by Hilary Jocelyn
I opened my smile and surprisingly, from somewhere probably around the edge of my tonsils, a powerful and somewhat beautiful sound emerged. And, unbelievably, it even felt like the noise I think I was supposed to be making. Or, at least, it didn’t disagree too strongly with the high-pitched note that the person beside me was trying to produce, and she, unlike me, seemed to know a thing or two about what she was doing. “Water heals my body….Water heals my soul. When I go down to the water, By the water I feel whole….”
It was week two of my time in the Song Kitchen Choir, and although I was definitely a wobbly voiced newbie, I was loving it, in spite of the challenges that come our way when we bravely try to do things we have never done before. Here I was, at the Community Centre in Wakefield, with a group of about 40 melodious women, and a small handful of harmonious men, singing our musical hearts out, under the lively leadership of the dynamic and inspiringly talented local musician, Chris MacLean.
“Sing” she says to us all, “ As if you were watching a beautiful sunrise.”
And so I closed my eyes, and sang my enlarging heart out.
My musical career started when I was but a young’un. At the age of seven to be precise. I was led by my mother to a neighbouring house across our busy street and a few doors up, to meet a piano teacher, called Miss Alston. With her curly dark hair and her very lipsticky smile, she seemed pleasant enough as she welcomed us into the room that housed an intimidating piano that, to my youthful eyes, looked to be about the size of our bathroom.
But, while her instrument was impressive, her teaching skills were not, and she failed to inspire much musical motivation into my little fingers. Sadly, the whole experience turned out to be pretty underwhelming for a child of my tender age. Yes, I learned that the little black note on a sheet of music was called a quaver, and that middle C was where it all began, but I really did not enjoy the hour or so that I spent with her each week . I tried, I cried, and I tied my unresponsive digits in knots, as time and time again, I attempted to strike on the right keys, while thumping my way through her choice of uninspirational music. And, what a yawn it was, that I had to sit in front of our humble piano at home and practice each day, when I would far rather have been outside climbing on the wall beside our house.
I wished I could put an end to this weekly ordeal, but easier said than done, when you come from a family where music oozed like perspiration from out of my father’s pores. He had grown up in the U.K during the war, in a family where privileges like piano lessons were overshadowed by the need to pay the rent, and to put some kind of food into the mouths of four hungry boys. Music, however, was one of his lifegiving passions, and he was darn sure his three kids were going to get the opportunities that he had not had. And so, in spite of my protests, and my reluctance to engage with the ivory keys, the lessons dragged on. I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss either, as when I was a child, pleasing my father was definitely deeply engrained into my DNA.
Happily, it looked like a reprieve was finally at hand, when a few years later, my teacher moved house. Phew! But not so fast! My parents asked around, and lo and behold, they uncovered another local person who was willing to give lessons to a budding musical misfit like me. And thus, it was, that Mrs Gemmel came onto the scene, and so my musical career navigated another turn in its twisty road.
Every week after school, I would dutifully go to her small bungalow, but before bell-ringing and piano playing, I would usually stand outside her blue front door and try to file my claws down to the appropriate length on her stone wall. Mrs. Gemmel, you see, was very particular about the sound of nails clicking on her ivory keys, and I would always forget to trim mine to her satisfaction. Her enthusiasm at having me as a pupil seemed to mirror my own half heatedness. She was dreary, and so was the classical music I was given to play. Maybe, by the time my lesson rolled around, she was tired after a long day of teaching, but my hour with her usually coincided with her afternoon tea break, and she would leave the room for a few minutes, returning with a tray laden with biscuits, cream buns, and a brimming teapot with all the trimmings for a nice cuppa. No, I wasn’t offered any of this sticky sustenance, but she would scoff it all down as I thumped out my butchered version of Beethoven, Mozart, or Schubert. After the tea was drunk and the buns effaced from her plate, she would burp loudly and alarmingly ,while she looked out of her window listlessly, to see if there was any action on the residential street outside.
“ B flat” she would yawn as she opened the blinds with her fingertips and peered out, “ Didn’t you practice at all last week?” And so on we slogged while I piano banged my way into my early teens.
Around this time in my musical development (or lack of it more like ) things shifted briefly. Our school had just hired a new music teacher, and for the first time ever in its tough pupiled history, he began a choir. Most of the girls in my class flocked to join, including me. This radical action was not for the love of singing, I have to say, but rather, it was because the teacher was Mr Hunk to our teenage hearts. He stood there in front of us, with his chest bulging out of his jacket as he gyrated to the music. Sweat flew off his brow, like a never-ending stream, and sprayed onto those of us who were lucky enough to be in the front row. Just standing in front of him and widening my mouth in song, was enough to bring quakes of adolescent desire to my knees, and so, for a while, I mouthed the words, and squeaked out the tunes he was teaching us to sing. However, soon I stopped going, as some other boy came onto the scene, and became the distant target of my latest teenage crush.
Things at home did not bring me any reprieve either. My dad not only caressed the piano lovingly each day, but he also sang in three choirs, and screeched away at the violin in some kind of orchestra. And so there were concerts. And the expectation was that family would be there in the audience to listen. Thus, while my contemporaries were spending their Saturday nights watching fun things on the television, or gathering to socialize wildly, I would often be sitting in some concert venue or other in the city, snoring my way through Diabolical Debussy, Bucolic Bach, or something by Wonky Wagner. I knew, that on some level, I was very privileged to be witnessing this kind of musical exposure, but truthfully, the only real upswing for me back then, was that I learned to sit still for once, and to daydream beautifully as the hours and yawns of the evening passed.
I think it is safe to say, that I grew up as the black sheep of a musical family, which brought struggle and complexity to my relationship with music. I used to think that I disliked, or at least, disdained it all, but then I heard the Bay City Rollers from my home town of Edinburgh, belting out their big hit ” Bye Bye Baby “. And, I began to realize that taste in music, like food, books ,films friendships, and every other art form, is a personal, unique path to self expression and cultural identity, that can not ever be prescribed by others.
So now, I occasionally strum the five chords I know on the guitar. I dance wildly in my living room. I boogie to the band playing loudly at the Kaffe. I sing my heart out in the shower, or to that bear in the woods hiding behind a tree, and just to emphasize the eclectic nature of my musical disposition, I do get a wee bit teary when I hear a particular piece of music from the Faure Requiem.
And wow, here I am, on a Wednesday afternoon, crooning out new melodies with the gang at the Song Kitchen.
These, my friends, are my forms of music.
Wandering Wakefield 