I realise that I should have learned an instrument.
It gives humans an extra point in life, it makes you seem dynamic, interesting, and intelligent. I always ask my date if they play an instrument for those reasons. And if they play the guitar, piano, double bass, or saxophone –it will veto their commitment issues and lack of humour. It gets a man far in life; Mick, Ed, and, let’s face it, Sophie Dahl wouldn’t be married to Jamie Cullum if he hadn’t mastered that piano.
When I was younger, I thought there were certain instruments that were lame for boys to play, but now, if a man can play the xylophone like a champ, then I’m all in.
The date will throw the question back to me, and I’ll sigh and tell them I don’t. A flicker of disappointment would cross their face. I get it. There is something very attractive when a woman has a harp in her bedroom that she ‘tinkers with now and again’
My parents did warn me of this. They were adults, after all, and knew the social points you get if you can play an instrument at a dinner party. Bless them, they did try…
At 4, I started keyboard lessons. I get the thought process now, ‘start her young and by the time she’s 18 she’ll be playing in a band at Glastonbury.’
So, there I was at the Yamaha school in Harwell on a black piano stool with my legs swinging beneath. Under my little fingers was a line of black and white teeth staring up at me. The teacher, Lindsey, would be at the front of the room; her keyboard was a gigantic, double-decker, the mother keyboard to all our tiny ones.
“Do… Re…. Mi,” she ordered with one hand playing and the other miming in the air. The class began to play, but when I looked down, the ‘Do’ tooth had camouflaged itself. So I hovered my hand and pretended I was playing, which worked fine until Lindsay came around to check on us individually.
She stood over me and ordered a ‘Do’. I looked at the big teeth and pressed one.
“That’s Re!” she barked. I pressed another one, and she tutted and grabbed my stubby finger and pressed it down where it should be. We didn’t know it then, but this would be a weekly dance for Lindsay and me.
It was when we got to the chords lesson, that she really began to hate me.
Eventually, after 4 years, my Mum realised that her daughter and two sons weren’t gifted in the keyboard department. The only evidence that it ever happened was that my brother could play Coldplay’s Clocks, which he still breaks out whenever he has the opportunity; dinner parties, shopping centre pianos, funerals…
My music days were not over though. As a teenager, and inspired by Lindsey Lohan’s guitar solo in Freaky Friday, I thought I would look pretty cool with an electric guitar.
I refused lessons because of my childhood trauma at the Yamaha studios. And so, slowly, painfully, I went from G….. to….. C….. to…. D…… to….. A, with absolutely no rhythm at all. The best thing that happened was the first few tabs of Wake Me Up When September Ends. And that was that.
My last attempt was the drums. I don’t know why my parents encouraged this one because I can’t even bob my head to a beat. Again, it was another slow and painful process for everybody in the house.
Now in my 30’s, I can barely tap a triangle.
Once a man establishes that he’s not on a date with Stevie Nicks, he’ll go on to the next question in the sequence, “Do you play any sport?”
And again, a sigh as I remember the time my parents tried to make me an ice skater.
THE QUACK 