After two months of talking about how drawn I've felt to music lately and making up lyrics and melodies vocally and told everybody around "I came up with words for a new song" just way too often, one of my sisters got me one cute electric keyboard with 3 scales, some basic functions, and a whole lot of scratches. This little keyboard stands before me now, and it's exciting and terryfing. This prospect of instrument both thrills and scares me because it opens a path before me, one in which I make true one of my dreams: composing music.
I have had some musical education. In seventh grade, we took mandatory music lessons in high school, and every body in my class learned how to play the recorder to some extent. I did well, and I wanted more. Not even half way through the school year, our band bought proper wind instruments and it became public that wind instrument players were needed. Since it seemed that this opportunity was presenting itself to make me shine, I auditioned for the tranverse flute. The audition went well, and the professor told me I had talent, but my parents had recently decided to move out to San José, and he didn't think it was smart to train someone who was leaving the school in a few months. I couldn't deny he was right. I still think he is, but what a let down! I never tried to play a wind instrument again.
My history of frustation with music goes back and forth in my timeline. Before the flute, I tried to learn how to play the keyboard in the church. The church's veteran musician at the time insisted music wasn't something kids could understand, so he dismissed me after the second class. What a narrow mind and lack of patience, I think now, as we all know kids learn faster! I told my dad what the mean guy said to me, but instead of he said maybe I should wait a little longer. Music wasn't among his plans for me. Later in life, I tried with the church again, but they interpreted my drive as mess and lack of discipline. I didn't want to learn the scale for the 9th time, I didn't want to sing pretty for karaoke, I wanted to understand music, and that completely exceeded what the church could offer me. Told once again that music wasn't for me and that my singing would probably never improve, I gave up on the music world and did what teenagers do best: wander around life with confusion and no motivation to ever to anything productive with my time.
I am twenty seven now, and I know learning how to play an instrument and how to go beyond that and compose music is a steeper road than it might have been earlier in my life. I don't care. In fact, I don't fucking care. By now, I'm so fed up of people telling me what I am good at, and what I am not that this little, beaten up keyboard stands as an opportunity to prove everybody wrong. Not only that: this unnactractive, basic keyboard could prove that I've been right all along, that I have a talent for music I have waited way too long to explore. Going into the blame game and trying to justify why I forever gave up on music would only dig deeper the gap that separates me from one thing in life I've always sought to accomplish. Having muted what everybody has to say about it, I still have myself to please, and it's not easy. I think I am mature enough now to come to terms to what did not happen in my life but still procure what I want to happen for me. If I were to live, say, twenty more years and start playing the keyboard now, the chances that I can compose and perform a few of my songs before I die are extremely high. There's always a chance so long there's life, and I plan to remind people that trying something new is brave, and that being a beginner in a new field does not make you look dumb but proves the courage and passion that drives you in life. I wrote this blog entry because I believe this is an universal principle, and I believe this is true for everyone. The only reason why this little keyboard terrifies me is that it opens a path I mean to take seriously. It means commitment. It means I have to push myself and commit the same way I've done with my writing, my job or anything that I feel truly matters. It's both an opportunity and a challenge, and I can't let myself down. I find hard to believe so many feelings are elicited by and contained in this box of plastic with white and black keys...
So far, it has gone like this: Day one. I sat with the keyboard for a little more than an hour today already, and played to my best capacity one song that only exists inside my head. The notes are so basic, and my fingers feel so clumsy, but the melody is in there. My nephews were around doing their own thing, but in two different ocassions, I caught both of them humming the melody, hitting the right notes and replicating very accurately with their vocal chords what I was hitting on the keyboard. "Which song is this?" they asked. They assume it is a song that exists already. When I told them this is a song I wrote, they laughed in disbelief, but kept repeating the melody. After a while, they wanted to try to make their own song. This is my first day at trying something I feel passionate about, and I've already done this much. In twenty years, someone will be singing, playing, and improving one of my songs.
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