People admire a prodigy.  As a musician, clearly I have more knowledge of prodigy within the discipline, but of course, they can come in any field, in any part of life.  So, as a musician, first of all, let me mention the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in 1756 to a musical father in Salzburg, Austria.  Now, there was a prodigious talent.  He was already composing simple melodies at three; at five, he composed his first published work, an ‘Andante in C major’ for the piano, or harpsichord at the time.  It is just ten bars long, and although a very simple composition it demonstrates stuff that a five-year-old should not know – an understanding of phrasing, harmony and of the Baroque style, not to mention other stuff like how to finish a piece of music, cadencing and so forth.  It is short, it is simple, he was five.

Mozart lived a very short life; he was dead before his thirty-sixth birthday.  Yet his musical career lasted for thirty-one of those years.  He was that rare creature; a child prodigy with enough musical ability to take his fame into adulthood.  Many prodigies today cannot do that.  We’ve all seen those videos on YouTube, uploaded by proud parents, of little Johnny, aged just two, who can play all the Rachmaninoff ‘Preludes’ backwards and from memory.  Great stuff, but what have they got to offer going forward?  Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is an exception, as was Yehudi Menuhin.  Generally speaking, though, nada.

Amazing.  Pre-school kids who can play the piano better than I’ll ever hope to play.  I can’t even imagine playing the piano that good.

But what about the ‘slow release’ talent; the kind of talent that takes decades to develop properly, and might flower later on in life?  This could be for any number of reasons; ability and circumstance are most likely the two major factors that can cause or contribute to the ‘slow release’ talent, just as they can the prodigy.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that I can or could ever be able to play as well as some of these pre-schoolers.  But my own musical ability – and indeed, abilities and interests in other areas outside of music – are now developing so quickly that I can barely contain them.  And I’m 51, almost 52.  Jesus, when you write it down, it’s almost as though you are writing about someone else.

In the last, oh, ten years or so – let’s say since I turned 40 – I have written almost 2 1/2 books, a movie screenplay, a lecture, part of a sitcom, countless (well over 1,500) songs and song ideas, maybe a huge variety of ideas concerning books, plays, screenplays, songs, more books, data and, of course, countless rants on Facebook.  That’s in addition to having recorded 26 albums’ worth of music, and I’m just about finishing off my 27th.  In twelve years.  That’s in addition to having spent almost a year in California and Utah, researching the life and work of the Hollywood composer Max Steiner, composer of the music of Gone With the Wind, King Kong, The Informer and about 250 others.

So, I think I am well justified in claiming that mine is a ‘slow release’ talent; to some, it may not appear that much or any of it that good, but as I turned forty it just began to pour out of me.  I couldn’t stop it.  Perhaps it was my way of letting the ‘mid-life crisis’ express itself.  Who cares what the reason is, it just happened.

That’s in addition to the fact that, in 2007, while living with my mother in Cornwall, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, (or Fobromyalgia, because it kind of ‘fobs off’ itself as many other conditions), a chronic and debilitating condition that, while it doesn’t kill you, it makes your life pretty miserable most of the time.  I’m on almost 30 painkillers a day, which turn my head into a dulled, dopey mush, and I’m barely mobile.  Pain is an accepted part of my life, of our lives (myself and my dear, patient and loving wife Jane).

That’s in addition to the fact that, over the last ten years or so, my dear wife Jane and I have set up Musiclusive, a non-profit organisation that tries to give a voice to the voiceless; to enable communication through music and F.C. (Facilitated Communication).  This is a subject which I plan to write about sometime in the future, too.  Meanwhile, you can learn more about them here, and join their Facebook group here.  My dear wife works all the hours God sends and then borrows some from who knows where, to give a voice to those who, for one reason or another, are silent; or who find it difficult to express themselves in such a way that their true feelings can be identified and understood.  I have to say that I admire her tremendously for this; it could well be her greatest achievement, one which she must be careful to maintain according to the vision that she has.  But she is working towards it, and I am so proud to be her ‘Technical Advisor,’ and I suppose a ‘Musical Advisor’ of sorts – I can usually figure out what key songs are in – and just to be there for her every step of the way.  Good for you, Mrs. B!

I don’t think I’ve done too badly, under the circumstances.  And yes, I blow my own trumpet a little bit because nobody else is going to do it for you, especially if you’re not that good.  I believe I have an ego the size of Milton Keynes, but not the talent to match.  An ego that wants to be massaged, but not the talent to give back.  So, I want to be the Voice of the Talentless; the Spokesman of the Mediocre.

There’s still plenty of stuff that I want to do: I have ideas for all sorts of things – YouTube channels, channels on other video and audio sites, blogs like this one, and more music.  I write down as many ideas as I can, good or bad; I can sift out which is which later.  I’ve written about 250 songs since April.  I sometimes have dozens of browsers, programs and apps open at the same time; I’m sure my dear wife can testify to that.  My mind is complete chaos most of the time.

I guess I’m just trying to justify why it is that I can be such a darn fool sometimes.  Perhaps, that, too, is slow release.  No, I’d say that was ‘fast release,’ especially since I turned forty.  Idiocy has poured from me for a decade and a half, almost.

You know, I look at these blogs as songs, poems, albums.  Sometimes they have a lot of ‘verses’, sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes they are about me, sometimes not.  Sometimes they are a proper rant, at other times not so much.  But what they are is a demonstration that the sleeping giant that is my creative desire (I try not to use the words ‘ability’ or ‘talent’ too much, more a desire) is very slowly beginning to awaken.

That’s in addition to the fact that I continue to develop interests in areas that I thought would never happen: astrophysics, cosmology, theoretical physics are the big surprises for me; I enjoy them very much, and I continue to learn about what is a very complicated set of subjects.  Mathematics is not a strong point of mine, and given that so much theoretical physics is based on maths, you can imagine that this particular discipline is super slow for me, so I am forced to give it extra time when necessary.  What surprises me is that I am happy to do so.  I guess the mid-life crisis makes you take up these weird and wonderful topics – at least, weird and wonderful from my perspective as a musician.

But, being a musician, I should have a sound (ho, ho, ho…zzzz) knowledge of certain aspects of maths and physics, and sometimes the two subjects combined.  The music itself is very solidly based on mathematics.  In a four-beat bar, you cannot have five notes unless you begin to manipulate the lengths of notes in order to fit them in.  If you end up with sixteen notes in the bar, and you want them the same length, you must make sure they are the correct length notes (semi-quavers, and not quavers, for example).

I’m going to write further rants – sorry, blog posts – on the subject of YouTube, but let’s just say for the moment that it is a wonderful resource for any subject you care to mention.  That, and Wikipedia; Wikipedia has gained a bad rap because it is freely editable by almost anyone in the world.  It is a good idea, when using Wikipedia, to make sure that any reference you are using can be verified elsewhere, and to double-check that source at first-hand.  But as a general rule, it is fabulous and I must admit that I have contributed my own data and corrections to it.

I watch a lot of YouTube because my mobility has, in the past, been very limited and, although pain and anxiety and depression and everything seem to get worse before they get better, there is that slight point of light at the end of a very dark tunnel; the light of hope.  I watch videos about people who watch a lot of videos.  Documentaries on every subject you can imagine.  Idiots uploading videos of their cat licking their six-month-old child; I’ve watched them all.  Why?  I’ve explained above.

But I cannot just sit and do nothing.  After all, something is better than nothing.  I plan as I said earlier, to write about YouTube, Wikipedia, and the rest.  As I always say: so many rants, so little time. x