DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T…...learn to play an instrument

Bryony Pearce was determined to prove everyone wrong

- FRANCES LEATE

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been told I was ‘tone deaf’. From being thrown out of the choir when I was eight because I was too loud and out of tune, to being told to be quiet by my mum. But I love singing and music, I always have.

My grandad had been an aspiring jazz pianist and his father played the organ at St Paul’s Cathedral. My mum always said the music gene had skipped a generation, because she wasn’t very musical, and she suspected it’d skipped me as well.

As I got older, I accepted music wasn’t for me and after university, I forged a successful career, writing fiction for young adults. When I met Andy, in October 1996, I was wracked with jealousy that he had learnt to play the violin. Whenever I heard him play, I was envious of the beautiful music he created.