{"id":16993,"date":"2012-10-10T16:16:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T15:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=16993"},"modified":"2012-10-10T16:16:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T15:16:01","slug":"simon-poole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=16993","title":{"rendered":"Simon Poole"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Love for Music<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had wanted to be a musician from an early age. Father bought a second-hand Berliner gramophone and we would listen to anything and everything he could find to play on it. We’d lose ourselves in waves of classical beauty, American syncopation and the intoxicating rhythms of exotic music from the world at large.
\nLater on, I was to understand better the therapeutic value it had for broken men \u2013 my mother had died unexpectedly, and our hearts were crushed. The recordings were a comfort to us: a surrogate lullaby for me; a last dance and a heavenly chorus for my father’s emptying soul.
\nThere was something profoundly important about music. It seemed to touch everyone, in one way or another. It had the power to conjure up a time and place like no other sense could achieve. Even the noises and pulses of industry and transport evoked a moment, whether from yesterday or yesteryear. It was a soundscape for our lives, every bit as important as the sights and smells that enveloped us. That was my view, anyway.
\nMy father presented me with a violin for my fourteenth birthday. We called it Marjorie, after my mother. That was just between us. Before too long, I was sometimes able to make it sing as sweetly and as emotionally as could she. I’d play for my father each evening after supper. He’d close his eyes and take himself off to goodness knows where. It wasn’t for me to ask. Of course, I was still learning the instrument and so was often guilty of making him wince at my playing, but he said nothing. His non-judgemental encouragement was so important.
\nFather passed away. He was no great age, and I was bound to wonder if he had simply given up, in a bid to be re-united with my mother. He never spoke in those terms, for fear, I imagined, that I’d feel neglected. Naturally, I felt alone and heartsick after he died but I somehow understood. Somehow.
\nI’d been playing with an amateur string quartet and was determined to play on, professionally, in their honour. I set about looking for a paid contract that would befit the ethos that they had instilled in me during our all too brief time together as a family.
\nNews had filtered through to the region’s musicians that an orchestra was to be put together to play on board a new Olympic-class liner, due to set sail from Southampton. I was all for contacting the agency responsible to gain an audition for my berth on the grandly named: RMS Titanic<\/em>. Destination America!
\nI played two pieces that had been favourites of my father and was duly informed by the Musical Director that I had sailed through the audition<\/em>. I suspected he’d used that pun rather a lot, but it made me chortle, nevertheless.
\nBefore I made my way down to the south coast, I locked up the family home, having spent a few contemplative moments in each room. With my eyes closed tight, I felt sure I could hear the strains of my mother’s dulcet soprano voice and the warm, friendly approval of my father’s \u2018Bravos\u2019 . . .
\nMy life would be but a short, symphonic suite: movements of melancholy, hope, joy and playfulness woven around an endearingly familiar central theme.<\/em>
\nAs our band played Nearer, My God, to Thee, I drew strength by imagining my mother and father listening in from on high, their eyes closed, swaying from side to side in a deep embrace.
\nTogether again are we, eternal in familial harmony.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Love for Music I had wanted to be a musician from an early age. Father bought a second-hand Berliner gramophone and we would listen to anything and everything he could find to play on it. We’d lose ourselves in waves of classical beauty,… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16993"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16999,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16993\/revisions\/16999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}