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Music Night is one of our most public traditions. It is certainly the tradition that we have made a point to share with just about anyone who will listen. We’ve shared it with family and friends that happen to be over on a Friday night, featured it as a party game at our Cesarzfest bash, taken it with us on road trips, and in the pandemic used it to interact with our friends on social media. Music night has rules that have evolved over the years (including the proper wardrobe), and yet we have no idea exactly how it started.
Here’s what we know: Music night started sometime before November of 2013. My best guess is that its humble origins started in the fall of 2012 because it was a full blown game with order and rules by the following November. In an effort to get a family assessment of the history of music night, I posed the question of how it started the other night at dinner. Shannon claimed that it was Alex forcing her to listen to 80’s music. Alex, on the other hand, thought it was Shannon forcing us to listen to nightcore (it’s awful…the meaner part of me wants to share it with you, so you also must listen to that hellish experience. The other part of me wants to spare you the trauma. What I can say is no matter who started forcing their music on whom, Friday night pizza nights also started including a music sharing element. Each person taking a turn to play a song they enjoyed for the others. Eventually, we added in the concept of topics. One person would pick a topic and the others could only share songs that fit that topic (even if it was a rather creative way). Then Caroline decided she wanted to play.
Caroline was 6 at the time, and as you might imagine, had a rather limited musical repertoire. Trying to find topics that Caroline could participate in was difficult to say the least. The answer to this was simple. Caroline could participate in one round, and we added an order to how the topics would be decided. The oldest person picks the first topic, and then the youngest person picks the first song. In our case this was Alex picks the first topic and Caroline picks the first song. I don’t know if any of you remember what the hit of November 2013 was, but Alex’s favorite topic was “songs about the weather or the cold.” A second choice was “songs about food.”
Over time, we decided to create a “tin” of topics that led to a slightly more random topic choice, and eventually we officially wrote down the rules. Music night became an official Friday night event.
Most of the time music night has been played using the internet, but we did have the Friday night when the wifi was out and were forced to play it using CDs. (that’s a challenge!)
After a successful music night at Cesarzfest, we decided to give an “adult” music night a try. We modified the rules slightly to allow for teams and had everyone send in suggested topics prior to the evening. We added those topics to our existing bin of topics, and played the selected videos in our movie room. To add to the fun we drew for teams, so no one was on the same team as their spouse. We added a little wine… There was singing, dancing, and maybe even some dancing on the couch. (Songs about the weather elicited a very different response.) It was all in good fun, and a great way to mix up your standard dinner party or cocktail hour.
No matter what form music night has taken whether it’s with our kids, our friends, or our virtual family it has always been an amazing way to share our love of music, learn more about others, and celebrate the variety of tastes everyone has. As a mom, especially of teens, music night provides something even more important. It provides genuine quality time to share music, reminisce and maybe learn a little bit more about what’s going on in our kids’ lives.
Original Rules to Music Night
- Oldest person picks a musical topic. The youngest goes first and picks a song that relates to the topic.
- Everyone gets a turn to pick a song and play it in chronological order by age; so that the eldest goes last on his topic. The youngest then picks a topic. The youngest then picks a topic, and the next chronological age order picks a song. Music night progresses thusly adnoisium… with the youngest going to bed early (after 2 rounds of Frozen songs).
- Everybody gets a single rebate per music night. The rebate can be played at the END of the round.
- Please try to introduce new music into the mix. This is a great way for the grumpy teenager to learn about 80’s music. If you can’t come up with a different song, playing one that has been played on a previous music night is perfectly acceptable.
- Share! Dance like nobody is looking. Sing along… Even if you’re off key. Put your heart into it.
- If you must, invite others to play… once
- Wear matching pajamas.
- No repetition of songs.
- Pretend you don’t listen to NPR all the time.
- If you can predict a person’s song, feel free to steal it with NO regrets.
- Don’t forget your topic.
- Enjoy family time!