Ailsa's Blog: Meet Our Members: Richard Wright
My musical awakening came probably in the 1950s with my parents' love of classical music. I know I was played Ernest Lough's rendition of Oh for the Wings... but it had little effect on me at that point, I'm sorry to say. Earlier I'd had a school tambourine thrust into my hands but gaining a meaningful appreciation of anything musical from the resultant school class's cacophony was impossible. Somehow piano lessons were arranged for a 5 or 6 year old me, along with theory lessons. I persisted with both until about 14 when Other Interests got in the way.
They taught me two things: I have lousy brain-finger coordination and I can read music - rustily nowadays, though the Society is generous with its WD40 in that respect.
Various people have rubbed me against different genres of music over the remaining years and continue to do so. I've discovered that, with few exceptions, all music is worth experiencing, including rap. Inevitably there are favourites in pieces, composers and performers. In no order: Rachmaninof, The Kinks, Fairport Convention, Prokofiev, Libera (who in the guise of St Phillip's Norbury choir once did Wings, to my absolute pleasure), Bach in small doses as he's a brain work-out, Vaughan Williams, Ben See... but I see you're getting bored at the back.
As to singing I was in a church choir when younger, graduating from treble to bass; I've sung folk music (solo and ensemble) in clubs (Probably badly) and picked up an ability to extemporise bass and other lines as a result, and sung in two choral societies - Hurst College's and of course Seaford's. Voice quality? To me it's rubbish, best kept as part of a large choir, but some say it's ok; mainly my wife.
Editor's note: learn more about Richard at harbroe.org and rw2.co.uk
