Music again

Cycling into work today, clear blue sky, sun in my face some of the way, it's cold in a pleasant sort of a way - kind of tangy, just the day for a long cycle ride but alas work calls...

With my piano teacher Rebbecca last night doing the singing part of the lesson she got me to sing two notes separated by a semi tone. She then got me to sing from one to another and back again and it felt like a figure of 8 and my body moved in that shape. (I quite often get movement to music which I sometimes turn into dance). Listening to myself sing I could not really tell the notes apart but she could. I can always tell if my singing is the same as the piano note she sounds because I hear and feel the resonance between the two. So we went down my almost 2 octaves with singing these pairs. Oh my!

Later I watched the choir on BBC2 in which this mazing guy - Gareth - has decided to try and set up a choir in a working class housing estate South Oxley near Watford. It's rather like he is doing community work and he gets 200people to the first meeting and then last night he got some primary school children from the 6 schools to form a children's choir. He also challenges the prejudice against this estate among more well today people living near by by getting the choir a gig in the highly regarded Colosseum Theatre in Watford.

I wept silently with tears running down my face. Sheila asked me if I was OK and I howled. I don't claim to be working class but until I met with Rebbecca no-one has explored my love of music with me or offered me an instrument to try out. OK I could have done this early although being told to mime at my primary school by my music teacher shut me up and closed me down. I believed I could not sing and could not read music until my daughter showed me how to read music in 5 minutes flat and how to play a couple of notes.

It's hard work playing the piano but the satisfaction is immense as is the times I have song in the family choir at my daughter's school. So I am looking to rejoin that choir or another one.

This passion for what you want to do - I remember blurting out to John McLeod that I wanted to do a PhD 18 years ago. I didn't know until I said it that I did and he welcomed it and my life has never been the same. So I stand by people's hidden passions, by education as drawing out that which we have inside and which needs an outlet. These lack of outlets is real poverty and collectively as a society we have a lot to answer for. We don't get to a good place by making people smaller. Bring on the singers, the musicians, the writers, the poets, the counsellors, the artists, the teachers, the gardeners, the farmers, anything really where people love what they do and just do it. And let's support each of us living out the dream from inside.

To go spiritual God wants me to be full of myself. Sure there is a risk of egotism or narcissism but also there is a risk of what I call 'negative egotism' in which people put themselves down and don't do that which they dream of doing.

Do you know I didn't think that Rebbecca as a trained musician would be bothered to help me sing. I didn't expect to hear her praise when I hit the notes. Or hear her taking the trouble to help me figure what I am doing and what I need to do to develop my voice. Of course she is a professional through and through so why would I expect otherwise? No but I expected her to politely say that we don't do it. Can you see what a mess I was in over this? And what healing i am experiencing!

I am not saying that I will ever be a famous musician or even perform in public. I still hope to play to my friends one day. But when we have these unexplored dreams and we don't explore them it's so sad, its a shrinking of the spirit and its against God. There!

Thanks for reading as ever I welcome your comments and your stories!

Bill on bike

PS. The latest bit for me is inching towards a real poetry performance. OH God why? But I have to. I have a couple of possibilities next month so watch this space!