ANYONE CAN BE A MUSICAL GENIUS. YOUR TIME STARTS NOW . . .
ILLUSTRATED BY ROB FLOWERS
TASKMASTER
PUFFIN BOOKS
ANYONE CAN BE A MUSICAL GENIUS. YOUR TIME STARTS NOW . . .
ILLUSTRATED BY ROB FLOWERS
Please supervise children during the activities and tasks described in this book, use appropriate safety measures at all times and follow the health and safety advice provided.
The activities described are undertaken at the participants’ own risk and the author and publishers disclaim, as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or misuse of any information contained in this book.
The material in this book is intended to be humorous. In some cases true life figures are mentioned and some references and descriptions of events are substantially fictitious and the products of the authors’ imagination.
This book goes out to all you people out there who have ever eaten breakfast.
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First published 2024 001
Text copyright © Shakey Productions, 2024 Illustration copyright © Rob Flowers 2024
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ISBN: 978–0–241–64972–5
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WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS BOOK?
Music is everywhere. You can probably hear it right now. Shut your eyes. There: hear the rumble of your neighbour’s rubbish car, the clanging of someone walking too close to a radiator, the distant barking of a dog and the desperate whistling of its owner. Can you hear someone blowing bubbles in their drink through a straw or a gust of wind knocking down your dustbin?
That’s music! Or, at least, that’s sound. And so it might become music. Because sound is the basis of all music.
(ALSO, I DIDN’T SAY OPEN YOUR EYES AGAIN. IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU’RE CHEATING.)
OK, you can open them now.
You can choose not to go fishing and refuse to eat broccoli, but you can’t avoid music. You can’t put your fingers in your ears all the time and block out all the noise and sound around you, because eventually you’re going to need to do other things like tying your shoelaces and dipping your chips in ketchup.
Music is all around you, and chances are you’re going to listen to over a million songs in your lifetime . . .
EVERY YEAR YOU’LL HEAR MUSIC FOR MORE THAN 730 HOURS. THAT’S THIRTY DAYS OF SOLID TUNES THAT STARTED IN SOMEONE ELSE’S HEAD AND ENDED UP IN YOURS.
In a single day you’ll hear about two hours of music. That’s about fifty songs. EVERY DAY! Can you name fifty songs? I can, but only after thinking about it really hard for a week, in which time I’ll have heard another 350.
No matter who you are, music is going to play a big part in your life. Everywhere you go, music will go too.
95% of the world’s population listen to a song by British singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran at least once every day and twice at the weekend.
BUT WHO ARE WE AND WHAT IS THE ACTUAL POINT OF THIS BOOK?
My name is Alex Horne, and I’m in charge of a comedy jazz band called the Horne Section. They’re here with me too but I’m writing this bit because they’re all holding their instruments.
We love playing music, and we love making people laugh. And as a comedy band we sometimes even make people laugh while we play them music. We perform what we think are funny songs up and down the country, appearing on radio and TV. We even have our own TV show. We play jazz music, but also things like pop and rock and country. (We’ll talk about all the different types of music in Chapter 4.) While we like to mess around, some of us do actually know quite a bit about music, so we’ve decided to share everything we know with you. And because making music is one of the most fun things there is, we want to help you make your own music too.
Hi there, I’m Ed and I play the piano. Alex was lying before when he said we were all holding our instruments. I wasn’t carrying my piano. I can carry my piano because I’m very strong, but I wasn’t then. Anyway, I just wanted to pop up to say hello . . . Hello.
That’s one of the musicians. And that’s the sort of thing they do. You’ll see them popping up a lot throughout this book with some annoying (and sometimes useful) things to say. They are more talented than me, though, so I keep them around to make music.
With this book as your handy guide, you and your friends could start a band just like us. Because if you’re going to start a band, you need to know a lot of important musical information. Not the boring rubbish you learn at school, though – this is the funny, gross and mind-blowing stuff. This book is packed with bizarre tales, unbelievable musical history and bonkers facts about instruments (including one that’s bigger than a cricket pitch). We’ll also tell you about what types of music there are, what all the different instruments look and sound like, and how you can become a musician without spending thirty years in a room all by yourself learning scales (like one of our band members did).
