Did you or any of your family sing or play musical instruments?

When I was little and at primary school I learnt the recorder like everyone else did! I was rubbish though! I found it really hard to learn to read music, and consequently I was always about half a note behind everyone else. I used to sit next to my best friend, and I always watched what she did so that I could do the same. It didn’t matter – no one noticed – the music teacher was completely tone deaf! Bizarre – I can’t understand why a tone deaf person would become a music teacher!
I remember when I was about 7 or eight, we were doing a school play, and the recorder group were playing. The teacher asked us if any of our parents played, and to my mum’s abject horror, I put my hand up and volunteered her! She hadn’t played for about 30yrs. To make matters worse, she had to play a tenor recorder which, although it has the same fingering, is about twice the size of a normal descant recorder! She wasn’t best pleased! On that night, there were two of us half a note behind everyone else!

When I got a bit older, once we were back in Scotland, I started to learn the clarinet. I hated it. Every time I played it I ended up with a headache, and I hated the feel of the reed, so I gave that up pretty soon.When I moved school though, to the prep school, I started to play the flute, which I quite enjoyed. Oh, I also started piano lessons, but I hated the teacher, couldn’t get my hands coordinated enough and used to hide my music and pretend I had lost it! I gave it up after a term!I carried on with the flute though. I moved to senior school in Edinburgh and carried on learning there, with a wishy washy teacher who again I didn’t like much, but it wasn’t worth trying to run rings around her! When I went to school in Dumfries I couldn’t carry on with it, so my mum found the phone number of my original flute teacher from my prep school, and she taught me and a couple of friends privately. She was a great teacher, and made me want to learn. I got up to Grade 5, by the skin of my teeth! She told me that when I went into the exam, the first thing I should do, before even getting my flute or music out, was to put my inhaler on the music stand! I’ve always had very mild asthma, and the only thing it has ever really affected was my breathing when I played the flute. Anyway, the ruse worse, and I scraped a pass. I didn’t carry one after that, mainly because I had to study (ahem) for my Highers and after Grade 5 you have to learn theory as well and take a test on that, but also because I really wasn’t that good. I had finally learnt to read music though!!

I still play sometimes, although it must be over two years since the flute saw the light of day. It normally happens if I’m drunk, and it’s really not very impressive!

My dad used to play the guitar, sort of! He played it so often that when we left Malawi we gave the guitar to our gardener who then taught himself!He also played the banjo when he was much younger, and played in a skiffle group. This was well before he met my mum though.
I often wish I had learnt to play the guitar – it a much cooler instrument than the flute! I love singing, and, well, it’s a tad hard to sing when you’re playing the flute. I think being able to play the guitar is a real asset.

NB. Photos Not My Own Work.