Proust's madeleine

[porcy62]

I collected the last records of my dad from my sister's house.

The oldest, dirtiest and forgotten bunch.

Among them there are those RCA/Reader's Digest collections of classical highlights, very common in everybody's house: mono and usually not really great performances of the usual stuff: Rossini, Mozart, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, etc.

I just cleaned some of them and played.

Suddenly I realized that they are probably my first exposure to 'MUSIC' since my birth, maybe even before that.

Man, I can unconsciously recognize the specific performance...they are deeply rooted in my mind like a pre-birth experience.

I realized that, for instance the specific performance of Mussorgsky' A Night on Bald Mountain on 'that' RCA makes sound some inner unconscious memories I had forgotten, and no other performaces do that, I mean I probably listened to dozens or hundred performances of the same works and nothing happened.

Amazing and astounding experience.

[Hot Ptah]

I had an identical experience when I heard this one from my parents' collection, for the first time in many years:

The performances are part of my DNA, I think. Every note brings back very early, deep memories.

[porcy62]

Yes, every note, I mean how many performances of The Barber of Sevilla's overture I listened to? From records, radio, movies, etc, probably one hundred, and this one IS the ONE.

Music is great.

[Chuck Nessa]

Most of the RCA/Readers Digest packages are very interesting. A few are great. I have a number of them.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

But it's not what it is that's important, in this context. It's the ingraining of whatever your parents played a lot so deeply that it provides some kind of different feeling to what other music provides. And I think it isn't nostalgia; it's more like personal recognition.

Of course, I've got no room to talk about this, because we didn't have a record player in the family until I got my first at Christmas 1958; so I don't have those kind of memories.

(But I bet my daughter does.)

MG

[sidewinder]

The earliest thing I can remember playing is a 45rpm of WW2 Battle of Britain fighter aircraft dog-fight noises put out by Airfix I think.

Work that one out !

[aparxa]

very first musical souvenirs: