If music be the food of love—Tricia McGill

 

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I’ve not thought about Shakespeare’s quote that finishes with, “play on” for years. It comes from his opening scene in Twelfth Night where this phrase describes Orsino’s poor lovelorn heart. Presumably, what he wants is for his hurting heart, brought about by his unrequited love for Olivia will, much like the music, get such an excess of it that it will die.

Music plays an enormous part in most people’s lives, be it to serenade the love of your life, or simply to have fun. The choice of music, even at the funerals of our loved ones, has a deep meaning, and often gives the mourners a clear picture of the character of the deceased. These days the guitar seems to be an instrument that many young people learn to play. Going back to my childhood, one of my aunties, who happened to live in the same house as my family owned a piano. At most of our family get-togethers—if we happened to end up in her front room—she would be urged to give us a tune. Sadly, that old piano was slightly out of tune, but who cared? Auntie would bang away on the keys and everyone would play the guessing game about what she was actually playing for it took her a while to get into the music. Her eldest daughter was—let us say—forced into taking lessons, likely because Auntie never had the opportunity to have such tuition. My cousin admitted to me that she hated it and I longed to learn the piano but we couldn’t afford such a luxury. That is why to this day I cannot play an instrument, and to be honest cannot sing in tune either—so I have been told. But this lack of a musical ear does not stop me enjoying music. Life would be empty without it.

What brought about these musical thoughts is that the characters in my latest work in progress were about to have a romantic evening alone, and every couple under these circumstances would like a slow dance together. For this, you need music. In the 1940s when London was in the midst of the Blitz, this family did not possess a piano, so the next best thing was a gramophone. My hero Bill comes home with one and a few borrowed records, so the evening is complete with Bing Crosby crooning in the background.  My two eldest sisters owned a gramophone plus a couple of records that I remember clearly to this day. One was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, the other Gershwin’s - Rhapsody In Blue. I recalled that this marvellous gadget didn’t run on electricity, so therefore I relied on good old Google to remind me how the spring inside had to be tightened, which required a wind up handle.

All this got me to thinking about early musical instruments and where they originated. Flutes made from bird bone and mammoth ivory found in a cave in Southern Germany proved to be 42 to 43,000 years old, so showed evidence of modern humans in Europe that long ago. I am still trying to imagine these Homo sapiens dancing to the music of the flute. They were more than likely used as a ceremonial instrument or a warning signal. 

A pair of trumpets found in Tutankhamen's tomb were proven to be over 3,000 years old. These finely engraved instruments depicted images of their gods.

This proves that mankind has almost always craved music in their lives. The number of instruments invented to fill this craving is endless. We all have our favourite type of music, mine is Country. My husband and I met at a local dance hall on Christmas Eve many years ago, and from then on spent most of our nights out rocking and rolling, perhaps to Bill Haley and the Comets or even The Rolling Stones. One of my sisters was a talented, mostly self-taught, keyboard player.

Enjoy your music--and what is that saying? "Dance like no one is watching." 

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