It all started when I was four or five years old. You know the age--when all Asian kids have bowl cuts and are the human equivalent of baby pandas. Perhaps that was the time when I was at the height of my charm. If I shyly peered out from under my bangs and flashed my deadly dimples, I could sway the universe and have my way. Mostly that was just more candy. Or gum. I could never have gum. My mother wouldn't allow it, making it the most enticing forbidden fruit a small child could imagine. My childhood memories of my precious few gum chews are rich with haircuts and the smell of peanut butter. Oh wait. I get it now.
But I digress.
I recall our piano, a chestnut-brown Baldwin, that held court over our living room. When the cover was left open, the keys stretched out in a benevolent smile that beckoned to my five-year old soul. I was powerless to resist such gestures of magnanimity, and I soon found myself seated on the bench gazing out over a kingdom of sound and possibility. What happened next has always been a source of conflict and debate.
My parents insist that I taught myself how to play. I love my parents fiercely, but I worry that they heard my piano mashing and saw the event through baby panda goggles. Age and time have only further hyperbolized the situation into something like this:
Knowing my current skill levels, I submit that it was probably more like a male version of this:
Whatever the case may be, I spent the next five years teaching my fingers to dance--which is ironic, if you have ever seen me actually dance. I will spare you a visual.
When I was ten, I found a new love in the violin. Pianos, pandas, violins, and bowl cuts. I was a dimple-faced cliché. Yes, I was even good at math. But my desire to play the violin did not come from an affinity with mathematical algorithms or ethnic inheritance. No, as near as I can tell, it came from the time my friend's mother played her own violin for my fourth grade class.
The piece was "Greensleeves." I sat there in my light-up LA Gear sneakers and velociraptor t-shirt and was utterly captivated. Up until this point in my life, I had experienced a few times when music was not just something to be heard, but something that was felt (most notably in association with strong visual images of dinosaurs, such as in Jurassic Park and the Land Before Time--but that's a story for another time). But this was the first time I could pinpoint why I felt this way. There was something so lyrical about the way the sound would swell and ebb from the strings. I freely admit to inhaling and holding my breath to match the flow of the notes. The piano, and its more percussive nature, would always have a special place in my heart, but this new instrument swelled and expanded that heart to make a new place for itself.
Four years later, when I was 14, I began to sing. It was my friend, Richie, who introduced and encouraged me. And it was my other friend, Layne, who inspired me. I have always had a love/hate relationship with my singing, which continues to this day. When I was in the second grade, I was called out in front of the entire grade for being a bad singer. That was the day I learned that singing every single note at the exact same pitch does not a song make. I thereafter resisted singing for anything, until Richie asked me to sing in an a cappella group he was trying to organize. Given my history with singing, I have no idea what gave him that idea. Perhaps it was inspiration. Perhaps it was panda goggles.
By the time I was in ninth grade, other interests had provided the opportunity to become my middle school's lead tech/videographer. At a talent show I was recording, my soon-to-become friend, Layne, stepped up to the microphone. The second he opened his mouth to sing, the auditorium fell silent--an occurrence of some note in a middle school. It had never occurred to me that somebody my age could sound like that. Pop stars and Neil Diamond were entities that existed on the television and on my home stereo, but an actual human being who sounded that good was an entirely new concept. I immediately wanted to become a better singer.
I have never actually enjoyed the sound of my own voice. Over the years, it has grown and developed. My choir teacher and other mentors have helped refine and shape it (and, as a result, it has more of a classical sound). But I have never felt comfortable with the idea of making people listen to it. I have thought long about this, and I have identified many reasons why this is. One reason has to do with why I have made music for so long. Another may have ties to why I am so chicken about asking girls on dates or why I am constantly trying to make jokes. Music has provided me with some of the greatest experiences in my life, but in the end, I made the conscious decision to stop pursuing music after I returned home from my mission. For the past seven years, I have been a passive listener. I now think that was a mistake.
Too much time has passed. I miss it. Whether or not I was any good at any of my musical endeavors is somewhat irrelevant. I did not realize, until recently, how much a part of my life music had become. Within the past few months, I have had several occasions when I have heard and felt the music. Some examples, for various reasons, are this song, this song, and this album (technically a link to a video about the album). Fair warning: they all tend to lean toward the grand/romantic side of things--but for those of you who know me well, this should come as no surprise.
My life could use more music.
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