Music Autobiography

Growing up, I stayed away from the music of the western art canon. The genres I had grown accustomed to as a child were those of Appalachian folk music and western music. Opera and Art songs were not on my radar until I was in high school.
Western Music:
My dad developed a love for western novels and music as a child. For our amusement, he used to fabricate his own stories with ideas from these books and western ballads about secretly being a Texas Ranger. He would tell us that his real job was just a cover and that in reality he would go everyday to Texas and fight outlaws and “injuns”. He had several CDs with all sorts of western ballads and songs such as “The Yellow Rose of Texas”, “The Red River Valley”, and “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. The songs made me interested in the history of the Old West. Several of the songs told stories of the pioneers and Native Americans. They made me wonder what it was like out west before and during the Western Expansion of America.
Appalachian Music:
Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was introduced to a good deal of Appalachian Music. My parents often listened to music by Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. I really enjoyed their voices. They also sang ballads about life in the Appalachian Mountains that made my imagination wander. These songs depicted Appalachian life as hard and a constant struggle to put food on the table. The songs also communicated the importance of family and religion to the Appalachian people. When I was in sixth grade my parents talked me into taking violin lessons. In eighth grade, we moved to a very small country town where we were only able to find a fiddle teacher rather than a violin teacher. This turned out to be a waste of money in educating me on the violin. I didn’t go very far with the violin however, this new teacher introduced me to a large repertoire of Appalachian fiddle music.
Hungarian Music:
Last Easter I had a wonderful opportunity to experience a taste of Eastern European folk music. My boyfriend Dominic is from Hungary. He lives in North Carolina now with his immediate family. Twice a year his mother organizes a large gathering for any Hungarians living in the United States. This is an opportunity for them to meet other Hungarians living in the country. I attended one of these gatherings and it was a blast. First we had a tasty dinner of their traditional goulash. Then many of them dressed in traditional Hungarian folk outfits and we danced to traditional folk music. They had their own folk dances which a woman taught to us before each number. The music was very fast dancing music and was played by recorder-like instruments.