by Paul Batkins
Home >> Music, the International Language
It’s a language that looks very complicated when you see it written down in musical notes or guitar tablature, but sounds lovely to the ear.
This week I’m going to continue on Gina’s theme of music and music lessons.
I love music. There’s nothing I like more than to listen and sing along to the radio when I’m doing boring chores at home, or to sing (or try to sing!) and play along on my guitar.
Now, I like most music. My favourite music is heavy rock/heavy metal, especially the older groups like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, etc., but I also like some of today’s music. As long as it’s listenable, I don’t mind.
My one pet hate is rap music, which I don’t think is music at all, but just talking a language nobody understands, apart from the people singing it and the youngsters who have read the lyrics on the CDs. Maybe I’m getting old? I don’t know, but I just hate rap music. I also can’t keep up with hip hop, garage, Spanish ‘bacalao’, etc., and I find a lot of today’s so-called disco music a load of repetitive rubbish for people who are high on ecstacy or some other drug or alcohol! (Just my private opinion of course!)
When I was at primary school, I was in a choir, and I had a very good voice, but unfortunately, at the age of about thirteen my voice broke and instead of singing ‘All things bright and beautiful’, a popular high-pitched hymn, I found myself singing Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’, which would have been more appropriate due to the very deep voice I had developed! Later in my secondary school I took violin lessons, but I never really liked the violin. Actually I was quite good at it, but have you ever heard what a violin sounds like when you make a mistake? Aaaaah! And my classmate at the time, a boy called Lesley Hebden, wasn’t quite as good as me and his violin used to screech in my ear hole!
Then, one day when I was on holiday in Majorca at the age of eleven, my mother bought me a Spanish acoustic guitar. Well, I just practised and practised and I had three other friends who were learning to play the guitar, and we used to sit out cross-legged on the grass playing three-chord songs. Ah happy days!
Then I took guitar lessons at secondary school. The teacher, whose name was Mr Wills if I remember rightly, was a good teacher and he taught me to play ‘the boogie and twelve-bar rock tunes’. The only bad thing was he had a lisp and always had a cup of coffee in his hand as he was teaching me, and he used to shower me with coffee as he explained what to do, so my guitar lessons were always a very wet affair!
Getting back to music in general, though, my musical tastes have broadened now. I mean I don’t mind listening to Elton John (one of my non-guitar-playing favourites), Madonna, Dido, The Communards, Eros Ramazzotti, Nek , La Oreja de Van Gogh, Amaral, etc. Even Robbie Williams and James Blunt. As I said before, anything listenable that actually has a tune to it!
I learnt a lot about languages from listening to different foreign singers. Including Julio Iglesias! My father used to have Charles Aznavour and Sacha Distel records, and my brother-in-law, who is Italian, introduced me to Salvatore Adamo songs. Incidentally, he is my favourite foreign romantic singer. I used to be amazed at their ability to sing in other languages and I said to myself ‘One day I’ll be able to sing in many languages too’.
Well, today I can sing some tunes in other languages, and I’m a mediocre guitarist, so I’ve fullfilled some of my musical ambitions in life.
How about you? Are you musical? What are your musical tastes? Can you play a musical instrument? Can you sing or do you just sing in the kitchen or the shower for your neighbours’ entertainment?
As Shakespeare said, ‘If music be the food of love, sing on.’
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-01-17 09:00:00 +0100
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I love music too. My favourite bands are Metallica ( I prefer their firsts albums, I don´t like very much their new style), Pantera, Korn, W.A.S.P….
I love hear this kind of music, it gives to me energy for spending my days.
I like very much go to the Pubs and hear this music with my friends, we dance it playing an imaginary guitar, ja, ja it’s very funny.
I don’t play any instrument, I prefer see people playing electric guitar. I like very much hear a “solo” in a concert.
Greetings again, from my new apartment! We’ve just bought a new television set. The next step is to buy a DVD player, but we’re actually considering getting a PlayStation instead because it works like a DVD player with the bonus of you also being able to play games. You see, I have the secret and perhaps a bit embarrassing desire to buy the game Guitar Hero. On a joystick with the shape of a guitar, you can follow the screen’s instructions on which ‘fret button’ to press, to the tune of your favorite rock and blues songs, from Judas Priest to Stevie Ray Vaughan. Purists would frown upon this but, hey, if you’re simply not made to learn how to play an instrument but you have fantasies about being a rock guitarist, then why not?
Like you, Paul, I like a good tune. I also like well-written lyrics. I like music that moves me. Moves my mind, my heart. Moves my feet!
Paola – You mention Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can still remember the day he died. Very sad indeed. Losing a favourite artist is like losing a friend. That’s what I felt the day Stevie Ray died.
Nietzsche said that life without music would be a mistake. Music is everywhere. Birdsong, the wind in the trees, the soft singing of a mother to her child, the songlines of the native Australians.
But consumer music is everywhere too. On public transport, in shopping centres, in advertising, on your mobile phone. You can have it at your wedding, your retirement party, your birthday, your funeral. You can have it on CD, mp3, wma formats, all packaged and ready to consume. Alone or with friends. With a burger, a salad, a cocktail or even with chips!
You sound like a woman after my own heart ! ( ¡Te gustan el mismo tipo de música que yo!)
I have a CD someone gave me (downloaded from the Internet of course!) It’s a medley (mezcla) of songs. He called it “beautiful music” it’s got tracks by ACDC , Wasp , Metalica , UFO , Rainbow etc
If I don’t feel listening to the same group for 40 minutes . I put it on.
I often play it (and sing along to it too!) when I get home from work while I’m having a shower. (Much to my neighbour’s delight!)
