#22 Lenten Reflections
Dinner conversations change when the kids are home from college. There’s more chatter about immigration law and the state of the economy and less about PTSA and batting practice. One thing is constant. I am always reminded how little I know. Yes, I realize the kids are benefiting from a well-rounded liberal arts education and I am teaching 3-7-year-olds to speak and sing in Spanish, but still, I listen to podcasts, the 99X Celebrity Sleeze, and NPR and should know something! So when they are home I sit a little deeper on the 20-year-old couch we would read stories on, listen more intently, settle in and prepare to learn.
Yesterdays lesson:
Since I am on a break from running (slow dramatic scream here). I have been spinning. It’s not as invigorating, there’s no sunshine, and well, think about the word spin, it’s a tad monotonous.
To jazz up my rides, I signed up for one free month with the Peloton app. Let’s be clear, I DO NOT have a Peleton. I DO, however, have a five-year-old Schwinn spin bike. So I ride the heck out of this bike or a spin bike 5-7 days a week.
Today as I was using the Peloton app, I saw the option for a “60-minute ride EDM”. Feeling hip, I thought EDM definitely had something to do with Endurance and I was ALL IN! As the class began, the instructor said she felt very connected with the riders because we were all EDM fans. I gave some virtual high-fives to my fellow riders on the screen and started the endurance ride! About 10 minutes in I was spinning fast and furious with the techno beat reminiscent of dance clubs in college. “Let’s go riders! You are killing this! You’re not knackered already are you? Listen to that EDM!” yelled the super fit British instructor who didn’t break a sweat the entire 60 minutes.
Wait. Listen to EDM? Listen…oooooohhhhhh! It’s a genre of music! I immediately yelled downstairs to the kids, “What’s EDM?!”
Cora yelled…”Whaaaaat???” I said, “Whaaat’s EDM???”
“Oh! It’s Electronic Dance Music!! EDM!”
Ah ha! So it’s a type of music. Got it.
After the ride, I was curious about EDM, and here’s what I found…
Think back to the days of dance clubs. The dizzying lights, the throb of the beat, slow crescendos, and long songs. Electronic Dance Music is a mixture of subgenres arranged for crowds of dancers, with disco music, synthpop, techno, house music, trance music, drum and bass, dubstep, trap, hardstyle, and others I had never heard of. When you hear EDM today, it’s a much different experience than what listeners of EDM would have heard in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, or even early 2000s.
Get this! There’s even a class at the UCLA Herb Albert School of Music called:
Origins of EDM – “In this course you’ll survey groove-based electrified dance music from its origins in 1960’s pop and soul to present, covering disco, house, techno, ambient, rave, and jungle. This course will emphasize the interaction of technology, musical structures, psychoactive drugs, and club cultures to induce altered states of musical consciousness; promise (versus reality of) political and spiritual transformation; electronic dance music as new art music.”
What I learned:
-Don’t be fooled into thinking the E in EDM stands for endurance. Although whether dancing or spinning to this synthesized, techno music, you will get a great workout.
-Ask your kids questions – there’s a good chance they know the answers.
Quotes I love about learning:
“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” -Maya Angelou
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” -Mahatma Gandhi
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” -Confucius
Have a great day and get outside for some fresh air, it makes every day better.
Thanks for joining me,
❤️Lucretia
runonmom.com 