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PRELUDE

CLASSICAL MUSIC MAKES ME HARD.

I know that’s not a hugely promising opening sentence for some people. But if you scratch the word ‘classical’, perhaps it’s not quite so bad. Maybe it even becomes understandable. Because now, with the word ‘music’, we have something universal, something exciting, something intangible and immortal.

You and I are instantly connected through music. I listen to music. You listen to music. Music has infiltrated and influenced our lives as much as nature, literature, art, sport, religion, philosophy and television. It is the great unifier, the drug of choice for teenagers around the world. It provides solace, wisdom, hope and warmth and has done so for thousands of years. It is medicine for the soul. There are eighty-eight keys on a piano and within that, an entire universe.

And yet . . .

My job description is ‘concert pianist’, and so there is, inevitably, a lot written about classical music in this book. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of the press around its launch will try as hard as possible to ignore that fact. They’ll do that because core classical music doesn’t sell anything, ever, and is seen by many as utterly irrelevant. And because everything about classical music, from the musicians themselves to the presentation of its product, the record labels, management – the whole industry ethos and ethics surrounding it – is almost totally devoid of any redeeming qualities.

But the unassailable fact is that music has, quite literally, saved my life and, I believe, the lives of countless others. It provides company when there is none, understanding where there is confusion, comfort where there is distress, and sheer, unpolluted energy where there is a hollow shell of brokenness and fatigue.

And so wherever and whenever there is the ubiquitous, knee-jerk temptation to roll eyes and tune out at hearing or reading the phrase ‘classical music’, I think of the huge mistakes I’ve made in the past by lazily adopting the principle of contempt prior to investigation. And to those of you who have that reaction, I urge you, beg you, to hold on for a minute and ask yourself this:

If there were something not manufactured by government, sweat shops, Apple or Big Pharma that could automatically, consistently, unfailingly add a little more excitement, lustre, depth and strength to your life, would you be curious?

Something with no side effects, requiring no commitment, no prior knowledge, no money, just some time and maybe a decent set of headphones.

Would you be interested?

We all have a soundtrack to our lives. Many of us have become immune, overexposed, tired and let down by it. We are assaulted by music in movies, TV shows, shopping malls, phone calls, elevators and advertisements. Quantity has long overtaken quality. More of everything is, apparently, good. And Christ, what a price we are paying for it. For every genuinely thrilling rock band, film score or contemporary composer, there are several thousand piles of shit that are thrust upon us at every opportunity. The industry behind it treats us with almost zero respect and even less trust. Success, rather than being earned, is bought, paid for, whored out and pushed onto us manipulatively and insidiously.

Among other things, I want this book to offer solutions to the watered-down, self-serving bastardisation of the classical music industry that we have been forced to embrace against our will. I hope that it will also show that the problems and potential solutions within the classical industry are applicable to a much, much wider panorama of similar issues within our whole culture in general and the arts in particular.

And woven throughout it is going to be my life story. Because it’s a story that provides proof that music is the answer to the unanswerable. The basis for my conviction about that is that I would not exist, let alone exist productively, solidly – and, on occasion, happily – without music.

Many people would say that it is far, far too early for me to be writing a memoir. I’m thirty-eight (at time of writing), and the notion of an autobiography at this age might seem indulgent and egotistical. But to be able to write about what I believe in and has kept me alive, to expand on the ideas I’ve had for so many years, to respond to criticism and offer solutions to something that is troubling and urgent, is, I think, a worthwhile thing to do.

My qualifications for writing this come from having made it through certain experiences that some people perhaps wouldn’t have. And having come out the other side (thus far) and, in the eyes of the editor who sold this idea to her boss ‘made something of myself’, I’ve now been given the opportunity to write a book. Which makes me fall about laughing because, as you’ll see over the next 80,000 words, I’m surrounded by an inherent madness, have a rather warped concept of integrity, few worthwhile relationships, even fewer friends, and, all self-pity aside, I’m a bit of an asshole.

I hate myself, twitch too much, frequently say the wrong thing, scratch my ass at inappropriate times (and then sniff my fingers), can’t look in the mirror without wanting to die. I’m a vain, self-obsessed, shallow, narcissistic, manipulative, degenerate, wheedling, whiny, needy, self-indulgent, vicious, cold, self-destructive douchebag.

I’ll give you an example.

Today I woke up slightly before four in the morning.

Four a.m. is the worst possible time in any given twenty-four hours. In fact that hour between 3.30 and 4.30 is the absolute fucker. From 4.30 you’re OK – you can kick around in bed until 5 and then get up safe in the knowledge that some people do in fact get up at 5 a.m. To get their idiotic jogs in before work, to get ready for the early shift, to meditate, to do yoga or have a blessed forty-five minutes not thinking about the kids or the mortgage.

Or just not thinking.

Whatever.

But if you’re up any time before then, evidently there is something wrong with you.

There has to be.

I started writing this at 3.47 a.m.

There is something wrong with me.

I have seen enough 4 a.m.s roll by on my Rolex (fake), iPhone dock, IWC (real), grandfather, wall, auto-reverse/FM/CD player, Casio, Mickey Mouse (timepieces in reverse order) to last several lifetimes. There is the inevitable mental click, like a switch being flicked on, the ‘fuck it’ moment, when you decide to get up and on with it. To step up and step out into the world. Knowing it’s going to hurt. That it’s going to be a long one.

I know, for example, that I will have completed my four hours’ piano practice, smoked fourteen cigarettes, drunk a pot of coffee, showered, read the paper, caught up on emails and filled the car up with petrol by 9 a.m. today. My entire day and everything that I needed to do in it will be achieved, over, ticked off by 9 a.m. What do I even do with that information? What the hell do I do from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m., which is the earliest I can turn my light off and try to go to sleep without feeling like a mentally ill loser?

And I know why I’m up so early so often.

It’s all because of my head. The enemy. My eventual cause of death; land-mine, ticking bomb, Moriarty. My stupid fucking head that makes me weep and scream and yell and scratch my mental brain-eyes out in frustration. Ever-present, consistent only in its inconsistency, angry, spoiled, rotten, warped, wrong, sharp, honed, predatory.

Here’s what happened this morning: