Why Parents Cry at Concerts

I always wondered why my parents would cry at my middle school and high school concerts. Listening to a recording of said concerts brings tears to my eyes, but probably not for the same reason. In high school our concert band started to sound passable, but still like a high school band, and yet I could always count on my dad welling up by the end of at least one piece.

When my oldest child had his first performance in kindergarten, I definitely welled up--and the performance itself wasn't exceptional. A bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds standing on stage, barely able to be heard over the recorded music that was playing (because kindergarteners can't carry a tune?) is hardly a moving performance from a musical standpoint. But it was my child singing, and he was so cute! I was not the only one in that room surreptitiously brushing tears from my eyes.

Yesterday I was in the kitchen scrambling eggs for a quick dinner before my oldest had a baseball game to get to (later we found out we were 35 minutes late, not 5, for said game). He came in, fresh from practicing bass guitar in his bedroom, balancing on one foot as he pulled his knee-high sock on, and said, "I feel that music excitement, you know, when you start playing in band and it actually sounds good?" and then went on to describe a part in a piece he's working on, and how cool it sounds when the low brass (he plays trombone) comes in "it sounds really rich and cool." He started singing his low brass part and I sang the melody (the trumpets' part).

Later on, at the game, my 7-year-old started dancing to the music the other team played between innings. You could tell he didn't have any plans for the movement, he was just moving because he had to--there was music playing. This is the same boy who sings no matter what he's doing. He watched another kid at the game playing Minecraft on a phone (younger siblings of little leaguers are dedicated fans), so they're basically cheek to cheek, and my little boy is just singing away (It surprised me that no one seemed to be bugged by the incessant singing--his siblings don't appreciate it.).

When I was driving home after the Tupperware party I went to after the game, I was listening to Vivaldi, a recording I've had since I was 12 or so--same Christmas I got my first Sony Discman--and I found it remarkable that sometimes music just resonates in your whole body. There's a visceral connection that happens, and for me, joy. I don't even have to be participating in producing the music to feel like I'm singing, that someone else's wordless performance from 20 years (or more) ago is an extension of my psyche somehow. Of course it's more visceral when you are close enough to it to actually feel the vibration of the sound waves in your core, either performing or just listening live. Some of my favorite memories from high school were the week or so before a concert when our separate band classes would finally get together in an evening rehearsal to put it all together, and I could hear (and feel) whole, rich chords with the low brass, and hear what the clarinets were doing against my flute part, hear what the percussionists were doing. All the voicing would be filled out, and it sounded amazing. And then we would perform and my mom and dad would cry.

I think there was a deeper feeling for at least my dad by then, beyond the fact that I was his child and so cute up on stage, which I am beginning to see now with my oldest being so into music. It was that I was appreciating for myself something that he appreciated so deeply. Before I got into music at school, he was my DJ, and I was exposed to the music he loved at a young age (e.g., Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Handel, Chopin, Lennon/McCartney). I learned to love them too, and to this day I can pick out recordings by the same conductors and artists he had, because I love them now too. I can recognize in my memory his joy when I would try to describe a "musical excitement" that I was feeling. And that, I am finding, is why (my) parents cry at concerts. It's not that the performances are exceptionally good, although some are, and that makes me cry too. It's the love and enthusiasm and fulfillment you share with your child. Some parents cry at sporting events, some at dance recitals or gymnastics meets or martial arts competitions. In my experience it was music.