Concerning music

There are a great number of things I call a sanctuary in my life: my books, my films... of all of these, however only a couple of things were established before birth. During my early childhood, my mother adored telling me how I would kick in time to Gary Numan - fitting, as my parents were avid concertgoers.

When my dad got me my first CD player I was about 8 years old; up until then I had been hanging around his with my Spice Girls CDs, waiting for him to finish with his Death metal so I could listen to 'Wannabe'. (I didn't mind this very much, he let me look through his lyric booklets, which almost always were filled with naughty words.) I remember him plugging it into my room and telling me that if I had it on so loud that the neighbours complained he would pack my new toy away in the attic. I considered it an instuction in responsibility, though thinking about it now - he probably just didn't want to hear the Spice Girls anymore.

Taking his instructions into account, I was careful to keep my CD player on the lowest volume as possible; careful to analyse the beam that was our attic (just in case our neighbours decided my music somehow was too loud).

Recently, Laney and I got into a debate over our intrument of preference: I prefer the piano whereas Laney prefers the violin.

The truth is, I've always loved piano - back from when I first got my CD player.
Our school had few resources, so made an effort to teach students classical instruments. Our village is known locally for it's brass band and drama association (leave the county and no one has heard). The intrument I loved the most, though was the piano. Our headmaster stood at the front of the hall in assembly and used one to play the hymns and somehow it mystified me, as if somehow it were jumping to life and singing along with us.

i even joined band, not because I was any good, but because I wanted to stand close to the piano. Of course, this proved a bad idea - I was so focussed on the music of the keys that my own performance fell to a shambles and I left within a month.



In my final years of school, a friend of mine began to play the violin. I only ever heard her play once and decided I wasnt as enchanted by her performance as I should have been; to me the violin sounded tearful - its performance sounded like a sobbing kind of mantra.



I would love to learn to play the keys; I hear my grandmother played, so it's in my blood at least. They say it's never too late.