Why? I'll tell you why...

Click here: Survival of the harmonious - The Boston Globe

Alas, I am not very good at music.

My older sister was wonderful. Her teacher said if she practiced piano three hours a day she could get to Carneigie Hall. She didn't.

I took two piano lessons and the teacher said "Mrs. Wattenberg, don't waste your money." Nice woman; idiotic statement.

At the Interfraternity Sing at Hobart College I was officially designated a "mouther."

But thanks in large measure to my sister, I listened to Your Hit Parade, the music of Eddie Condon, Art Tatum, Sidney Bechet.

She swooned for Frank Sinatra and said he would be a fine actor. He was, although he had other big problems.

I saw Artie Shaw and Dave Brubeck in unlikely places when they, and I, were on the road.

We did Think Tank programs on Duke Ellington and George Gershwin.

Through my kids, and now DVDs, like Walk the Line and the Bobby Darin Story, I am beginning to understand what I hated. (It was so loud.)

I took one of my children to hear Jimmi Hendrix.

My youngest child introduced me to The Smashing Pumpkins.

I learned American, Yiddish and Hebrew songs.

I vividly recall many of these tunes 65 years after I heard them.

OK. So I'm not good at it. But I love it.

I have purchased a Yamaha keyboard and ukelele. I intend to take lessons.

No one has to listen, but me.

Ben