From the crooning sounds of Frankie Lane and the beautiful voice of Elvis, my earliest childhood memories were filled with music. As years passed I had elder siblings playing Abba or the Jackson 5, this magical soundtrack to our lives seemed to be everywhere.
At school my only recall of music lessons was in a cold prefab hoping the teacher would somehow let me in to this world, to explain how a saxophone could sound like a Night Boat on an Egyptian river or how Terry Hall singing about gangsters could feel so relevant to a scruffy kid in Broxbourne. No such luck, the lessons, like a lot of school passed me by. Music seemed like a mystery to me, an exclusive club for the talented or rich, I was neither. I so wanted to be involved.
Work, Lager, Girls all started at the same time for me, dancing though those years at dirty nightclubs from Southend to Tottenham, the beat was always there. Getting ready for a night out was always accompanied by a fist full of 12inch singles. High energy power pop helped us forget the rubbish jobs and lack of money. Around this time, I purchased an acoustic guitar from a car boot sale, this sorcery that kept us dancing, crying, loving had to be deciphered by me, I so wanted to be involved. The few chords I learned were soon forgotten and the acoustic was consigned to the loft as work overtook my life.
Mortgage and cozy nights in soon turned to babies and maturity. Listening to kids from Sheffield and Manchester taking their music to the world made me want even more to play along with these anthems. It was like an itch I needed to scratch, but where to go to learn? I needed somewhere that would take students from absolutely no musical knowledge and where I would not feel intimidated. I so wanted to be involved.
Walking into my first Musiclab lesson 6 years ago was easy, a relaxed and entertaining way to learn the craft of music making. It has opened a whole new avenue of life for me. Playing the gigs with The Musiclab has given me enough confidence to play in a band set up with some friends (fellow students) and the staff at The Musiclab have supported that. I'm involved. Rob Lee - Husband, Father, Bricklayer, Bass Player