Jonathan Dodd’s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I always had music. I went to schools where they encouraged us to listen to music and made various activities for us which were accompanied by music. There was the radio at home, played at particular times, like Sunday lunchtime. I’ll never know why, but it was.
There was also television, which broadcast a lot of music, partly for itself, and as a background in many of its programmes. And my mother was a keen churchgoer, who had great ambitions for my brothers and me socially, so she enrolled us in the choir from an early age.
More or less melodious
I dutifully went to choir practice every week, and church twice on Sundays. I made my way down the musical scale from boy Treble through Alto and Tenor, and eventually my voice settled to a more-or-less Bass rumble.
Through being in the choir, I learned how to read music, turning those lines and blobs on the paper into sounds, more or less melodious. My mother also wanted us to learn a musical instrument, so I was packed off to Miss Vigo down the road once a week for piano lessons.
A bit like Olive Oyl, astride her instrument
Miss Vigo was a tall spinster who played Cello in Brighton Symphony Orchestra, and must have looked a bit like Olive Oyl, astride her instrument. I never saw her play, so I don’t know how good she was as a Cellist, but her piano teaching lacked a certain joyfulness or imagination which would have helped me as I slogged through a series of sonatinas in a determinedly-beige book.
Music is like Chemistry, in that there’s an awful lot to learn before you understand the beauty of the thing you’ve put so much trouble into learning. It requires a leap of faith or a wonderful teacher, and none of the characters in this story had much of that.
An audible intake of breath
My musical life went downhill in jerks after that, like a nervous driver putting increasing pressure on the brake pedal. My mother recognised how hard I found it to concentrate on practising, so she would sit and knit while I practised, and I could hear an audible intake of breath every time I fluffed a phrase of a piece of fingering. It was torture.
I also became rather jaded with the religion thing, and spending so much time singing songs about it felt a bit wrong, so that fell away. Then I stopped going to Miss Vigo and made no more music for several years. But I discovered the joy of finding new music and listening to it on records. And dancing.
Somewhat influenced by early Leonard Cohen
Sometime around then I began to miss something, and found myself buying a guitar. This time I was interested, and took the time to learn some chords and practise. I wrote some songs too, somewhat influenced by early Leonard Cohen, but I never managed to become a good musician.
Whether this is something that you’re genetically disposed towards or it just comes from endless practice was something I never actually discovered, because I didn’t make that leap of faith either. But I became a Primary School teacher for a while, and nobody else on the staff could play an instrument, so my guitar and I used to wander round the school and I found myself in charge of all the music.
Because I saved them from having to do it
At this time I was at pains to explain that I was strictly a three-chord guitarist who had difficulty remembering the words even of my own songs, but all I ever received from my colleagues was gratitude because I saved them from having to do it.
I did all the assembly songs, and taught music in a basic sort of way. I started a recorder club, even though I was exactly one week ahead of all my eager pupils on the course. I discovered at that time that it’s possible to be a terrible musician but an adequate performer. This is something that many other performers have also discovered, and some of them have built themselves very successful careers out of it.
Trying to sing at the same time
The pinnacle of my musical destiny was achieved in my last year of teaching, before I left and became a milkman. But that’s another story. For some reason my guitar playing was popular amongst some of the children, and they asked me to start a guitar club. For a while I was running the only Infant School guitar class in London, and we all loved it, strumming away after school and trying to sing at the same time.
I hope some of my guitar class kept it up, and maybe encouraged their own children to play, because even if you’re terrible, there’s a great joy to be had in producing relatively musical sounds. I keep thinking I might join a chorus, or pick up the guitar again, or a keyboard, or even a recorder. Perhaps I will.
I never heard her play anything
Late in her life, my mother suddenly decided to go to Miss Vigo and learn to play the piano. I was proud of her, while simultaneously wondering how she would cope with slogging through those same sonatinas. I never heard her play anything, sadly, but she did once tell me that she now understood how hard it was to play anything right without loads of practice.
I’m really glad I had all those opportunities, and somehow it has improved my ability to listen to and appreciate music composed and played by others. I’ve got a better grasp of the hard work and sweat that’s involved, because I travelled some distance down that road myself.
So. If you play, keep it up. If you never have, it’s never too late. My mother managed it. And if you gave up, it’s not too late to take it up again. I’m not sure whether music really is the food of love, but I do know that it feeds your soul.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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