My mum loved popular music. If it swung, so did she. If it crooned, she would croon along with it. Albeit a little flat. Flat but happy.
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So she wasn't at all perturbed by rock music or pop music and would urge her children to buy the latest and the loudest, sometimes funding those purchases herself. I still have the addiction, now more swiftly enabled by the lovely people at iTunes and a local music shop that brings me ''Imports!'' with ''Added Features!'' - really just code for an album cover with detail.
The news that Patti Smith (now more than 64) had a new release with bonus book sent me into a lather of queuing. Except I was first in the queue. Also the only one.
But I met and married a man with an extensive repertoire of musical taste. It varied from Howlin' Wolf to Arvo Part and that about describes the emotional spectrum, too. I thought he was weird (every former boy I knew loved the Rolling Stones) but for every night of our married life, we've gone to sleep listening to a different piece of music, a meditation on our marriage.
It also meant that the music we saw together changed. I no longer stood on seats screaming (hey, this may have happened anyway) but sat, with a drink, listening to jazz in clubs or perched on concert hall chairs paying attention to chamber music. I now realise chamber music is what I've loved my whole life - small, intimate, person-sized music. You can hear each instrument sing.
And some of you will be off to see the Takacs Quartet tomorrow night at the Llewellyn Hall in the ANU School of Music (I see that name now and it makes me sad).
If you are going to that event, I want to ask you a favour. When you go, no matter what the weather, please wear a singlet top. No jacket. And workboots. When you get there, put those boots on the back of the seat in front of you so you can drive your fellow elite patron completely mad.
Have I gone mad? No, but I did get mad when Musica Viva, which is bringing the Takacs Quartet to Canberra emailed me the crappiest piece of marketing I've seen in a while, which included a video.
Videos. Social media. I'm totally in love with these two forms of communication. Unfortunately, so are people who have no idea how to use them. And when they do use them, they do things they would never ever do if they had to write them in more traditional forms. It's like using the equipment stops them from using their judgment.
Musica Viva decided to use a video to explain concert etiquette. In this video, which at over four minutes is three minutes too long, we have three characters of whom two are central. Let's call them Singlet Boy and Office Boy.
Office Boy - dressed as if he were going to work - is Mr Perfect. Singlet Boy rushes in late to a performance, swigs on someone else's champagne, puts his feet on the back of someone else's chair; and claps inappropriately. Oh. My. God. Imagine clapping inappropriately. Let's make sure there is someone to hold up the sky if that ever happens.
But what's worse is this idea that young people - some of whom are first timers as I once was - don't get the vibe of the event without some patronising video which bills itself as being funny.
I went to see the Takacs Quartet at the City Recital Hall last Saturday in Sydney. The young people in the audience - of whom there were very few - were well-behaved. I did have trouble keeping my eyes off the vast expanse of naked thigh during interval (apparently it's cool to be cold at the moment) but otherwise, no trouble.
The older members of the audience were a different kettle of spittle altogether. The bloke sitting next to me was corpulent. Hell, I've been there myself. But the snoring which comes with the corpulence? How come that doesn't rate a mention in the ''how to behave in concerts'' video? Behind me was a woman in a fur coat and a litre of scent, and on my far right was a person who'd clearly written out their own program notes and thought it was OK to share them with everyone else during the performance.
So, I'd like to make a suggestion to the lovely people at Musica Viva who probably thought this video was a witty jape (if you want humour, take your lead from the organisers of the British Olympics who've listed the Sex Pistols' version of God Save the Queen on their shortlist for the opening ceremony). Instead of targeting first timers who might feel a little overwhelmed anyway, why not do a short video for those of your audience who are subscribers?
Leave out the way they dress - my feelings about fur are probably irrelevant.
But for god's sake, tell them to have a nap before they come to a concert.
■ Follow me on Twitter @jennaprice or email me jenna_p@bigpond.net.au