Of recent years i find myself more and more listening to’ Classical Music’ or European Classical Music (ECM) . in my teens, this is a music that i would shun away from real fast, thinking that it had nothing to do with me and my culture! i was into dub roots reggae in my teens!

thats the only music that i wanted to listen to! the thumping bass, the consious and educational lyrics from artists like Dennis Emanual Brown, Jacob MIller, The Wailers,Burning Spear,..this was my sound world and nothing else could penetrate it.

I was developing a real snobbish attitute to other music…there can’t be anything else?…can there? damn! the foolishness of youth! but we all suffer it.

I do believe the brain is very much like a tape recorder and everything that goes in can be recalled with a little effort. I’m surprised how familiar Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, Debussy, are to me! and how much i love the fully Orchestrate pieces i’m listening to. A strange thing happen not long ago where i had a vision of me as a little boy sitting very still and quiet, listening deeply to the above mentioned composers.

Was this another recall of some events that had happened in the past? maybe forgotten from childhood? these visions started to get real intense….i was convinced..it had happened.

during a resent conversation with my wife about ‘youth culture’ i just said right out like this ” i remember as a very young boy from about the age of six up to age nine when we had our school assembly and all the formalities had been done, we would all sit and listen to ‘Classical music’”

there it was…i just said it..it must have happened..and believe me i loved every moment of those listening sessions! getting so deeply lost in this great music!

this year 2009 i’ll be 50 years old!…yes thats right 50! I feel so fortunate that my primary school teacher ‘Georgina (Edwards) Hawkins (now some of you may not believe this but its very true) is still teaching primary school children in the south west of england Bridgewater Somerset.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet and facebook, we are able to stay intouch. during a recent long conversation with her 9/4/09 on facebook i thought right! i need to confirm this matter, i’ll can ask her now

“Georgina! can you tell me, as children, did we listen to Classical Music In Assembly? Yes we heard a lot of classics at Rushmore ( ‘Rushmore’! that’s the school i attented in Hackney East London from the age of 6 to 11) ~ Mr Carter ( our head teacher) was very fond of Beethoven and Mozart!”.

Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two extremely important ECM composers, had infact, played a very serious part in my early musical education.

I do feel so sad that children today don’t get these opportunity’s! so much ‘dumbing down’ in society these days of great music. don’t be fooled! ECM is for everyone! Black,White,indian,Chinese,Oriental whom ever!

Once you can get passed the stuffyness that surrounds ECM, (The Class System) being the biggest,there is a lifetime of joy awaiting.

Not that it should matter, but it does in the grand scheme of things: there is serious talk and investigation going on as in the roots and origins of ‘Ludwig van Beethoven’ that he was in fact a BLACK person! stay tuned.

CW. X