Electric Babyland

P1000532
Originally uploaded by billyjoebob.

Your great-grandmother, punkin, who loves you very very much, has just sent you your very first guitar.

In conjunction with your excitement at playing the piano at Fiona's house recently, I can only surmise that your musical talents will fairly closely emulate those of your mother and father.

Namely, that your enthusiasm will far outweigh your ability, and that people will applaud the end of your recitals chiefly out of relief that you have stopped.

Of course I could be completely wrong. Your uncle Nick is an accomplished guitarist and pianist, and there's no reason you can't, with appropriate levels of dedication, do anything that you put your mind to.

The problem for me with music has always been one of making a conceptual leap. I can understand how to do it, I can, with appropriate instruction, copy and parrot other people's efforts to a fair degree of technical competence, but I've never been capable of taking the step up to actually creating any of my own. Certainly it's early days yet to be telling you what you can and can't do, so we'll leave the instrumental capability on one side awaiting further evidence.

But I can tell you one thing now.

One thing that will surprise me even less than when your mother got home from the maternal health nurse and said "She says his height is fine, but he's underweight". The maternal health nurse, punkin, has obviously never taken a good look at your dad (who is, although with a small amount of breathing in and squeezing, the same pant size he's been for the last 15 years) or your grandad Ian (who's not much bigger).

You, punkin, will never be a great singer. Your mother and father are both full of enthusiasm for singing, particularly when they think there's no-one else around, but they are certainly not in any way what one would call tuneful.

Love you.