Musical Girls

When I was in college, about 22 years old, I had a fling with a local high school girl. She knew that I loved music and, as her parents were well connected with the University arts scene, she procured us excellent seats to see a German chamber ensemble. The evening was magical---they performed first rate renditions of baroque classics (and some more obscure pieces) and, for an encore, offered up Bach's Air for the G String more beautifully than I have ever heard it played. A tear formed in one of my eyes and my date squeezed my hand. She had been watching my reaction to the music throughout the concert, she told me later.

After the concert we went back to my place where she gushed about how wonderful it was to date someone who loved music. She apologized for having her period---she said she wanted to give me a "perfect night"---and gave me wonderful, heartfelt head.

I was reminded of that this past weekend---The Musician's band was playing in a club in my neighborhood, so I stopped in to see them. I paid my respects to The Musician and spent some time talking to her friend, who was at the bar on the night I met her. Her friend is a cellist who plays in a local band---we exchanged myspace info and are now on eachother's friends lists, and I will catch her next show. I left early, as there was somewhere else I had to be.

Musical ability and appreciation has always been a very, very powerful aphrodisiac for me. And by musical, I don't mean an encyclopaedic knowledge of indie-rock, however impressive that may be. I mean a knowledge and love of the Western Canon, Bach to Messaien. An appreciation of jazz, Armstrong to Ornette Coleman. A familiarity with Indian music and non-Western scales. And an ability to see popular music through that prism.

I was something of an orchestra groupie in college. A girl had only to mention that she played the violin, or the flute, or the oboe, or had some musical talent and my interest level would jump. Ditto for singers. I once became involved in an extremely off-beat relationship with a violin prodigy that took me into sexual situations at which I probably would have balked had the girl not been blessed with top-tier musical talent.

Despite my bohemian sensibilities, my world is the world of business. I don't meet as many musicians as I did in college. My new plan is to cultivate a friendship with The Musician and hopefully expand my own circle of friends into a more musical crowd. Out of which there will undoubtedly be several prospects.