My fascination with music

I will be the first person to tell you that I have a sincere lack of musical talent. I can't sing on key and I am only a passable guitar player. I am a decent bohdran player, though, but I can't tell you why.

This lack of talent is hugely frustrating to me because I somehow think I should be decent or at least be able to quickly learn, anything I set my mind to. Yah - as you can tell, I have delusions of grandeur or something.

Mr. Maura, on the other hand, is an ex-choir singer with excellent pitch and a very good ethnic drummer. I fear I'm an endless source of disappointment to him. Over 15 years he has at least managed to disguise his winces when I just sing because I'm happy. Mostly he just leaves the room.

Despite this, I'm fascinated by people who are musical. I love to listen to music but I can't do it while I do something else because it steals my attention. I swear I'll start typing the lyrics I hear instead of what I intend to type. I can easily listen to television without it interfering but not music. So I don't write to music - if I put music on, I tend to pay attention to it though I can knit or make jewelry while I listen.

This fascination also encompasses those people who make music and write it. I'm engrossed with figuring out what their relationship to the music is. What do they play in response to their moods? What does music do to their mood? Do they feel a need to play and write or can they sorta take it or leave it?

I think the last few days have been filled with these ideas because my celtic rock band, Bran's Visions, and its members have been wanting me to write about them. NOW. I'm taking this as a good sign of my muse being alive and awake but it's played hell on my reading time because I keep searching out music and listening to it instead. Right now it's classical violin because one of my band members is a fiddler with classical training and he turns to the classics in response to his moods. Right now he's VERY sad and upset and so is the music he's playing only for himself - or so he thinks.