Music, Martin and Me

In 1995, BBC2 broadcast the 10th Anniversary Concert of ​‘Les Miserables​‘ at the Albert Hall. I had just turned 14. After hearing the opening lines of Lea Salonga’s turn as Eponine, I raced to my bedroom, returning to our living room at Concorde speed with my double-cassette-decked stereo, stabbing my microphone into the machine before pressing its latticed head to the small grid of a speaker box on our television. I statue-d there, waiting to catch Salonga’s next scene, slamming on the record button as her rendition of ​‘On My Own​‘ began. Her voice and that song in that moment hit my very core. I replayed and karaoke-d along to that cassette moment so much the tape eventually mangled.

From my mid-teens singing started to be ‘my thing’. Outside of school and other fixed commitments, if I wasn’t listening to music, I was singing it. I sought out vocal lessons (the clarinet was unceremoniously usurped by voice); I sang in school choirs, concerts, stage productions and competitions; I did two summer schools at the Sylvia Young Theatre School and went through 2 auditions to earn a place in the National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT) company of 1998/9. Things dropped off at university, though, and singing was eventually relegated to the categories of ‘something I used to be good at’ and ‘a means of paying bills’ (I had a tendency to win money at karaoke competitions, which proved exceptionally useful for meeting utility charges in my final undergrad year). Life eventually got in the way, as it were, I didn't show up to a postgrad audition I'd won at Mountview Theatre School, and singing's centrality to my life ended.

When you have siblings, you do tend to get labelled; not in a mean way, the tags just come as part of the natural course of familial comparison - 'she’s the quiet one'; 'he’s the sporty one'; 'she’s the organised one'; 'he’s the musical one'. With reference to this last one, I myself felt it applied to me and my brother, Martin. For all my love of music and singing, it was my sibling who personified ‘(bloody good) musician’.

Martin lived and breathed music, specifically the guitar, (though he played other instruments well). He was both player and composer. It wasn't always fun living with a musical genius - he put me off The Beatles with the amount of their work I heard muffled through our adjoining wall, and you try revising for A Level exams while someone's 'practising' (i.e. battering) on their drum machine next door. But as annoying as he could be, there was no denying the boy could ​play​. Classical to contemporary, solo and ensemble.

We didn't exactly share the same taste(s) in music to listen to. As means of illustration, Martin found himself hilarious after writing 'Cannot Sing' under my sand-beach proclamation of love for Bon Jovi. He declared, by text even though we were seated in the same row, '"t's like Nirvana never happened" whilst Nickleback were giving us their stadium-show all. My brother despaired of much (the majority) of my music choices, especially once I'd branched into teaching street jazz dance and late 90's/early 2000's Pop and RnB were all I listened to in order to find the soundtracks to my choreography. Honestly, my impression is we only appeared to properly converge in our admiration for Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do (I do it for you)' (Martin quote: "If that is a song I don't know or do hate, we default to Everything I Do") and Seth Lakeman, (whose concert in Regents' Park also happened to be, in the end, the only one we shared attendance as a twosome). It was bittersweet to discover after Martin's death that Britney Spears and Cheryl actually had slots in his music library - what I wouldn't give to have a 'serious discussion' about his little but apparent appreciation for music he'd declared to me as 'awful, just s*%t awful'.

Martin didn't just love his music - music was him and he it. Consequently, musically-related life after his death has on occasion been tricky. There are many pronouncements that say 'music is therapy' in grief, that overwhelmingly it provides solace and is a positive way of help. But when the person gone was a pretty special musician, I can't 100% agree - I've not always found comfort in notes after Martin's death. Music is the worst for unexpected triggering - this goes particularly for radio listening, for example, when you're not privy to playlist running-orders and BAM(!), suddenly the next song hurls you back to age-whatever and the associated sibling memory, as quick as ants scuttle to escape an approaching heel. Even when you know what's coming, the sadness pressure build up and ensuing explosion-eruption can be stronger than anticipated, popping the cork you tried to put in it in advance - Radiohead headlining Glastonbury in 2017 reduced me to a blubbing mess, all memories triggered into rushing through my mind to the back of my eyes, as I knew, had Martin lived, he probably would have tried to give his right arm to be there and would have loved the performance. I've even tried to change my own taste in music, to listen to what he liked, to align with his preferences in an attempt, I think, to feel connected - the arrivals of the new Manic Street Preachers (2018) and Elbow (2019) albums have had me wanting to know his thoughts on them, (even though I've never been bothered about their music before), and I've wanted to go to their gigs ​for​ him, simply to see if I can get a sense of being in touch with him through the music he loved.

If there is any positive in Martin's leaving this world, it's that he left a musical legacy of his own. Here and here and here and here, and as the 'big solo' guitarist here. We can still hear his playing and compositions at least. But even with that sliver of luckiness, there is sadness in recognising no further pieces will be composed or recorded. Martin had an entire friend network build around music - I don't recall exactly how many bands he was involved in but it always seemed to me to be a lot... - and on the day of his funeral, in the evening, his friends organised a kind of open mic gathering to allow people to come and play in memoriam. I remember a friend from one of the earlier bands Martin had played with began his set by saying that when he thought about it, it was difficult to decide what to play ​for​ Martin, because really they'd only all ever really played ​with ​him and now that was gone. That set me off. Martin had played for me - one of my best memories is of us sitting together in his room whilst he played ​‘Classical Gas​‘ for me after much pleading (it's hard to impress in writing just how special it was to watch his mastery over the strings for this piece up quite so close) - but I only ever made music ​with my brother a couple of times. Once, I sang backing vocals for a song his band played one Sunday in a local Lancaster pub, 'The Bobbin' -
it was a good performance (I think) but otherwise such a memory prompts a massive sense of regret. Why did I take his musical talent and knowledge so for granted? Why did we not unite more? I will never again have the opportunity to enjoy my brother's musical company in its fullest character.

When I was approaching the 5th anniversary of Martin's death, now 3 years ago, I spoke to one of his friends about doing a song. His friends were organising another 'come and play' memorial evening and I thought about contributing. The friend I messaged was happy to accompany, but I eventually chickened out - I found while practising that I simply could not get through a - any - song without choking on words, getting really upset. It was impossible to sing without thinking of my brother, especially as I was at that point drawn to songs I thought I ​should​ sing (not that I necessarily wanted or enjoyed), all melancholic minor-key pieces. And thinking about it recently, I've come to realise that a big part of the problem at that time was that I did not feel music should be mine, should be done by me, in a public space. Martin was, after all, 'the musical one', and I did not want to venture into his territory after the tragedy of his death.

It has taken nearly 3 years to realise how irrational such thinking was, how utterly random - music was so much a part of Martin's being that I overlooked the reminders that also said music was a key part of my own. So this has become the year I plunged in and started singing again. My kitchen and car currently bear the brunt of my belting out, but I've also taken the step of joining the school choir where I work, and I've sung in public for the first time in nearly 20 years. Just as I as a person have altered, my voice too is not what it was, but that isn't the point or the goal - it is simply feeling right, (finally) therapeutic. There are still songs I can't/won't go near because I know I won't be able to get through them at present, but at least I now have a sense that their turn will come eventually. It is feeling good to reclaim ​my​ music, to detach 'music' as a single entity, from my brother's death. And really, what would be a better way to honour my brother on the anniversary of his death than by singing a song that fits me but that he'd probably hate/berate? I can hear his verdict now - 'awful, just s*%t awful' - and I love that.

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