All Hail the King!! (of Rock 'n' Roll)

So in honour of Elvis' birthday (which would have been today) I'm taking part in the Music Blog Train organised by Helen. If you'd like to follow the blog train from the start go back to her blog here! If you've just come over from Laura's blog welcome!!

We're all talking (in various ways) about our musical tastes and styles... which really got me thinking! I wonder if any of my lovely readers would know about my musical past? No, probably not! It's not something I advertise much because for many years now I had 'fallen out of love' with music. Sure, I still listened to it but I haven't taken part for ooooh.... nearly 13 years now. However, over the past few months I have started feeling a stirring, an urge to get involved again.

I started playing Piano at the age of 6-ish and went to lessons after school for years. At High School I started doing my lessons at school and eventually I got my Grade 8 and sat my Matriculation exams in Music. Several times I had wanted to quit, but my parents kept saying that they "hadn't paid all that money for music lessons just so I could give it up!" During the early  part of High School I started singing in choirs and groups and the latter part of High School saw me involved in the Natal Youth Choir. At the end of High School I was unsure of what I wanted to do with my future and found myself being "guided" into doing Music at undergrad level. I enjoyed the first 18 months of it as I transferred from Piano to Voice as my first instrument. Then, it all went pear shaped. My whole life fell apart for various reasons and I left Uni at the end of my second year vowing never to play an instrument again. I returned to the UK and met my husband. It was at this stage that I realised that my musical tastes were not exactly 'normal'. All my life I had only really ever listened or participated in "Classical" music. After Uni I decided to start 'educating' myself in more modern music. I started at early Jazz and Ragtime and there I fell in love with the arrangements of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. The crooning of the jazz singer's including Ella Fitzgerald and the gravel-voiced Sachmo (Louis Armstrong). They led me onto the wartime years where I fell in love again... with Glenn Miller and Vera Lynn and Nightingales in Berkeley Square. Elvis followed soon after followed very quickly by Cliff Richard and the Shadows. I was lucky enough to see Cliff Richard perform in Durban soon after the sanctions had been lifted in 1993 and was amazed by his energy. I dabbled a bit in the Beatles too, but that is where my musical 'self-education' seemed to stop. It was only after I met and married my hubby that I realised I had missed out on so much. The 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's all held so much that I needed to catch up on!

Now days I can say that I'm a little more 'with it'. I'm enjoying Snow Patrol, Keane, Paloma Faith alongside some of the older bands such as the Rolling Stones, BeeGee's, Pink Floyd as well as some of hubby's favourites like Big Country and the Housemartins. Yup, to the casual observer it may seem that my musical tastes have caught up somewhat... however, the more discerning eye will still catch me putting Classic FM on the radio and enjoying my Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt...  In fact, I'm considering returning to my roots all together as I've raised enough money between my Birthday and Christmas to invest in a Digital Piano . The only question is... am I going to play Classical Music... or teach myself to play more modern stuff? I'd love to play the Blues like Jamie Cullum!

Now, head on down to Tracey's blog for a look at her musical tastes!