I Miss Being A Muso.

If you've only met me in the last 4-ish years or so, you probably don't realise this but my background is that of a serious muso. Like a large percentage of the population, I did the obligatory piano lessons from primary school, and once I hit high school I dabbled in guitar before landing a music scholarship and the opportunity to study the trombone. Yep, the trombone. And I was damn good at it. My life revolved around music - I was in every high school band, as well as the WA Youth Orchestra Philharmonic. And when I wasn't at rehearsal or in a lesson, I was still banging away on the piano. I fell in love with writing music in late high school. I wrote a piece for our senior school concert, and at our first rehearsal, when I sat down at the school's grand piano and played the first chord, accompanied by the various string players, clarinet, flute and vocalists I had enlisted to play with me... I almost wept. There were tears pricking my eyes because I had the utter privilege of hearing every part of my arrangement come together - without the assistance of my faithful 6-track midi keyboard. A few years later, I even got to do some post-high school study in writing and recording with ProTools through the then-brand-new Mount Pleasant Baptist Community College. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time.

Fast forward to today and I don't actually touch any musical instrument. Even the hobby of singing which I took up to fill the musical void when I stopped playing has fallen by the way-side. Today I (finally) started listening to Sleeping At Last's Yearbook Project (3 new recorded songs each month for a year). The album so far takes my breath away - I think their music is pretty special. Just listening to the album from the point of view of someone who knows the process of song writing, I was pretty floored. And my heart just started yearning. Not particularly just to write songs again, but to bring my music back somehow. It makes me pretty ashamed that I went from being such a music nut, to being bland and passionless in my pursuit of playing. Sure, every couple of months or so I'll have a tinker on the keyboard and try to remember how to play something, but that usually ends as quickly as it starts.

I'm not sure where to start with all this, but something needs to change. Because I seriously miss being a muso.