I like listening to most kinds of music, I really do.
I can’t say I know the words to most songs that I listen to, but I tend to get the general idea. I have OKish hearing – not the best, one ear is better than the other, but it’s good enough for me – so I can hear the different tones and notes in the music and songs being played. I’m not entirely sure I can get all of the words being sung – in fact I know I can’t – but in cases like this I do the next best thing and make the words up.
I’ve had some corkers for my own lyrics over the years. For example, for months I thought Enya was singing ‘Save the whale’ in Orinoco Flow; and therefore so did I. I wondered why I would receive the odd look as I quietly hummed along my own version when it was on in the background in Directory Enquiries at work. One of my work colleagues at the time didn’t help though, for she thought the words were ‘Sail the waves’, so her hearing was probably as good as mine. We both laughed when we finally found out the true lyrics. We were both convinced we were right.
I’ve never really been musically gifted. Yes, I’ve plucked a few guitar strings, banged on a few tin drums, and I actually composed a ring tone on an old mobile phone from what I heard was the theme tune of a TV show. It sounded nothing like it, but I could pick out the tune. The rhythm was all wrong, the notes were either too short, or too high, or too deep, but I could get the tune from it. I had to change it when I received odd looks from people who heard the ringtone whenever anyone called me. I don’t think artistic licence had been invented back then.
One of my ambitions is to own and play a harp. I have a calling to it. I know that as soon as I get my hands on one, I’ll be playing harmonious music the likes never heard before. I may even write my own song.
I used to be able to write the musical notes on those five line things that music is written on, but I can’t do that now – it has been years since I last composed a piece of music. I’m not in the same league as Ludwig Van Beethoven. Of course I’m not, although we do have remarkably similar hair on occasions… anyway I digress.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with my hearing, but my singing voice is a little off. In my mind, I am singing pitch perfect. And to my hearing, the tones that are leaving my mouth are angelic and perfectly in tune with the music that is being played softly in the background. Well, the music starts softly, but by the end I can’t hear myself think as the volume is so high – I think I’m receiving a signal that my singing isn’t anything special.
I actually know that. I have heard a recording of my singing voice. This is why it is all the more special when I do sing nowadays. My speaking voice isn’t much better, but at least I speak in tune. Well, I think I do.
Years ago, when I first started in the music class at school, I was looking forward to playing the piano. I was asked to sing a verse from one of the hymns, and was promptly told to stop. I was then given two blocks of wood to knock together to keep time. Others could sing or play good musical instruments and I was knocking wood together. You’d think after that, I wouldn’t be interested in music. Which is also kind of true.
My path could have been so different if I’d been allowed to continue to sing that day. Or even if I was asked to play the drums, or the triangle even. But no, I was given the wood, and I have followed the path I was destined to follow.
Slightly musically minded, slightly in a different dimension. But music or no music, looking back it was fun. Thinking back helps me to feel good, as I can laugh at the times I belted out some appalling sounds, in front of an audience. I couldn’t do it now, but I most definitely thought that I could back then!
It’s not what we do that matters, it’s how we do it.
Anyway, I did it my way…
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