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Singing! If I were not a web developer, there's something I'd rather be!
If I were not a web developer... a musician I would be! Did you know I devoted something like seven years of my early life to musical pursuits? Add on the various bits of musical hackery I did before and after, it would be over a range of like fifteen years I spent playing various instruments. Pity I never got any good at it. My parents sent me off for piano lessons around grade four or so. The next door lady taught piano, and it was an easy thing to troop next door for a weekly lesson. Lovely lady. She never forced me to follow the conservatory standards, and just work my way around in whatever suited us both. Picked it up fairly rapidly too. I had a wide finger reach even then, so the tricky stretches were no problem. I took to the damper pedal like a pig to anything remotely edible. She moved away a year later and I took up lessons with Mrs. Kimpton, a lady who lived on the other side of my school. She continued teaching me for another few years. And then I peaked. Playing music is something that someone who is excellent technically can only go so far with. I can read music, yes, and I know the positions of the keys and such and have a good inkling when I should play each one. But I never really developed the ear for it. My grandfather is the opposite. He has the talent to sit down, glance at a piece of music, and bang it out with instant and joyful bluster. His technique was sloppy, but the feeling was there and whatever he played was better than my stiff recitals. (Don't think for a moment that he wasn't technically skilled. One time he sat down at the piano to see what I had been struggling with, and played this difficult concert piece with the precision and strength of a concert performer. I think it's that he prefers to play for the pleasure of it, and often the technical values can be shoved aside to make something really sing.) I joined the band in junior high and gravitated to the single largest instrument available - the tuba. Again, I picked up the essentials quickly, playing well enough to join the senior band (grades 8 and 9) while in grade 7 instead of staying with the juniors. I continued playing into high school (mostly because the high school band was planning a trip to Australia, and I wanted to go along), where I stuck around for four years (I did an extra year just to wrangle my way into their trip to Japan). The tuba is a great instrument for the technical player. Frankly, most conductors are horrified to find a tuba player who plays with gusto. No, they'd much rather you keep yourself to your standard 'TUM tum TUM tum' without any flights of baritone fancy. Around the same time, I taught myself the bass guitar and learned some of the fundamentals of the string bass. I didn't go far with the string bass - it's kind of tricky without getting formal lessons - but I wasn't half-bad with the guitar. Again, the problem was I couldn't play by ear. Asked to take a sudden solo in the jazz band, my brain utterly seized up. I believe I actually did an imitation of an epileptic clam and I blankly moved my jaw up and down in horror and embarrassment. For a year in college, I mucked around with a band, which folded as soon as I mentioned I had an idea for a song. I did not feel all that encouraged. I always wanted to be that guy. You know the guy who comes to party, sees the piano, and sits down to regale the party-people with song after song. I wanted to be able to sit with a guitar and play songs around the campfire. I always wanted to woo women with the power of my music. The only instrument I was particularly good at was the tuba, and unless you are one of those Heavy Tuba guys, wooing someone with a twenty pound lump of shiny brass is an exercise in futility. The plan, at some point in the vague future, is to bring the piano at my parents' house to ours. That way, I can have at least some access to a musical instrument. Lisa has this vision of me playing the piano while the whole family sings Christmas carols, but the thought of playing the piano for anyone beyond myself gives me the heebie-jeebies. Still, I miss it. I miss creating the sounds. I miss playing in a band, with talented musicians all around me. I miss those very few times when I actually was able to break through, to know the music and my instrument so well that I could actually close my eyes and let go. |
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