I’ve always felt the power of music and the way it brings people together. It’s quite an amazing force when you think about it. If you’ve ever been to a festival or concert or any kind of performance, especially if it’s a great one, the energy that is emitted is incredible. You go away feeling as though you’re walking on air, as if you’d been in the eye of a tornado and survived, as if there was nothing on earth that you couldn’t do.

I remember going to my first concert and am embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t something cool like The Cure or The Smiths or any other band that I listened to a couple of years after. No, it was Wham. Wham, as you may know if you grew up in the 80’s, was the biggest thing since sliced bread. And just like a zillion other girls at the time, I was a huge Wham fan. So I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go to the concert when they were on tour in Australia. It’s a concert that to this day I will never forget. I have no idea as to what they played (probably the usual hit machine songs) but what I do remember was the enormous energy. I felt as if The Sydney Entertainment Centre was going to self combust from the screaming frenzy!

I haven’t been in the middle of a screaming frenzy in a long time (except with my kids every so often!), but I felt the magical power of music bringing us together the other day. If you’ve been following me on Facebook or my web page, you’ll know that I’ve taken to playing the ukulele and have fallen head over heels in love with it. And it seems that the love is spreading because for the first time in about 10 years, my hubby picked up his guitar and we jammed into the wee small hours. The energy was a bit different to the Wham concert (no screaming frenzy!) but powerful nonetheless. I think we could have played our uke and guitar and sung until the end of eternity…

So here’s an idea for this week – get out an instrument, anything will do, an old paint can for example, warm up your voice, get together with a friend or two, suck back a couple of beers and have a jam. See where it takes you. Would love for you to tell us too 🙂

And for a bit of inspiration, have a listen to these two jammers. Hubby and I aren’t at this level quite yet. One day, one day…