Wednesday 24 April 2013

Lifescouts: Keyboard Badge

When I was about 12, we started having keyboard lessons in music, and don't ask why, but it ended up with my Mum getting me a keyboard with both of us assuming I'd found my niche.

Unfortunately, it didn't go that well. I just about passed my keyboard assessment in music which involved getting as far as a song called "Pineapple Chunks" (I hate that word) which was level 6 I think I recall, and at home I'd been bought a book of songs to play which was incredibly more complicated than the stuff I'd learnt at school.

My Grandad plays the organ, so for a bit tried to teach me, but it didn't go well and unfortunately was something I never quite kept up. He loved playing my keyboard though. As did my Mum, who taught herself to play Moon River and the theme from Titanic. 

To this day, I can't remember where that keyboard went, but I can play the first few lines of My Heart Will Go On. Yes, I'm not very musical, but it still counts!

Lifescouts: Keyboard Badge
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Thursday 18 April 2013

Lifescouts: Performing on a Stage Badge

I've gotten a little behind in my Lifescouts badges lately due to workload, but now I've submitted my last assignment, I have nothing to do except sit in denial about my upcoming unemployment and severe debt.

Anywho, I'm trying to catch up over the next couple of days and while Music Month is hardly something I'm going to score highly in, I'm surprised to say I've earned a few of them, starting with the performing on stage badge.

While not exactly Glee type experiences - though I'd love them to be - back when I was naive and didn't care what people thought of me there were a few stage experiences starting from when I was very young. Yes, I'm counting nativity plays. While most of my roles included just being on the stage in my angel costume and singing along with everyone else, in Year 2 I was promoted to innkeepers' wife. Still no lines, but it was the first time being on a stage with less than 10 people. Yeah.

Future nativities - or rather "Christmas Plays" based on the key details of the nativity just involved me sat on the floor at Melksham Assembly Hall as part of the choir. We had some weird shit for our Christmas shows - "Ace" where everyone was a card in the deck (I shit you not), and the king and queen of hearts were waiting for the Ace of hearts to arrive - technically the baby Jesus. There was also "A Spaceman Came Travelling" which I don't remember the full details of, but it was based on that Christmas song by Chris DeBurgh. YouTube it if you wish, but I can't listen to it without being reminded of what idiots the people who thought of doing that premise for a Year 1 nativity were.

My ultimate performance however was in Year 8. Brace yourself. School was doing a talent show, and yes, I'm fully aware I should have known better than to humiliate myself. I had never sang in front of an audience before and made the promise to my Mum she could come watch it if I got through. Ha. I sang Kelly Clarkson's The Trouble with Love from the end credits of Love Actually, a song I still can't listen to without feeling like a massive twat, in front of three teachers and a bunch of other kids who were actually talented. It was shit, we all know it was shit. Even when I got off the stage after finishing what was a complete disaster of a performance I heard one of the teachers say "bless her." It still makes me shudder - not because I found it creepy, but because I feel like a complete idiot. Needless to say I didn't get through, obviously I wasn't going to, and for a while I was gutted. Heh, their loss. Anyway from now on I stick to what I know - singing alone in my flat when no one else is home to Rachel's solos from Glee. That is 100% true.