Music is my love, but we all know how much trouble love can be!

Ah! The time to write, blissful!

In life, I've just seen off another theatre job and so have enjoyed a month of sawing, plonking and various other musical subtleties. The show was Fiddler on the Roof to be exact, with the band on stage, so I have finally graduated from merely being a lowly bass player to the dizzy heights of being a fully fledged member of the Russian peasantry! Many people have said that I "do peasant" very well but this was said most frequently before I had regailed myself with costume. Friends huh!

So it’s back to just having the day-job, which feels like a complete holiday after the exertions of fitting a nine-show theatrical week around my normal grind. Still, it does give me the luxury of not having to think about my mortgage for a couple of months.

The day-job in question is at a small but very well respected (if I may be so bold!) music shop which can be found happily nestled between the wild fastnesses of mid-Wales and the sea, where the best sunsets inhabit! (see fig. 1 [I've always wanted to write that!])
If truth be told, the site of the shop is not quite nestled right up against the sea as that would be utterly impractical for reasons of humidity. Oh, and in case I forgot to mention, there is a small university town surrounding this particular music shop which shares in its very happy nestledness.

As most people who have ever worked in a service industry will attest, the vast majority of people you come into contact with during your working day are polite, knowledgeable, lovably honest or a combination of the aforementioned. The most unfortunate thing is that these good people are the most eminently forgettable – it’s the others who stick in the mind!

I have, on two occasions in the last couple of days, dealt with doting grandmothers who have both asked the seemingly innocuous question of “Can I have some ‘nice’ piano music for my grand-daughter?” My initial reaction was to say, “That seems like a fair swap!” Thankfully I was able to rein in that initial urge – probably for the best, in the long run!

The problem with the question that was asked is, what does the word ‘nice’ mean in terms of music? If ‘nice’ is subjective to the grandmother then it throws up some problems for me:-

a) I don’t know her.

b) I don’t know her taste in music.

c) I am not of the same sex.

d) I am at least forty years her junior.


However, if the word ‘nice’ is subjective to the grand-daughter then that also throws up some problems for me:-

a) I don’t know her.

b) I don’t know her taste in music.

c) I am not of the same sex.

d) I am at least fifteen years her senior.

e) I have never so much as laid eyes on her to allow me the opportunity to try to judge what ‘nice’ might be to her.

At least there is some solace to be gained from the fact that there seems to be a level of continuity in life when it comes to people speaking purely from their own point of view and then expecting others to completely ‘get it’.

I was speaking to a confidante this week after a little ‘wobble’ in my personal life, and from that it became clear to me that people are only able to use analogies that are derived from their own personal fixations. Unfortunately, golf seemed to be the overriding influence on this particular conversation. After I had confided in him that I was not particularly happy with ‘where’ my life was as the moment he commented that “You can only play the ball from where it lies!” This, I think, was trying to tell me that there is no point in worrying about ‘where’ you are 'now' as it’s the only ‘place’ from which you can move forward. I hope that I have taken his point with its full and intended meaning but, given the fact that I probably know more about the commendable stewardship of yaks by Mongolian herdsmen than I do about golf, it can remain as nothing more than a hope. Still, I suppose that’s a lot better than it could have been!