THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC

Music has always meant a great deal to me. I grew up in a house filled with sound: not always melodious; nearly always loud; sadly, often different people playing different things all at once. Rarely, to be honest, any of us getting all the the way through anything at all. We were not a passive music family: ours was about doing - ?and the practice of doing.

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At school I sang - in choirs, in small groups and on my own. I played in the orchestra. I was, in turns, terrified of my piano teacher and surprised when I could make something of the violin. I joined a recorder consort. What I lacked in sporting prowess I made up for in musical output – if not talent. It remains one of my proudest moments that I didn’t bugger it up when playing the cymbals in Tchaikovsky’s famous 1812 Overture. There’s nowhere to hide if that one goes wrong! It is still probably the greatest risk I’ve ever taken in public.

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Angus played Mozart on the French horn.

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Mum sang. All the time. Everywhere. But although all the notes were – generally - in the right order the words most certainly were not.

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Dad was deaf!

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But it wasn’t a case that we didn’t listen. Saturday nights saw furniture pushed back as I learned my basic Scottish country dancing standing on my Dad’s feet when, Take the Floor came over the airwaves from Radio Scotland. We also bopped to Abba on an ageing dancette. We watched Val Doonican and Perry Como on the telly and joined in with old music hall choruses from the City Varieties theatre in Leeds. For a very long time I was sure I had been born in the wrong era as I was quite certain I should have been treading the boards somewhere in the good old days.

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In the land of the past, there were parties with people round the piano. And, marching down the years, a procession of military bands, pipe bands, folk bands. Carols at Christmas. Hallelujahs at Easter. Ploughing and scattering at Harvest-tide when all is, finally, gathered in.

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We all have our own Desert Island Discs to save when the waves come in, each one marking the score of our days. We all build up a lifetime of Our Tunes where we can name that memory in just a chord of notes.

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I have Petula Clark with, Downtown, recalling visits to my Granny and car lights strafing lines of light over the top of the curtains. Leonard Cohen snaking out, like a bird on a wire of unfurling tape, from my friend’s room in our university flat. Springsteen, tougher than the rest, on CD. Warren Zevon, setting a bad example. A Bach toccata in an empty German church. Jazz in Paris. Fado in Lisbon. And the strains of Haris Alexiou on the ouzo-scented breeze.

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For others, if not for me, the walk down the aisle to Wagner and, as a couple, back out to the strains of Mendelssohn. The first dance – often, according to Brides’ Magazine, Ed Sheeran or Elvis Presley ‘s version of, Can’t Help Falling in Love. Appropriately, with the news today of the death of Rudolph Isley, often For the Love of You, Pts. 1 & 2.

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Every air - on the air - a memory scored in music: a metaphor for peace as, on the spiced air in Istanbul, Hotel California blended perfectly with the evening call to prayer. The world needs more music now.

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When all things are in tune you simply take it for granted. You don’t notice. Your heart just hears the whole.

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I visualise building safety like this, in terms of melody and harmony. A hit song from a band of musicians playing different parts and demonstrating individual talents. And I am sure - with all your knowledge and experience and all the hours of practice you have put in - you too are pitch-perfect on the projects where you work.

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APS will stand with you by providing sessions that help you maintain and hone your skills. There are webinars and CPD sessions – this season looking at demolition [www.aps.org.uk/events ]. And, like any good record library, everything we do can be played back whenever you want.

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But, still, I worry that you don’t realise the importance of the job you do because safety is, so often, the voice from the back row. You don’t get the diva roles or the bravura stand-out solos that leave audiences awed and star struck. ?You are not the Shard or something by Zaha Hadid or Frank Lloyd Wright. But, as I said, building projects – like music – are works of many parts and many players. And nothing is right when even one element is missing - or where one voice overwhelms the whole. Every player needs to be there and on the same golden page – you can’t bring in the chorus or the second violins at the end and expect perfection. Everyone needs to be valued and for them to be there from the very first rehearsal.

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Like music, our built environment can be dangerously flawed by a single bum note. The counter-harmony is as vital to the whole as the melody, even when it is sweetly played in tune. One note played off-key - or coming in at the wrong place - will be instantly jarring. Never forget, the missing ting from the triangle will be noticed – it makes the whole performance.