Polska Research Paper

When I first heard Polska efter Hins Anders, I was immediately transported back in time. I listened intently to the rhythmic variation, and smiled despite myself. Ah, yes. This was the music of home. The sound of the fiddle, recognizable to me with not quite as poignant of a sound as the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, swelled a tune of a summer dance. I had danced many a midsummer dance to that sound. In fact, just over a year ago, I danced through the hollows of an old church town, finding my way by the sound of a fiddle playing a similar summer polska at the front of the town. If ever there was a song to study that unexpectedly stole my heart, it was this one.
My life started out relatively disjointed. Like the Polska’s inability to fit the mold of most traditional fiddling tunes, my early childhood didn’t fit the mold of most my age. Born in the Ukrainian-Crimean city of Yevpatoria and left at an orphanage in Simferopol at an unknown date, the first fourteen months of my life are a mystery to this day. Blessedly, I was adopted at fifteen months and brought into a new family, where my love for music flourished and my connection to my original …show more content…
As Music Listening Club has taught me, It is a gift to be surprised by new information; and a gift to learn about myself through that information. To listen to music is to learn, and to learn is to add another puzzle piece to one’s life. Polska efter Hins Anders is special to me because it exemplifies a puzzle piece that filled the gap of my first fifteen months of life. I am delighted to have spent such a time learning more about the music of a culture that I have clung to so desperately during my youth, and I am deeply thankful to realize that there is still more to learn. For, just like the constantly repeated sections of folk polskas, there is always more ahead. And there is always more to dance