with the Rev Kevin Logan, Vicar of Christ Church, Accrington
I'M a jack of all musical instruments and master of none. From mouth organ to many-tiered church organ, I can stumble on a tune, though when I play the latter it sounds like the former.
My least melodious interlude was with an armful of euphonium, taken up in revenge for father destroying my career as a concert pianist.
Grandma had bequeathed me her upright and I'd regularly pound out Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 5, the one that goes der der der derrrr, derrr, der derrrr! -- The way you've just read that was better than I played it.
Dad often suggested I find somebody to teach me how to play it with my fingers instead of my ear, but I was at that juvenile age when only I was right. Also, one teacher had already let me down, having suddenly enlisted in the Foreign Legion after lesson three.
One day, I came home to find the piano's inner harp, nude and stripped of its mahogany, blocking the hole in our garden hedge. My confidence was crushed for well over an hour.
Today, I yearn for the muse of music to lift me, but she feigns a hernia every time I go near. I love music, yet when I play, it sounds like we're not even on speaking terms.
Every New Year, I yearn to excel, and every year I learn again that I'll never hit perfection this side of heaven's gates, though there's no way I'm quitting.
But one day, heaven is promised. The Sound of Music on my own harp!
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