What is it that drives a musician to learn to play? It’s an intriguing question; one that has always fascinated me. Albert Einstein understood the relationship we have with music. He once said “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music, I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music…. I get most joy in life out of music.”
Other than a brief flirtation with the violin at school and dabbling at my Grandmothers’ pianos whenever we visited them, it wasn’t until I started work that I was able to buy my first instrument. A sixteen year old engineering apprentice earned just £3.50 a week in those days, out of which you had to pay for food, lodging and rail fares to London. It didn’t leave very much, so it took way too long to save six guineas (that’s £6.30) to buy the sunburst, steel strung, Selmer acoustic guitar from Francis, Day and Hunter’s music shop in London’s Charing Cross Road, one dark and rainy December night.
It didn’t last me long, but it got me started, and like many aspiring Hank Marvins, I worked my way through ……