Yes, I have spent a long time in one room playing the same notes over and over again, but I don’t have any regrets.
I had a nice view of the park and I got to eat crisps all da Y.
From picking your band mates, finding the best instrument for you, discovering the music you want to play (and much more), we’re going to take you on a rip-roaring journey through sound as you find your way to musical legend status. But before we go further, let’s start with the most important lesson of all, which is this: absolutely anyone can start playing music. Anyone! I am not a musician. I am a comedian. I didn’t study music at school or university.
So while I can make people laugh I’m no expert in all the technical musical stuff. But because I’m very funny (and my name sounds like a musical instrument) I have found my place in the Horne Section doing the important stuff like waving a stick around and being really enthusiastic.
Whether you play no instruments, one instrument or many instruments, whether you come from a family of musicians or you’ve never even seen a piano before, I promise that you ARE a musician. You live and breathe music, just like the rest of us, possibly without even realizing. So warm up those vocal cords and prepare to laugh and learn a lot, as we dive into the amazing story of sound.
THE BAND
So let me introduce you to the silly people in my band who have written this book with me. (It’s worth noting that each one of them looks a little bit like the instrument they play.)
Joe Auckland
The Trumpeter
LOOKS LIKE AN OVERGROWN SCRUFFY BABY, BUT PLAYS TRUMPET LIKE AN ANGEL
Powerful lips
Also plays the banjo and wears funny silver rings
Furry head like a kiwi (fruit or bird)
Chops his food with a fork and scoops it up with his knife
Able to fall asleep within three minutes because he is more like a dog than a human
Mark Brown The SaxophonisT
GRUMPY POP LEGEND
Very long tongue and powerful jaw – as every saxophone player needs
Never been late
Never been ill
Wrote his own facts about himself because he always thinks he’ll do a better job than anyone else
Ed Sheldrake
The Pianist
THE HANDSOME WEASEL
Wide finger span
Excellent at dancing
Only leaves his house for the Horne Section
The most naturally gifted musician in the band but also the most peculiar. Probably not a coincidence
Willip Collier The Bassist
LONG AND BONY
Callused hands from plucking the bass (which means the skin on his fingers is rock hard)
Very long fingers, legs and neck
Always wears very old pants
Likes practising the bass as much as he likes crisps, i.e. a lot
Ben Reynolds
The Drummer
HAPPIEST WHEN HE’S HITTING HIS NOISY CIRCLES (OR, AS HE CALLS THEM, CYMBALS AND DRUMS) AGAIN AND AGAIN
Two hands, two feet
Muscles, big muscles
Can’t burp
Scared of eggs
A smiley boy who can’t believe he gets to make a living playing drums
AND THIS IS ME. I TELL EVERYONE WHAT MUSIC TO PLAY AND HOW FAST TO PLAY IT (THERE’S A LITTLE BIT MORE TO CONDUCTING BUT MORE ON THAT LATER).
Has a lectern and a baton (a stand and a stick)
Thinks he’s in charge of the band but can’t read music
Zero talent, maximum enthusiasm
Has a bad habit of making up facts for fun
One of the few people in the world to have an extra (hidden) ear, so he can usually hear music coming before anyone else ALEX HORNE the conductor
As you can see, I am the most important member of the band. By miles. But throughout this book I’m going to have chats with my band members, who can offer some true tales and fascinating facts about music.
For our first band chat let’s see if we can find out what music actually is. Because despite what I said at the start, it’s not quite as simple as a bin falling over while a dog barks . . .
I don’t actually know how to conduct or play any music, but I think I do, and that’s what counts.
BAND CHAT
Alex: So what is music?
Band: Great question, Alex.
Alex: It’s Alex Horne.
Band: Great question, Alex Horne. Well, music is a collection of different sounds that have been organized in such a way that they make you want to dance, smile, cry or buy things after watching an advert.
1 2 3 4
Band: To get a bit more technical, music is generally thought to consist of four things:
MELODY
A series of sounds organized into a tune.
