Making music
Posted by Kerry
December 5, 2008
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I thought I’d get into the spirit of our new motto and let you know about one of the other creative things I spend a lot of time on. It’s been about ten years since I formed my first terrible teenage garage band (featuring our very own Joelle and Vanessa!), and while I’ve spent months, even years at a time concentrating on other things, making music is always something I come back to.
What I really enjoy about making music is the sense of progress you get from it, and the way you can suddenly find your niche. Following the childhood trauma of being advised to mime in school choir, I spent years avoiding the idea of singing under any circumstances – and then all of a sudden I realised that you don’t need to sing like Mariah Carey to do adequate backing vocals, and you honestly can’t shut me up now. I’ve switched instruments a few times, too: guitar (bad) to drums (worse) to bass (surprisingly good, considering).
I’m currently playing bass and singing as many backing vocals as possible in a kitschy lo-fi cabaret pop outfit called Cherry Filth and the Deathlegs (shameless plug: check out our MySpace for listings and free downloads!), and I can honestly say that this is the most fun, creative hobby I’ve ever had. Since we started, we’ve all got to indulge our love of making things in all sorts of ways – not only do we make the music, but we also create ridiculous costumes and props for our gigs, come up with choreography, design websites, flyers and CD covers…
If any of you are planning on making new year’s resolutions about doing anything educational, creative or just plain different from watching telly, I’d seriously recommend that you consider buying or borrowing a cheap instrument (anything’ll do) and getting a couple of friends together to turn all your old in-jokes into catchy songs. If nothing else, it’s a great excuse to wear hotpants at any time of the year and sing about poo on the radio. Or maybe that’s just me.
If I’m preaching to the converted, I’d love to hear about it! Please comment if you’re a reader who makes music, and feel free to share links to your stuff. I hope to be writing a bit more on this subject over the coming months as I start to experiment with some new musical ideas, so I’d love to know what you guys are up to and into.
3 comments Categories: music
December 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Thanks for this post Kerry. I’ve been writing gazillions of songs in my notebook but I’m always far too shy to share. And I’m shit at music. But I’ve got a green plastic recorder and I’m gonna use it! Over Christmas is the perfect time to make some music.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Excellent stuff – I can’t wait to hear it! My band is planning on recording again in February, but I’ve got a couple of ideas of my own that I keep meaning to explore. Maybe I’ll use some of my time off after Christmas to record some of it…
December 31st, 2008 at 8:08 am
Oh how we fought over the keyboard. Since neither I nor Joelle can sing or play instruments…