Mastering a Musical Instrument (II)

16 Mastering a Musical Instrument (II) When I started Grade 6, we had a new music teacher. This teacher told us that she would organize a band for our school. The band would give a New Year's concert for our parents. I was really excited. Here was my big chance again! This time, I decided to play a cool instrument-the gold and shiny trombone! Since I had grown big and strong, I could blow into the trombone to get a very loud sound. In fact, I was one of only two students in the entire class who could make this monstrous sound. “ Enough playing around with kiddie instruments, " I thought. " This time it's serious. " After I learned the basics in the classroom, it was up to me to practise. I practised bit by bit. I even played for my mother. When she heard me trumpeting the song Mary Had a Little Lamb, she laughed and said it was quite unique.

At end of the year, I played with the rest of the band at the concert. But, I returned the trombone to school immediately after the performance, thinking that I could never do a solo. I thought I should change to something else. The years passed, and I continued my quest to find the “ perfect" instrument, touching many and hoping to master at least one. I watched a Western movie with a hero who played the harmonica, and I immediately fell in love with the little instrument. But this only lasted until I watched an action movie in which the hero played the guitar. This, I tried and then abandoned a few months later, concluding that my fingers were too short. Finally, on a trip to China, I noticed a blind man playing a stringed instrument called the Er Hu. I bought this two- stringed instrument and carried it by hand for thousands of kilometres back home, only to give it up two months later. Of all the instruments I tried, none could easily satisfy my goal. If I've learned anything, it's that they all take time, patience, and hard work.