betty donelly - the early dayswho is betty donelly?more information can already be found, scattered throughout the worldwide interweb ...as for my musical schooling, i must say that thanks to my dad, istarted out very early when he send me to music school to study theviolin and music theory at age seven...apparently i was better with my instrument than i was with the theory,because after a few years, i was a couple years ahead on the violin,due to having failed a few times in music theorythat was really no fun anymore, because on the violin i was presented with materials that hadn't even been covered in my theory class, so i quit when i was fourteen years old..a bit later i got hold of an old spanish guitar, and learned slowly atfirst, by playing along with music mainly from the band the cure, who's music eventually shaped my life, my soul and my beliefs and way of thinkingat seventeen, having stripped our high school band from their guitarplayer, we formed our first band, which i got the honour to name..thename choice was a no brainer for me, i called the band the fear...i used the 'the', because i wanted us to be included in the longtraditional hall of fame list of bands that start their band name by'the', including the beatles, the rolling stones, the byrds, the cureand such i used 'the fear', because that was my main emotion at that time...iwas in particular very aware of the feeling i was born in the wrong era, the feeling of being born a couple hundred years too early...i was constantly feeling alienated from this current primitive society...a humanity still in it's puberty, with all its testosterone induced wars, power games, cold wars and groce injustice...the music of the fear, in which i played the bass, was obviously verydark and somber, painting an image of a depressed state of mind, and love sorrows mainly...there is one song of the fear online over HERE, a tune called one last time, one of our early gemstonesafter a fight with the guitar player/singer, the three piece(guitar/vocals, drums, bass), disintegrated and shortly after i wasable to form another band called the elephants, a band name i had once again chosen myself, and which reflected my already deep rooted concerns about the earth's environmental decay...in particular, listen to the song 'deep' on the same page as mentioned just above..the elephants existed for four or five years maybe, with a kickstart inthe end of the eighties, until the band once more disintegrated back in 1993the musicforte page could be considered a tribute to my early years as a band member, and still holds deer and fond memories in my heart...it was a great period after all...we managed to gig regularly and created a regional buzz and following, ending up playing gigs in venues that supported 500-800 people, playing local festivals and youth clubs...after a long period of just working to earn my daily bread, i managed to record two songs on my computer in 2004, all by myself...my first solo songs...these two songs, 'my untouchable friend' and 'the void', can be found HEREthis marked the start of betty donelly solo....have a wonderful daybetty donelly