A few posts ago I rashly mused about writing a little about the interests listed on my profile. What a perfectly non-commital, bland word, interests. What about abiding passions or fruitful pursuits; amusing fascinations or devouring obsessions, eh? I was tempted to list all the passing fads and fancies that have distracted me from time to time or interests I no longer actively do like cycling and Scouting (once a Scout always a Scout) for instance; or dreaming up a list of exotic pass-times like, I dunno, potholing otherwise known as spelunking or caving. I don't seem to have any, what used to be called, hobbies - e.g. building model railway (railroad) layouts.
I list the catch-all making music first then some of the instruments I practise playing. Making music returned 12,400 profiles this morning.
I don't know when I was first aware of music. Mum and dad and my sister, though she doesn't practise now, played the piano. I never had piano lessons. I loved making a noise on the piano with my foot firmly on the sustain pedal; perhaps that's why I play the hammered dulcimer now - all those ringing notes. I had quite a few mouth organs (harmonicas) when I was little. I didn't learn how to make tunes on them until a girl at school played one for our village school version of show-and-tell. That brings to mind the time I read a passage from Under Milk Wood for the class; that was before I knew how Dylan Thomas came up with the name of the town Llareggub.*
There was always singing at school in assembly and in the classroom. And prancing around for music and movement in the infants. Who remembers Singing Together with Mr. Appleby on BBC Radio for Schools? Well, if you're English you might. I was always a member of school choirs and when I was nine followed the choirboys with whom I'd been playing into the parish for choir practise. I was so excited to tell mum after a got home that evening. The choir was usually at least eight boys strong for the first couple of years after that, more at weddings for which we were paid, but the numbers dwindled until finally, long after my voice broke, girls were admitted. So, there is always singing . . . but I had to play a musical instrument to take the practical part of GCE 'O' level music.
That's why I started to play a tenor recorder. At about the same time I acquired a guitar from a school friend who decided after only a few weeks that he couldn't play. I was already interested in American folk songs and soon was strumming away and learning simple finger picking patterns which then led to me playing easy pieces by Fernando Sor.
Another school friend gave me a bow backed Neopolitan mandolin he'd rescued from his neighbour who was about to throw it on a bonfire.
My interest in practising all these instruments dwindled until a couple of years ago when browsing in the Folk Shop in Tucson I found, and bought, a small 13/12 hammered dulcimer. I'd been vaguely aware of dulcimers since 1986 when I first saw a dulcimer played at a renaissance fair.
Now I don't feel right unless I practise and play some music each day.
* Llareggub? It means bugger all.
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