Writing music

I have written music since I was quite small.  My dad bought a guitar, and left it on a chair in the lounge.  He also had a songbook, with diagrams of chords.  I would pick up the guitar, and try to shape my fingers into the shapes of those chords.

Later, our next door neighbour had a piano, and I would transfer what I knew of chords onto it, enjoying the sensation of hitting the keys and getting back a harmonious sound.

Through my childhood, I learned how the chords fitted together, and how to build a melody on top of them.  I used two small tape recorders to bounce tracks from one to the other, adding a new sound each time.  Then I bought a four-track recorder.  Then an eight-track.  Then, eventually, 16 and 32-track recorders.  I learned a little of each instrument: keyboards, 6-string guitars, bass guitar, drums, and vocals.

All through this time, technology was developing, from the interaction of bare instruments, through the development of commercial synthesisers, into the programming capabilities of computers with significant processing power.

I kept going, sometimes learning to program music, and sometimes going back to the beginning, and playing each raw instrument in turn, like an old-style band.  I collected tapefuls of song ideas, and began to get better at shaping recordings into complete songs.

I haven’t shared music much with others.  When I was eighteen, I recorded a song in a studio for someone’s birthday, and had it played by the DJ at a party.  In my forties, I recorded a few songs for fellow students at the Open University.  And very occasionally, I have sung with my guitar at open mic evenings.  But, generally, the joy has been in exploring sound, and learning to create.

I still play piano and guitar now and again, and sing some of the old songs I wrote.  From time to time I write something new.  But life gets in the way, and music fades into the background.  I am forever grateful to have had the experience of bringing sounds together, of learning how to construct a song from nothing.  Music is healthy for the mind, and good for the soul, an adventure in its own right.