Soul For Real | Inkwell Creative Nonfiction #3

It is difficult to state when I started to listen. All that I can remember is when I started to listen to music with some level of passion. We were tutored around music and we learned under the influence of knowing the lines like some expert who have taken the gesture like their lives depended on it. So, if I tell you that music is life, then that wouldn't be a mistaken statement.

♪♪ and so many nights, I dreamed of you. Holding my pillow tight, now I know, I don't need to be alone.

That is the first musical line I ever learned. Being a member of my school's Literary and Debating Society, I had the opportunity to see a lot of students showcasing their talents in both public speaking, brain teasers and poem recitation.

This particular year, the school management board decided to add musical miming as part of activities that schools would be competing in. You needed to see the influx of students joining the LDS (short form for Literary and Debating Society).

Soon, rehearsals started. We would assemble in the school hall in the presence of our coordinating teachers to either speak, recite, argue, sing or dance. The beauty of the whole scene is that you get to learn from students in other categories other than yours.

I love to recite poems. Nightfall in Soweto was one of my favorites. But this time, it has to be brain teasers. I have learned the doors already. The inclusion of music in the competition gave it another flavour entirely.

At the assembly hall, I would go with my pen and jotter to scribble the line of songs that would be mimed. This is how my journey into music started. Those days, there were no lyric books or the internet to search for a particular song. You would have to strain your ears to listen to the song carefully and then, write what you have heard in your jotter.

As time went on, I started to like radio programmes where the latest song would be played. At times, I would have to buy an empty cassette to record songs that are being aired on the frequency wave.

You would have to wonder at my level of comprehension in music. I wish it was the same for my studies. The likes of Celine Dion, Joe, Lauren Hill, *Elton John, West Life, and a host of other musicians took the most of my thoughts.

I remember vividly how I would have to scribble some of the lyrics I had learned in songs into some love letters back in the days.

Without much ado, you would agree with me that music formed our attitude and gestures. We were soft-spoken and friendly because of the kind of music we listened to.

A lot of lessons I learned from the world of gangsters that we read and watched in American bestseller movies. Rap music is another class of music and it was loved because of the rhymes that one started to learn in our local environment and to also inculcate into our genre of music.

Another thing that came back to mind is how it became almost impossible to sleep each day without music. I would have to tune to one popular radio station where music would be played from around 10:00 pm till cock crows. Would you refer to that as addiction? If it is, then it was what gave us some level of understanding of the relationships we keep and how to nurture what we have.

That pattern of life is still with me as we speak. I love music and it has helped shape the way I think and relate with my neighbours.