Talking 'Bout My Generation. [Entry #4.]

Here's my interview with my grandmother or "Grandmommy" Betty Wolfe from January 9th. You can either watch the video or read the transcription below. I encourage both, as she can be kind of soft spoken sometimes, but you don't get to enjoy her southern draw if you don't watch.
I edited out of the video all time spent thinking and any questions that lead to a dead end. In the video I edited out our last names and where we are, my audience is much larger than this class and I don't feel like being stalked. If you follow the link on the end of the video, you can watch the footage on dances which became a bit of a tangent... Enjoy!

MH: What type of music did you listen to? What genre?
BW: My era? The bands, the wonderful orchestras and bands like Sammy Kaye, and... what were the others?
MH: You were there, I wasn't there...
BW: I know it. At this age I'm forgetting so many of them... Even the concerts I went to at college were so wonderful, but they were all beautiful music. No rock 'n roll.

MH: Do you have any songs that you remember or stuck with you?
BW: I know soloists, like Perry Como and all of this era...
MH: "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket..." That's him?
BW: Right. Right.
MH: Yay me!

MH: When you listen to music, was there a certain place you listened to it? You said orchestras.
BW: Well mainly radio at first and then we finally had television. Then when I was in college I'd go to concerts I mentioned and enjoy them.

MH: I'm ready to assume off of orchestras being a definition, how did you parents feel about your music? Did they approve of it?
BW: Oh they enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed the music that they enjoyed. And this is the same type of music that I still like.

MH: Was there a certain reason you listened to music that you could think of?
BW: We enjoyed music. Our family enjoyed music. Although I only took piano lessons, private lessons.
MH: You're jumping ahead of me. I was going to ask what instruments did you play or did you sing, how long.
BW: Just piano. I took two years, private lessons.
MH: You can still sit down and play one of those.
BW: Not really... I can pick out a lot by ear. But I really, I didn't continue in piano. But we did- I had three sisters, and we'd dance. We took tap dancing and, actually privately, from a man in school, and we did play, dancing, and we did dance a lot.
MH: And what about your brother, what did your brother do about that?
BW: He was very young. He was much younger than the rest of us so...
MH: He doesn't count.
BW: No, he was not included.

MH: Once you became a parent and your kids were growing up, what did you have to say about their music. Did you approve of it?
BW: Oh, I did. A bit more so than the music itself. Sometime's it's too loud- entirely too loud.

MH: You said you listened to it on the radio, did you not have LPs?
BW: Yes.

MH: Anything else you can think of?
BW: No...

My grandmother loathes being in front of a still camera, much less a camcorder, so she isn't very talkative. I found the information I gathered on dancing far more interesting and I think she did too... so feel free to check it out. (Or my other videos too if you would, I am getting close to 1,000 subscribers.)