My father introduced me to classical music. Accidentally. This was back in 1994 and instant self-help fads were everywhere. Among them was the “Mozart effect”, which claimed that children exposed to classical music had better test scores. I was 12 at the time and like a lot of kids of the time obsessed with video games. That was no good in my father’s eyes, so he sat me down one day after school and forced me to listen to classical music. To his disappointment, I somehow got hooked on the “bad” stuff, took a sharp turn at Darmstadt, and quickly fell in with the wrong crowd. Meanwhile, with my ears electrified by the din of Varèse and Boulez, the Baroque and Classical-era music that my father had hoped would lead me to academic glory was simply boring to me.

Then about a decade ago, that began to change. Through a former colleague at Amoeba, I discovered blues music. His erudition and passion for the genre opened up new sounds for me. As I listened to Barbecue Bob, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and others, I began to discern parallels between the blues and a lot of pre-Bach Western music. “roots music” too. Heard in this new way, these genres that I had previously avoided now sounded refreshingly contemporary and relatable.

For a long time, my ears rarely ventured beyond the 20th century. Now here I was on a breezy morning, listening to and enjoying every note of Bach, Vivaldi, and Heinichen. Wherever my father may be en el más allá, I hope he’s finally happy with my playlist. Although I still listen to a lot of those 20th-century modernists that distressed him. Hey, at least I kicked that video game habit!