Is the banjo’s sound a pleasure genetically shared? My grown son, Zachary, told me again today how much he loves Sufjan Stevens‘ rooftop rendition of “Lakes of Canada.” Part of the appeal is more than the banjo, however. It’s the way Stevens is filmed by La Blogotheque, coincidentally in my city of birth. Funny how much our tastes in music overlap — and unite, despite the age difference of thirty-five years. And the differences that divide fathers and sons.
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News comes that my grown son, Zachary, is learning the banjo. I knew that like me he loves the instrument’s sound — singular and echoing and mournful. Not discordant but of the earth in the way the guitar and other stringed instruments are not. I didn’t know he harbored ambition to make music.
The news made me wonder whether musical tastes are genetically linked. For two people born thirty-five years apart, we share remarkably similar likes when it comes to bands. In our personal relationship we’ve had plenty of differences over the years, but we delight in exposing each other to our individual discoveries of singers. Read More
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