When I Started Playing Music – by Nic Holson
Growing up in my house there was always music playing, before the kettle was boiled in the morning the radio was turned on and just as we were going to bed, it would be turned off again. Even if you couldn’t hear the radio, you could always feel the music vibrating through the house.
Both my parents are massive music lovers, my Mum loves everything from musical theatre to The Beatles and Queen, Andrea Bocelli to Yes. My Dad loves anything he can hum along to and sing the wrong lyrics with. Artists like Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell and Alan Jackson to Elvis and Marc Bolan and T-Rex. A couple of years ago I think I converted him into an Extreme fan after taking him to see them at the O2 Academy in Glasgow, this was his first ever rock gig.
Two of my first memories of really starting to become aware of music are when I was about 5 or 6 and I would sit and watch my Mum’s videos of Queen and around the same age, dancing around my living room to “You Make My Pants Want To Get Up And Dance” by Dr Hook.
I still think that watching these videos of Queen and seeing Brian May (who’s hair was very like my Mum’s at one point) play guitar was probably the main factor in me wanting to get a guitar in 2001 when I was 8. It was a half size classical guitar which I absolutely loved when I got it….however after a few strums and being disappointed that I didn’t sound like Brain May, I put it in a cupboard and apart from the odd strum here or there, didn’t properly return to it until 2005 when I started High School.
Around the same age that I got my guitar, I also started playing Clarinet and was getting lessons at school. I continued to play clarinet all the way through primary school and it became by main instrument through high school where I also played in the Windband, Orchestra and Jazz Band.
I picked the guitar back up when I got to high school. There was a music club every Friday and this is where I learned by first few chords and songs. I think the first few songs were “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, “Super Trooper” by ABBA, “Where Is The Love” by Black Eyed Peas, “Whistle For The Choir” by The Fratellis and the Wallace and Gromit Theme. Pretty much from the first time I went to music club, guitars haven’t left my side, I became addicted to them. I would get home from school and spend hours learning as many riffs and tunes as I could, my living room became my stage where I would jump around and pretend I was performing to massive crowds.
I quickly formed a band with a few class mates, a line-up that changed more times than the Sugababes, and we would jam and practice covers and just get lost in playing music. Playing with other musicians and jamming is where I picked up and learnt most of my skills through high school. Looking back now though when people ask me “when did you start playing guitar?” I reply with “well I got my first guitar when I was 8, strummed it once and put it down. Picked it back up in high school where I taught myself a few chords and licks and jammed in bands. I got some folk style finger picking guitar lessons in 4th year but my real study of the instrument and intensive practice began when I went to music college in 2011”.
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