Page 18 - wamcountry

Country Music

As kids, it’s pretty common to grow up with our parents’ music. In my case, mum was classical, dad
was country.

One day, we were driving to Melbourne and dad had a Willie Nelson tape playing. Stardust came on
and I told my parents that I’d like to do that. They both swung their heads around to see if they had
heard right. The next week to my parents’ credit, I was booked into guitar lessons with my brother’s old
nylon string guitar. And that moment was how I ended up spending the rest of my life being a musi-
cian.

Every music genre has it’s specialty. Jazz is all about technical wizardry, Dance is all about moving the
body, … country is all about the story.

There’s an honesty around country music. Simple melodies and basic chords that allow the story to be
told with nothing to detract from it.

Usually, the songs are sung in a more speechlike quality and it stays within an acceptable reach of the
singer. Once again, because the story is what matters, not whether we can sing Mariah notes.

With every song, behind every lyric is an emotion and behind that emotion is the intent of the writer.
What makes country great is the lyrics are usually obvious. Because of this, the intended emotion of

the song is easy to discover.

18 www.writeawaymag.co.uk