I have a tiny little casiotone keyboard sitting in my loungeroom which the kids sometimes play with. My Grandfather gave it specifically to me, making sure to tell me that it was for my birthday AND christmas combined and that I could use it in my homestudio.
Here's a picture of the model.....
But it's still a cool present because it has some history for me.
For the first five years of my life I lived at my Grandparents house at Kareela in the Sutherland Shire. My mother and I, my Nanna and Grandpa and 3 of my 4 uncles all lived in the same house. The youngest uncle was about eight years older than me and he adopted me as a little brother of sorts. I spent many days with Nanna as Mum would be working, sleeping or "daddy-hunting" as she used to call it.
Nanna was (and still is) the traditional Catholic type. She would often be seen with her apron on preparing lunch and the night's dinner and was a creature of routine in her day of housework. I started calling her 'Mum' accidentally which upset my actual mother a bit.
There weren't any kids around to play with that I knew of, so I would spend my days trying to curtail my boredom. I mainly remember two ways my day would pass. I used to read a set of Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedias and fill my head with lots of useless information. Or I would spend hours upstairs, by myself, playing with my only friend. It had beats and styles and cool buttons that would change the sound, as well as the usual black and white keys. My Grandpa's casiotone. The first song I remember learning to play was Frere Jacques. I figured out how to play it and worked out the best fingers to use to play it fast. And that I would. I'd play it over and over again, as fast as I possibly could, and drove my family up the wall! I was about 3 or 4.
I already loved music. My Mum tells me that when I was a baby she found it impossible to get me to sleep. She would try everything, including playing me Blondie tapes. She found a tape of Mozart and played that to me, and it worked like a charm. I instantly stopped crying and I would just listen quietly until I fell asleep. She tells me that one of my first words was 'Mozart' (I kid you not). She tells me that I would blurt it out with wide, excited eyes, whilst bopping up and down when hearing the first few notes of Mozart's 'A Little Night Music'. I don't know how to explain this, but when I hear that song I can vaguely remember the sensation of analyzing that song- hearing the symmetries, the cadences, the dynamics, the structure, the tension and release, though I would not have known how to word those descriptions of what my mind was hearing like I do now. I get major deja vu, like stepping in between two mirrors. I guess that's what happens when you listen to the same few songs every night for who knows how long- never failing to capture my imagination.
I started to make up songs. I started experimenting on the black notes (just as many of the latest children's piano teaching books start with now) and moved to the white notes. The notes had little stickers on them that told me what the notes were called. And I became very familiar with those little notes that are now too small for my fingers. The first song I remember that I wrote with words was called 'Gunrunner'. It was about a computer game my uncle used to play. I must have been about 4 because I still lived there and my uncle was around.
I discovered that I could work out melodies I heard by ear and play them. I wasn't one of those little prodigies playing 'Flight of the Bumblebee' like you can see on youtube a dime a dozen, but it was something that helped me learn songs I heard. I started to figure out how music worked; what sounded good, what didn't, what notes and harmonies illicited what feelings. I began to become more familiar with my palette and started to writing simple music a lot more. I didn't get lessons. I didn't read how-to-play books. Noone in my family was a musician so I don't know if it was genetic or if the situation I found myself in nurtured it. I just did it.
So, alone with my casiotone, I discovered both my escape and my home. My keyboard became an extension of myself. Whilst most little boys were playing with other kids or with trucks and blocks, I was cooped away reading, learning and creating sound.
I'm entering a season of my life where music is becoming a major focus again. The last few years until recently had seen music become very much a part of the background noise of my life (pardon the pun). Now it's my job, it's my hobby, it's my passion and I'm very blessed to be in the position I'm in. I often wondered what the point of my history with music was when I started to see it become less and less important in my life. It was beginning to look like a fading relic in the museum of my soul and I didn't know whether to dust it off or mourn. But my longing to feel, to breathe out, to create- I can't hold my breath anymore, I need to break free and play in the playground again.
I'm buying lots of cool new music making toys but I won't forget my old friend the casiotone, and I hope my children discover music like I did. But they might find their own unique pallette to paint with (like painting ;) ).
