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“I don’t know anything about music, in my line you don’t have to.” – Elvis Presley

An amazing and unexpected journey has begun for me.

I took up Italian in my 20′s, tennis in my 30s and chess in my 40s. I had assumed after that the brain was closed for any further tricky business.

I always believed that only the very young could learn a musical instrument. I had also heard many times that if you are good at maths, you’ll do well at music. I sucked at maths.

Music has always been in my life one way or another.  Early guidance came courtesy of my parents’ vinyl collection of Harry Belafonte, The Seekers, Johnny Cash, African Safari, Tijuana Brass, the soundtracks to Salad Days, Fiddler on the Roof and my favourite — the music from the French movie A Man and a Woman.

I inhaled the music of my best friends’ older siblings: James Taylor, Donovan, Carole King, Carly Simon, Melanie and The Rolling Stones.

In my first year at university in Brisbane my then boyfriend introduced me to The Sex Pistols. Hungry for more of this edgy, raw music I joined a swag of uni students, largely from the medical faculty, in trawling music venues to explore the local punk scene. I was lucky enough to experience Cloudland and to this day I swear Nick Cave jumped on my table at the Queen’s hotel and ripped my blouse. (I can only hope). The Brisbane punk rock scene between 1975 and 1984 is generally regarded as producing “some of the most anarchistic bands of the Australian punk rock era”. (according to the Encyclopaedia of Australian Rock and Pop, p. 237).

Perhaps it was the way the skinny boys “pogo” danced falling over each other in stovepipe pants and thin black ties, or the promise of love letters quoting The Clash — I wanted in on the act.

Of course I couldn’t sing but that didn’t stop me standing in front of the microphone of a student punk band. I was super skinny, wore op-shop clothes picked up in the then seedy Valley, had my grandmother’s pointy patent leather pumps, lit my face up with the reddest lipstick and had more confidence than was legally possible.  Luckily it was the time of screaming, where not being able to sing was a minor impediment to greatness.

The band had the foresight not to actually have a name. Given its short life span it was a wise move. We played at several uni parties. The tunes were great. My lyrics were, in retrospect, a bit naive, except perhaps for my song about a girl working in the ‘pineapple’ factory. To this day when I go home my old school friends, after a few wines, make the inevitable request for me to perform ‘Cannery Girl’.

The final performance of our nameless band was in broad daylight (clearly our downfall) at the 21st party of a friend. Sitting in front of us were not our peers, but a number of elderly relatives who looked on in genuine shock. In the stark reality of sunshine I realised that despite the musical dexterity of the boys, I couldn’t actually sing.

Luckily I finished my degree and fled to Sydney to further my studies, exploring Paddington Town Hall, the Basement and the Roundhouse, seeing the likes of The Laughing Clowns, The Sardines and Mental as Anything.

You may be asking, what’s this got to do with folk music?? Stay with me.

A year later I arrived in Canberra and soon began a career as a journalist, I soon met the love of my life and we married and had two boys.

I was a great one for getting out of the house and taking my eldest, then two, to any kind of event with a soul in a city purported to be without one. I stumbled across a group of musicians at the ANU and hence my love affair with the National Folk Festival began.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love going to indie music festivals, Marcus and I have done Austin City Limits, Womadeliade and the Big Day Out, with Splendour in the Grass in our sights.

But for me there is nothing like the National Folk Festival.

And nothing like folk music. For me, not the clichéd Australian ballads or Euro pin-up trad or the impossible prettiness of the likes of The Corrs. I am talking about the often fierce, moving, funny and always deeply personal stories as told by the hands of musical wizards.

By about February every year I start getting pumped. Just thinking about the atmosphere; the food; the ever-expanding group of friends I have coaxed along (who are now also addicted); the colourful characters; the incredibly eclectic spread of music; the feeling on the Thursday night when you sit down with a Guinness and know you have left all your cares behind you for five glorious days; and the beautiful moments – a child busking, old friendships igniting around a camp-fire over mulled wine or a young girl playing fierce fiddle alongside an old seadog on his accordion piano at the Sessions Bar.

And then it dawned on me. I wanted to be in on the act. I wanted to participate. I wanted to walk into the Sessions Bar with the tell-tale black case slung over my shoulder (yes with something in it) looking like “I knew what I was doing with strings and things”.

Oh yes I have played the spoon on a beer bottle at 5am or strummed a torch with a fork to effect some kind of rhythmic noise with a group of bewildered Greek drummers at 6am – but it’s not the same…..

I wanted just once to know what it felt like to let fly with an instrument not needing to think about technical crap but having the music flow from your heart and soul (and still sound good!).

And now for the very first time in my life, I am doing something I never thought possible at this time of my life. I am making a serious attempt to learn a musical instrument. The fiddle. And it’s friggin’ fabulous.

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