HARMONY
A collection of musical notes that sound good when played together.
RHYTHM
A strong pattern of words, sounds or notes.
TONE
The qualities of the actual sound of the notes and what makes one note sound different from another.
If you want to talk about the tone of a song, use words like ‘brassy’, ‘bright’ or ‘reedy’ (‘reedy’ refers to the reed that all woodwind instruments have and isn’t anything to do with books).
Band: As you can probably tell from our clumsy descriptions, all these things are easier to hear than describe. So how about you turn on the radio or the TV? If you don’t have a radio because you’re not as old as us, or you’re reading this somewhere with no TV, like your bedroom or a submarine, here are some examples:
Imagine someone’s having a bowl of cereal. They clink their spoon on the bowl slowly at first before speeding up. That pattern of sounds is the rhythm .
Now imagine it’s your birthday. All your friends are at your house and your mum has called you in from the garden. She turns the lights out, brings out a cake and she alone sings ‘Happy Birthday’. Then your friends join in with the melody to create sweet, sweet music. Their voices together create a harmony . Or imagine you are watching your dog in the garden. She has taken a flipflop from the house and is holding it in her mouth and shaking it as hard as she can. The flipflop splits, falls to the ground and she stares at it. Then she barks at it. Once, twice, three times. And then she does a wee nearby. Did you notice the different tones in all those sounds? No? Well, you’re right, that wasn’t music. That was just a dog shouting at a flipflop.
Alex: Thanks, band, that was a great answer. But also it was quite a boring answer, and this is meant to be a funny book. So please could you try again but make it more fun? This time you’ve got to answer the question ‘What is music?’ in under sixty-five words and the last one has to be ‘food’.
Band: Music is a mixture of lovely, beautiful or sometimes even scary sounds made by musical instruments creating vibrations in the air. These vibrations make their way into your ears and along to your brain. Imagine the most delicious and horrible meals you’ve ever tasted, and all the meals in between, and you have to eat these meals with your ears. Music is ear food.
Alex: Well, there we go. Music is like baked beans. We all know what baked beans do; they taste great and help us make wonderful funny sounds. That’s music! And why is there so much music around?
Band: Because it makes us feel good. It makes us happier and healthier. In a way music is like medicine. Listening to music has been found to make us feel less worried. Depending on what music you listen to, it can also help you sleep, be more alert or remember things better. It improves our mood and helps us communicate with the people around us. It makes us excited and then calms us down. Music can really change an experience or situation, whether you’re watching football, eating in a restaurant, having a birthday party, watching a movie or trying to build the highest tower of potatoes on a plate in a bouncy castle. And scientists have also found that listening to music releases dopamine and endorphins.
Alex: I don’t know what dopamine and endorphins are. They sound like they live in the sea.
Band: They don’t live in the sea, Alex. Dopamine and endorphins are chemicals made by your body, and when they are released in your brain they make you feel good. Things like exercise and music can release dopamine and boost your happiness! ALEX HAS LEFT THE CONVERSATION.
BUT WHAT ACTUALLY IS MUSIC?
So far we’ve said that music is a lot of different things, but if you go into a music class with a bowl of baked beans and say you’re ready for your lesson, your teacher might not be too impressed. The trouble is, while my band really do know their stuff, they’re also very silly and find farting funny. So let’s check what some of the world’s great and serious musicians, writers and artists believe music is:
Music is what feelings sound like.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), writer.
Music doesn’t lie.
Jimi
Hendrix (1942–1970), guitarist, singer, songwriter.
Are you sure it doesn’t lie? The Beatles had a song called ‘I Am the Walrus’ and none of them had tusks. Jimi Hendrix himself sang ‘I was the first man on the moon’ and that’s definitely not true. Shakira said her hips don’t lie, but that’s another matter.
Look, Hendrix said it and he’s one of the greatest guitarists of all time, so it’s definitely true. And anyway, we’re near the end of the chapter. If you’re quiet now, we’ll get this done quicker, then we can go and eat some lasagne.