I used to go to heavy metal pubs when I was in London in my teens (13-19) and twenties even though I could play the guitar,(albeit not very good)
I could still play the air guitar better ha ha.
I used to see some excellent guitarists in those places.
and once I’d learnt to play the guitar resonably well and was happily playing some Hendrix tunes ,a bit of Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy etc, along came guitarists like Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen to make my goal even more unreachable!
Hello Paola.
How’s it going in the Land of Oz!
I’m glad to hear you’ve settled in well, and are now enjoying moving into a new apartment.
I read about this PlayStation game while I was having a coffee on the way home. Paola I cringed ! I suppose I am a bit of a puritan in this respect.
Mind you Paola, at least it sounds as though you want to play along to some decent music! But don’t forget ACDC as you’re in Australia!
Before I learnt to play the guitar, I used to play the air guitar then I upgraded to a broomstick , so I suppose my mum felt sorry for me and bought my first acoustic guitar.
I wouldn’t even buy my daughter one of those toy guitars with buttons on them. I decided to buy her a proper children’s acoustic guitar and see if she would follow in her daddy’s footsteps, but she’s such a cry baby that she said that pressing down the strings hurt her fingers. “It’s supposed to hurt a bit!” I said.
Well that has now been lying in the corner for months now. The only person that plays it, is me!
Still, I’d already decided when I bought it that if she didn’t want to learn it , I wasn’t going to force her. Maybe one day she will change her mind?
Music bothers me sometimes. Unlike you, Paul, when I get home from work, I want silence. The Sound of Silence. It’s just me and my cat, in silence. It’s only when my boys come home that it occurs to me to put on a CD, just to drown the noise they make with their footsteps, bangings, whinings, and grunts. What music? I tend to have a flavor of the month. Last month’s flavor of the month was Christmas. I played nothing but carols. This month, since I’ve just been Down Under, my choice is a selection of Australian pop icons, anything from Men At Work to Olivia Newton-John’s “physical, let’s get physical, let me hear your body talk, your body talk…” Forget about the didgeridoo. Or I sit down at the piano to play easy hymns and sonatinas. Or else I’ll pick up my brand new pink ukulele. The ukulele tablature is easier than the guitar tablature for two reasons: the ukulele only has four strings; and the strings are nice and soft so you don’t get any awful callouses on your fingertips. And I sing “home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word…” Then I bother the neighbors.
Hello again everybody!
Joe
I agree with you Joe. Nowadays music is really too commercial, and I almost feel that we don’t appreciate it as much as we used to.I seem to remember music in resturants shops etc as background music sometimes classical or jazz etc, but nowadays it seems to be more in the foreground.
I don’t know maybe it’s me and a bit of nostagia creeping in, but I used to look forward to buying records or tapes. Mind you, I’m not suprised that everyone downloads music or buys cheap music from street vendors, as the prices of CDs are ridiculous! Still, one advantage of being older is the music that you like nobody wants anymore ,so you can get some good cheap music bargains at the stores.
Gina
I also like silence when I get home Gina. It depends how I feel and what sort of day I’ve had.
I’ve tried to play banjos before. It’s very strange for me, as I can’t seem to get much of a tune out of them. I really can’t be bothered to take up learning another musical instrument , and I’ve no longer got the patience. (It takes a lot of patience to learn a musical instrument from scratch!)
I once tried to learn to play the keyboards. I thought it would be just like a guitar that is lying flat. (I was wrong!!) I thought to myself I can’t go through years of learning again!
I suppose a banjo or a ukulele would be easier than a piano for me to learn to play, but you won’t see me playing a pink one!
You should buy a guitar banjo,Paul. They are guitars with banjo bodies (or banjos with guitar strings) and so you get that lovely bluegrass sound without having to learn new chords shapes. Mandolins are no good unless you are familiar with violins.
You can buy instruments online at Hobgoblin . They provide a good service and some well priced instruments for those who want to try things out.
I like all types of music . My latest acquisition is Handful of Echoes by Sligo musician Seamie O’Dowd. If you like astounding bluesy, rocky acoustic guitar and a good honest voice, this should be on your wish-list when your birthday comes round.
Of course, if you don’t like music, there’s always Phil Collins.
About songs in foreign languages… First, English is a foreign language to me because I speak it less than Spanish and Euskera. Second, I have learned many things in English through songs. Beatles songs are great for picking up English with. So is the U2 song “Elevation” because of all the -tion words.
Hello again.
Dónal
Thanks for your advice about guitar banjos, but I really must admit that I’m a bit too lazy to learn any more instruments.
I often think about guitarists like Steve howe, Jimmy page etc who’ve learnt to play mandolins etc, or even bassists etc like Geddy Lee who also play the keyboards. but I’d rather learn to play one instrument better than to start on another one.
By the way Dónal, what’s Phil Colins ever done to you?
Oscar
I agree with you that the Beatles can be good to learn songs. That’s basically because a lot of their lyrics (not all of them !) are very simple.
She loves you, Day tripper and don’t forget the unforgettable Yellow Submariine, which I have taught to my eight year old daughter.
I like some of U2. I haven’t heard the song you mention, but I’m sure your right about all the tion nouns in the song.
Some songs would be extremely difficult and unadvisable to learn English.
Take U2’s With or without you or Yes’ Tales from the Topographic Oceans (I’m going back a bit here!) Unfortunately, it’s always these songs which students ask you to translate the lyrics to!!!!
An afterthought after thinking about Gina’s week of carols and hymns is Hark the herald angels sing ,which I once taught to a proficiency class.
Most natives sing this without any idea of how difficult the lyrics are!