This morning, kidlinger walks up to my desk while I work, looks at the laptop screen critically and asks: “What’s that?”

Me: “I’m listening to Shostakovich.[1]”

Kidlinger: “He’s not one of the three killer B’s.[2]”

Me: “True. Would you prefer to listen to Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms?”

Kidlinger: “I don’t know.”

Me: “How about some Bach… violin sonata in G minor? Something to encourage you to practice your violin.”

Kidlinger: “Yeah, that sounds good.”

NOTES:
[1] Here’s a brief bio on Shostakovich: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/shostakovich.php
[2] This is not a reference to the 1991 release of Anthrax’s B-sides collection Attack of the Killer B’s. But it is a reference to the three greatest classic music composers, commonly knowns as the Three B’s, Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms. Here’s a link to recent relesases of the Three B’s from NPR’s “Music We Love Now: New Albums Of Bach, Beethoven And Brahms”: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/03/18/174659127/music-we-love-now-the-3-bs-on-cd