Find the seed and add water
I went to a Supertramp concert last night, Yup, that shows my age, I know. But seeing a group that has actually written and performed songs that mean something to all of us makes a nice change in the age of The X Factor – ie people performing karaoke versions of famous hits.
Afterwards I read up on the group and, sure enough, the key people – Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson – showed their musical interest and talent early on in life. Davies was given an old record player and a couple of records as a young boy and then a friend made him a drum kit out of some old biscuit tins and soon he was drumming for a British Rail band in Swindon.
Hodgson got a guitar aged 12 when his dad left home and, having learnt three chords, started composing songs.
What does that say? To me, it’s about exposing children to lots of influences from the start. I bought a flute and an old violin for peanuts on Ebay and left them in my son’s room and soon sounds (weird ones, ok) were coming from his room.
Now I’m thinking of buying a drum kit.
Other ingredients in the Davies/Hodgson story are:
lack of anything else to do – no Nintendo or X-Box to distract them (aka boredom)
talent
interest
energy
Find out if there’s a seedling there, and if there is, water it.
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