Maybe I'll be a musician

I've always wanted to play a musical instrument. You'll notice I said play, rather than learn. A deliberate choice of words, because it's the learning that's always put me off. Not having the time for it, partly, but also knowing myself well enough to admit, reluctantly, that I almost certainly wouldn't have the patience or determination for it either.

Recent musical activities in the shape of Beresford & Wallace have rekindled my interest in playing, and by a strange coincidence Natalie's keyboard has been lying on the study floor gathering dust for more than a year, silently nagging me to plug it in and run my fingers along its smooth white loveliness. With occasional smooth black loveliness thrown in, in the usual way of keyboards.

We popped in to Waterstones over Easter weekend for an OS map or two in preparation for our forthcoming jaunt to the Lakes, and while Nikki was trying to find the holiday reading she was after, my browsing led me to a book entitled Learn to Play Keyboards (with a free CD!). I was tempted. Skimming the first few pages was enough to convince me to buy it.

But owning the means to learn - a keyboard, a computer, and a book of lessons - and actually doing the learning are still quite widely separate things. Nevertheless the actual learning took a step closer yesterday when Annie called around to fix me up with a new soundcard and a music editing suite. In a trice the keyboard was connected up and working, and I was having a play with my very own soundbank. Yes flutes, oboes, grand pianos, church organs and many more are all now mine for the trying.

Lesson 1...