Music

I come from an era when many homes, including mine, had a piano. This wasn't necessarily because anyone who lived there had a particular musical talent; for many it was simply an item of furniture that was expected in your home and missed if it was not there. Its function was not really to entertain others. More likely it was seen as somewhere to sit and contemplate, to play a simple tune to delight the ears of one's children perhaps, to see if they might show an interest, or maybe playing carols at Christmas time. Interestingly, and unlike with some other instruments, a pianist can look directly at their hands on the keys whilst playing, keys which are laid out in such a logical fashion that even after moving on to a different instrument the piano keyboard will still serve as a mental reference.

I can recall going to piano lessons (which I hated) from an early age and despite having no interest in playing another instrument for many years afterwards, some of what I learnt must have stuck because today I can still read music. (This is the modern system of lines and dots first created by Christian monks to try to standardise their worship.) In later life various situations have prompted me to pick up and play different instruments, starting with a tin whistle and more recently playing a concertina. When I look back on how this has come about I find it quite hard to believe that those few short years as a child sitting once a week at a piano with my scary tutor beside me (slapping my knuckles with a ruler when I got it wrong) could have resulted in anything useful sticking with me. But it clearly did.

Learning to play the concertina on my own, with no tuition, has been something of a challenge but it has been one that I have been motivated to endure without really considering what it might lead to were I ever to become competent enough to share my playing with others. It is a strange instrument to master. Mine has thirty buttons, each of which produces two different notes, depending on whether I am squeezing or pulling. A choice of alternative fingerings are possible for many tunes and the position of each note, although it seems logical to me now, is completely different from the logic of the piano keyboard. Fortunately , unlike the piano, the concertina is conveniently portable, which I like, and the sound seems to fit in well when played alongside guitar and fiddle players. Playing music is a social thing but since moving to Scotland this is something I have missed... until we moved house and I teamed up with some like minded friends with whom I can share my mistakes.

This is what a bunch of musical unprofessionals look like in action. Next to me is young girl playing her clarsach, a small harp, and on the other side is a lad called Aidan playing an accordion almost as big as himself.

So this is the end result of all those childhood music lessons - me sitting in a cafe in Scotland squeezing a small box to make some squeaky noises. I really don't think this is what my piano teacher had in mind for me. She'd probably regard me as a failure but I think of it as a challenge which I enjoy ever more as my level of competency improves.