Mastering a Musical Instrument (I)

15 Mastering a Musical Instrument (I) When I was young, I really admired musicians. Who wouldn't? They play beautiful music on beautiful instruments. Since my elementary school years, I have embarked on a journey of learning to play musical instruments. I've never stopped learning. Now, I'm almost twenty. You're probably thinking, " He must be a music grand master by now. " But that is not the case. As a matter of fact, I'm still not good at playing any instrument. My first music lesson was on the keyboard in Grade 2. I took music lessons together with my sister. We started from the simplest thing-using five fingers to touch the keys, forward and backward. At first, I was filled with motivation. The first thing I would do every day after opening my eyes in the morning was to practise the seven keys on the wall while lying in bed. However, after going to the class for two weeks, my motivation wore thin. . . and eventually, it disappeared.

True, I liked the keyboard. I was able to make all kinds of sounds. I just couldn't stand playing for as long as I was required to each day. That was too demanding. A few months later, I picked up the recorder in my music class in school. The recorder was light, easy to carry around, and extremely easy to make a sound with. I liked it right away as soon as my teacher distributed the instruments in class. This time, I wanted to be good at it-like a professional performer. I brought the recorder home that day and I practised. I practised at home every day after school for three days! No matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to create the beautiful tunes that I heard in the movie Titanic. Blowing a steady flow of air into the opening while precisely covering the holes at the same time wasn't as easy as I had thought. So I lost interest in the recorder. It was taking too long to become good at it. It made me wonder then where my dream would drift to.