Enjoy Your Talent, However Small

This morning I was back at Music Centre to play in two bands, along with a dozen or so adults and several hundred children - not to mention the parents and grandparents who had brought their children along and who sat and listened to them play for an hour and a half.

I have some musical talent, but it's relatively modest. I didn't start learning clarinet and saxophone till I was in my forties. I don't pick things up as quickly as I used to and my fingers are clumsy, but I have a fairly good ear. I know I would be better if I practised for an hour a day on each of my instruments, but I can't see that happening in the near future.

So I'm happy to sit in Junior Band with my saxophone next to a ten-year old and a twelve-year old, knowing that although I may be better than they are at writing university essays about music and I have a Dip. Mus. after my name, I don't have their natural talent. And I know I'll never play as well as their dad who is a very gifted professional saxophonist and composer.

But to me, it's still a great thing to be able to make music with other people. It's thrilling to sit and play as part of a large band and hear the wonderful sound we make together and realise that I'm part of that too. It's great to have something to work towards and people to share my interest with. It's fascinating to discover new music and revel in the sheer delight of it - and I can't wait to play the 'Pirates of the Carribean' medley again in Intermediate Band!

If you're just starting to write or you're beginning writing classes or workshops, maybe you doubt your talent as a writer. There are so many fantastic books that have been published, so much wonderful poetry, powerful plays for stage or television. Where you are seems a long way off from the achievements of these marvellous writers. How can you ever hope to bridge the gap?

It's easy to think it's all too difficult and you're too ordinary. You don't have that magic something that all these famous writers have. You'll never have books in the bestseller lists or write plays like Shakespeare.

But think of yourself as joining in the music. Think of yourself as a small part of a big band in which everyone is playing different instruments. Alone, you may feel feeble and inadequate, but when you join forces with others the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you write, even in a small way, you are part of the symphony of words and creativity that is formed by writers everywhere. You are adding your own unique sounds, your signature flourishes to it, and your contribution helps to increase the total creativity of the universe.

So when you sit down with your pen and paper and worry that you may not have what it takes to be a writer, don't worry. Be happy! Enjoy your talent, however small! You may not know it, but really, we're all playing the same tune.

Another Day in the Life of a Writer

It's been a different sort of day today. There hasn't been a lot of writing going on because I've been tied up most of the day making music with my two wind bands.

It's been the last morning of rehearsals at music centre for this academic year. For me it brought some mixed emotions. I'm always a little bit sad at the end of the year because there won't be any music centre for over two months and I'll miss playing with everyone and seeing all my friends there.

However, there's a sense of completion and satisfaction because we've made it through the whole year, we've definitely improved as musicians, and we've mastered our pieces.

Everyone's excited because it's our big concert at Huddersfield Town Hall on Monday and we've been getting our programmes ready for that.

Lots of the youngsters are being promoted to the next level next term, from Junior Band into Intermediates, or from Intermediates into Seniors, so the lucky ones who got given slips of paper with their new rehearsal details were really on a high.

Junior Wind Band was excited because we were due to perform this afternoon at the summer fair of a nearby infants' school. Not only were we playing our tunes - for weeks we'd been practising marching as well. The aim was to process through the school grounds, playing as we marched.

Marching is not something that we usually do in our music centre, so it had involved the children buying lyres to fix their music onto their instruments, at £14 a time. We had numerous marching rehearsals over the past half a term. Marching while playing, marching without playing, playing and marching on the spot. One of the dads who is a military musician gave us advice on how to march together in our rows, keeping an eye on the central person of the row of five, the anchor person. This was meant to help us keep in step, stay in our rows, and keep reasonably well spaced out. It sounded easy when he said it!

We practised marching on the paths around the outside of the music centre and even on the tennis courts (minus the nets)! We'd done just about everything we could think of to get the marching off to a T.

Of course, the one thing you can't plan for is the British weather. When we arrived for our rehearsal this morning, it was absolutely bucketing with rain, so we didn't do any marching practice.

But when we got to the infants' school in the afternoon, there was a temporary lull in the rain so we made an attempt at marching. The music centre parents and infants' school parents had turned out in full force to watch this spectacle.

Our formation stayed in place for about thirty seconds, but by the time we got halfway through our march, one of the dads, who was the anchor man for the second row, had managed to get so far behind that he ended up in the middle of the third row next to me, dragging two of his row with him. The three children who should have been in my row had been pushed out of their positions and shunted back into a makeshift row, row three and a half.

All a bit of a shambles really! I wouldn't have minded only this dad who caused the mayhem is a strapping chap over six foot tall who really shouldn't have had any trouble keeping up with a load of ten year olds! I'm only five foot two and I was marching in four inch heels (don't ask!), but I managed to keep up better than he did!

The next bit of the proceedings, playing sitting down, should have been a doddle by comparison, but by the time we'd waited for the little kids to dance around the Maypole (OK, so it's July, but they were cute!), the looming clouds had started pelting down huge droplets of rain.

'It's only rain,' insisted our conductor, despite our pleas to be allowed to go inside. 'Just get on and play.' So we sat there performing our tunes in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm, getting absolutely drenched, with a few hardy parents standing watching us, huddled under umbrellas.

By the time we finished our four tunes, our sheet music was so wet you could have used it for papier mache and the cardboard folders that we usually keep the music in had all but disintegrated. In fact, I'll be very surprised if any of the music ever survives long enough to make it back to the music centre library.

When I got home, I thought I'd check how my Triond pieces were doing, and to my amazement I discovered that one of my articles is on the Most Popular Articles list in one of the Writerhood categories - Style.

That was a big boost. Hopefully it will get my name known a bit better on the site and attract more readers to my pieces.

I've also dashed off a haiku poem this evening and submitted that, so I'll have to wait and see how that does.

So there we are! Thrills, spills, drips, and a bit of a lift, all in one day. I hope you enjoyed your day. Have a good weekend!

Ten Top Books about Writing

Now that adult education and university courses are drawing to a close, I thought you might like some books about writing to keep you occupied over the summer. Here are some of my favourites.

1. The Artist's Way Julia Cameron The classic which got so many of us hooked on writing Morning Pages
2. Writing Down the Bones Natalie Goldberg A Zen approach to getting the writing out of you and onto the page
3. Becoming a Writer Dorothea Brand A timeless classic full of encouragement and wisdom
4. The Writer's Idea Book Jack Heffron A treasure trove of prompts guaranteed to get any stuck writer writing again
5. Creative Writing. A Workbook with Readings ed. Linda Anderson An Open University coursebook which provides more than two hundred pages of readings, as well as teaching and exercises
6. Your Writing Coach. From Concept to Character, from Pitch to Publication Jurgen Wolff A stimulating book by someone who understands the psychology of creativity
7. Writing Feature Articles Brendan Hennessy Full of practical advice to help you develop a professional approach to magazine and newspaper journalism
8. Taking Reality by Surprise. Writing for Pleasure and Publication ed. Susan Sellers Contains advice and tips from a number of leading writers
9. Creative Writing. How to Unlock Your Imagination, Develop Your Writing Skills and Get Published Adele Ramet An ideal book for beginners
10. On Writing Stephen King A classic, part memoir, part inspiration and instruction

I could continue with this list all day, but there is more than enough here to provide you with information and inspiration for many months.