At fifteen I was 5'8'', all knees and elbows, with a big mane of dyed red hair and army boots half way up my calf. I had started to learn the cello only a couple of years earlier. I was 12th (last) cello in the county youth orchestra, sandwiched awkwardly between the double basses and a gaggle of tiny eight year old cellists all far more accomplished players than me.
Consequently I felt ever so slightly conspicuous as I guessed at tuning my instrument, struggled to find my place in the score, and fudged my way through rehearsal after rehearsal. Despite a week's intense practice I didn't get much better, and my confidence plummeted. I was so worried about playing the wrong thing and ruining the piece, that when it came to the eventual performance at Buxton Opera House I mimed through most of it.
I gave up the cello shortly after that. I have grudgingly had to accept that I am just not a musical person. No one in my family is musical. Words are our thing. And food.
The Power To Mesmerise
Music seems a kind of magic to me. It has the power to mesmerise; to alter moods; to bring exultation or despair, or unlock hidden memories. It is wreathed in a strange coded language that I don't understand. Allegro con molto means as much to me as Abracadabra.
Those who are musically gifted seem very mysterious. I view them with a mixture of admiration, envy, and a sort of distrust – they must be witches! How else could they control and harness that amazing power, and bend it to their will?*
I feel it as a terrible loss in my life that I'm not musical. I love music – all kinds of music. But I don't understand it in the least. What is a fugue? A partita? A canon? A gigue? What is the difference between a rhapsody and a fantasy? A concerto and a symphony? What makes something a prelude? Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun always confused me. I expected there to be a longer piece called 'The Afternoon of a Faun.' There isn't.
When I used to sit at the back of the orchestra I couldn't hear myself play. I had no idea how to pick my own sound out from the multitude of sounds around me. I had no idea if I was in tune, or if I was in time...
The ability to make music; to create one beautiful sound and then to weave it around other sounds, and to build a coherent, wonderful whole seems hardly less astonishing to me than the ability to move objects with the power of the mind.
Given this wonder and envy, it is perhaps not surprising that I have allied music with magic in much of my writing. In Darklands, Inkling is a powerful magician with a particular affinity for music. But he doesn't play a violin, a flute or a piano. He plays the wind. He plays the dry grasses and the branches of trees. He sends the wind whistling around sculpted rocks, creating fluttering arpeggios. He conjures a soft, shushing rhythm from the treetops, and a mournful, clattering tune from living bamboo.
In my work in progress, a musician unwittingly exerts power over the ghostly protagonist, Kikimora. Her magical powers weaken whenever she hears him play, and she becomes visible to humans – which causes problems for them both.
His Inhuman Skill
Music has a long history of association with the uncanny, the fae, the devilish. One of the best known and most evocative examples must be the Pied Piper bewitching the children of Hamlin with his playing, and leading them astray. Celtic lore has fairies closely tied with musicians, particularly pipers. Musicians are far more likely than other mortals to be taken to fairy land.
Some, such as the blind 17th century harpist, Turlough O'Carolan, were said to acquire their musical prowess after spending a night on the fairy knoll.
This echoes the story of the violinist, Nicolo Paganini, widely believed to have sold his soul to the devil in return for his inhuman skill and virtuosity. Early Blues musician Robert Johnson was similarly said to have sold his soul to the Devil – down at the Crossroads.
Both of these musicians knew a good story when they heard one, and they played up the unearthly aspect of their personas – Paganini by growing long wings of hair, and dressing all in black, Robert Johnson by singing such songs as Hellhound on my Trail, Me and the Devil, and Crossroads Blues.
And let's not forget the role music has played in religion down the ages, from Gregorian chants, via plainsong, liturgy and mass, to American gospel music and beyond. Would religion grip the hearts and souls of so many without the uncanny power of music in its arsenal?
To Muddle And Misplace
Some music is so evocative of a certain time, mood or place that just hearing a short passage transports you instantly back there. Much of our unconscious musical associations come from film and TV. There is a certain type of English romantic music (typified by Vaughn-Williams' The Lark Ascending) which never fails to make me yearn for an idyllic rural past that probably never existed. This is thanks to its use in countless period dramas on TV: Tess of the D'urbervilles; the Mill on the Floss, Precious Bane.
Another well used piece is the thrillingly dramatic Carmina Burana, which conjures everything from King Arthur's knights riding into battle (Excaliber) to demonic murder (The Omen) to sexual ecstacy (The Doors).
Powerful music has the ability to imprint a mood into your soul; a mood which can be instantly recalled by hearing the music again. On a more humdrum level this is demonstrated when we hear music from our youth and become misty eyed over all the memories and associations it brings back – even music you didn't like at the time.
When I was sixteen Brit-pop was all the rage; everyone loved Oasis - but I thought they were boring and whiny and not a patch on Sonic Youth or Pixies. I hear Oasis now and I don't remember how I used to complain about them and groan and roll my eyes. I remember how it felt to be sixteen, and think that the world was my oyster; to not wake up every morning with back ache; to be full of hope and dreams and chutzpah that hadn't yet been tempered by dusty reality...
But hang on – is that really what it was like? Or is the music fooling me? Didn't I spend much of my teenage years paranoid and miserable? Didn't I spend long hours obsessing about my intense ugliness, the dullness of my life, and dreaming that one day things would be better?
Music can deceive. It can muddle and misplace, and convince you of things that never were.
It can also inspire. Artists of every sort find inspiration in music. Marcus Sedgwick has described how Midwinter Blood is based on Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. My above-mentioned work in progress, Kikimora, was directly inspired by a 'fairytale for orchestra' of the same name by Anatoly Lyadov.
Magic
Music can be mind-altering, reality-altering. It can affect the listener mentally, physically and spiritually. It can transport you through time and space. It can unlock memories long forgotten; it can sometimes trick us into believing things that never happened.
If that's not magic, I don't know what is.
* Just prior to submitting this post I noticed a previous post on this site from only a week ago, saying, “Cecilia Bartoli does things with her voice that must have come from some kind of witchcraft.” See? It's not just me.
When 15 year old Sophie finds herself mysteriously transported to a parallel world she can barely believe her luck. The sun always shines, the people thinks she's fantastic, and their impossibly handsome King dotes on her. But as the seemingly idyllic Darklands reveals its grim secrets, the fate of both worlds relies on Sophie escaping the despotic King and finding her way back home.
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