her final recital. All of her language is musical language. A great deal of my past, attitudes, experiences, and feelings are visible in her. I left that world for a variety of reasons--some that I could help, and some that I couldn't.

You may wish to skip over the coming rambling, stream of consciousness recollections. It is the story of unrequited love, unutterable joy, confusion, and disappointment.