Music is Everywhere

Music is everywhere here and in Spain.

In Madrid, as we were headed through the labyrinth of the airport, we passed a man playing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Yes; coins in the instrument case.

Here it's ubiquitous. Accordions and concertinas serenading different restaurants different nights up and down the street. Accordionist tonight began "Besa me mucho" too high, started to sing, and couldn't reach the notes. One of the diners took care of it, singing the balance of the refrain.

Blind woman on the corner with a children's melodica. Coins in the cup. 

Swing band of three scorching-hot saxophones and a drummer rocking it hard. Crowd clapping and shouting with them. One couple (he was more enthusiastic than she) boogying off to the side. Coins in the cup. One mama had her gloriously chubby toddler bobble out and drop jingle in the cup. I came down the street later that evening, and the guys had a blanket out and were divvying up the take.

Classic Portuguese traditional serenading group, all two dozen of them in black tie with capes, bowed and strummed strings, a bass violin, a tom-tom drum, playing and singing and doing a flag-waving routine. Tallest guy in the co-ed group stood forward, took a bow and started hawking their 10-euro cd. People were buying it left and right.

Amplified acoustic guitar playing fado in one of the pracas (that's pronounced "prazha") overwhelming a couple of guys working with an un-hooked-up electric guitar the other side of the fountain. 

Man two meters tall playing a soprano recorder on the street. Busking not begging.

Group of around twenty green-shirted people singing to a different group twice their number wearing white shirts and red bandanas. The bandana-ed group were singing back and dancing to the lyric.

It never stops. Well, it does, but it's way late in the evening.

I asked my mama when I was in junior high school and had just seen Porgy and Bess at the movies, why people made singing movies. She told me, "Pat, sometimes the day is so beautiful all you can do is sing."

I didn't understand that in 1959. It makes more sense sixty years later.