Grooving – A story of Nostalgia

“I got sunshine in the daylight and moonlight every night, but I’m just grooving, grooving out on life. Yeah I’m just grooving, grooving out on life…” UB40.

This is a track that resonates deep into my soul, my love for music and its roots. Grooving is the chirpy song that tells a story of living your life through the melody and the uncomplicated beauty of it. Unknowingly until now that’s exactly what I have been doing, slipping in the ear phones and travelling down this road from time to time reminds me why I do what I do.

As a little girl I remember dancing at my dad’s feet as he played this song and a few other UB40 classics on early Saturday mornings off of the hi-fi from the tape cassettes. Singing at the top of his rhythmic voice with so much vigour and feeling that it felt like it came straight from his heart, with one hand on his chest and the other waving in mid-air he moved to and fro with closed eyed smiles.  I looked up at him and in those moments my passion for this happy thing called music was born. Imitating most of his moves and rambling along in my five year old voice, he looked down and assured me with a wink that he thought I was great.

He always encouraged and inspired in me a love for music that I realise was inherent as we are from the same blood-line. Often he whipped out the guitar and played classics while teaching me to sing along. He beamed with pride and satisfaction as I watched his fingers skim the chords and strum.

Even though my choice in music was only but shaping, my identity in sound was groomed with kick-drums, hi-hats, bass guitars, saxophone and trumpets. All resulting in the deep, Caribbean style bass lines I’m a sucker for today. Whenever I hear a Marimba band, one of them Ol’ School Jazz Man Bands in the waterfront or a dude chilling with an acoustic guitar or from time to time (if you’re lucky) a saxophone, I absolutely have to stop and listen.

The importance here? Very simply, the originality and purity of live instrumental music is a feat we should allow ourselves more in an age where clicking and downloading has become the average music listener’s first choice in the enjoyment of their favourite genre. Few music listeners get to enjoy anymore or often enough the beauty of the genuine experience of live music as it happens. This includes the music producers who are by no means worth any less talent , who choose instead to copy and paste samples when arranging a track. Getting back to the root of your own favourite genre and being creative by implementing the use of various complimentary live instruments when compiling your productions could lend to a very unqiue and interesting experience.

Either way all I’m saying is that applying a little more soul only ever accomplished great things. Whether or not your aim is to get mainstream recognition or success… your aim should be to keep it real in the interim too. It is however only for your own greater good and sanity.

Remembering is an important part of enjoying, appreciating and making music. Nostalgia and euphoria is the pull behind what our ears take in and send to our brains, releasing the happy hormones that take our minds and bodies back to the place that reminds us of that song.

So that in the end we keep on grooving, keep on moving and never forget those moments that hinted at the start of your affair with music. In many ways you could be surprised at the influence it still has on your daily life.

WORDS: Mary Honeychild