My Experience of Learning a Musical Instrument

Of all the instruments I could have asked to play, the trumpet would have been quite near the bottom of the list. After all, I was only around 7 or 8 years old, and had no knowledge of what a good horn section could bring to a band. I think the problem was (as I remember it) that our school had this knack of simply dropping these "huge" decisions on us without any warning. Take, for example, our school football team. We were told one morning that try-outs for the team were to be held that afternoon, directly after school. I thought at the time I was an ok footballer, certainly good enough to be in with a realistic shout of actually gaining a place, but ...  Read the complete review

Looking back on my childhood I realise that we were a dysfunctional family. It wasn't obvious at the time - such things never are. If it's normal to you, how do you know that it isn't normal to other people? Usually the house was silent; not a comfortable silence, but a threatening silence, pregnant with the promise of anger and violence to come. There was one exception to this and that was meal times, when the radio would play. It was a useful ploy to hide the fact that we none of us had anything to say to each other, but it was my only introduction to music of any sort. Sunday lunchtime was always Family Favourites - "...and for Lance ...  Read the complete review

I've always loved music and have been a member of some musical gathering or other since an early age. I had a talent for the subject, you could say, often singing the lead in productions at school, winning competitions and infamously getting kicked out of the recorder ensemble at primary school for playing by ear, dare I say. Mr Taylor, who secretly wanted to be Andre Previn, went berserk. "You have to read the music, otherwise when you make a mistake, and you surely will, you'll look foolish in front of the audience!" I can still hear him now. But, I still loved my recorder and would sneakily take it to school, playing all the latest hits, from ...  Read the complete review

I’m often puzzled when I speak to people who say that they hated learning a particular instrument, or that they were forced into it by their parents. From a relatively early age I knew I wanted to be a “musician” – I enjoyed listening to music and always wanted to be able to play the songs myself. Though I didn’t realise it until relatively later in my life, music is something that has always been with me and has also inspired, cheered and consoled me. Forced, (though not in the sense that I resent it) to listen to the likes of Cliff Richard (my mother’s doing) and The Dubliners (my father’s) as a young child, going on to discover Elton John and The Bee Gees for ...  Read the complete review

Have you ever been told you'll be glad of something when you're older? If you have you've probably felt that same uncomfortable dread that when you're older you'll still resent that 'something' (whatever it may be) as much as you do at that moment. Well, I suppose that's how I felt most of my young life with my music. My mum was keen for my sister and I to be musical. My mum played guitar, and by the time I was 3 my big sister had started piano lessons. By the time I was 5 my sister had started guitar lessons (with my mum) in addition to her piano lessons, and I was encouraged to accompany her on all sorts of odd objects. A ...  Read the complete review