Music was and still is a huge part of my life. No matter what I do or think, in my mind theirs always some kind of rhythm or pattern to it. There's also this part of me that listens to different genres, play different instruments and sing. But what I like most is creating rhythms or patterns for me to follow. Everyday from when I wake up to when I sleep again their is always a pattern to what I do weekly. So you could say that my entire life, rather say OUR entire lives are one big pattern, one big rhythm, one big musical symphony.
When I was about 3 years old I got music into my life. I started off with my mom's vocal and violin class that refers to our culture. I was also doing keyboard at the time. I don't remember exactly where it is, but I do remember that we had to drive past the York-dale Mall, which isn't too far from where I live. I still continue my mom's classes today. However, sadly my keyboard teacher had passed away. She had cancer if I remember correctly, what was even more sad was that she passed away on my birthday. This left my mother and I really upset. She asked me if I wanted to quit keyboard and I of course, being the stubborn little kid I was, I refused and asked her if I could take it a step further and learn piano instead. She was okay with it but it was harder than we thought to find me a new teacher.
After my keyboard teacher (I don't remember her name) I went to Mr.Brian. I tried playing scales on the piano he had but it was really hard to press the notes. I never understood why but then her told me that since I was learning keyboard before, it would be harder for me to play notes on the piano. Also the keyboard doesn't have all 88 keys while the keyboard I had, only had 61 keys :(. So what I had to do was, I had to get a piano but I didn't get the acoustic one because it's to big to fit in my house, so we got the electric one. The acoustic piano has all the keys but, inside it has strings and hammers to play the notes, and the strings were all different sizes, it was amazing to see and behold. Then we have the electric piano, which I'm pretty sure most pianists have. It's smaller and runs on wires and has a lot of buttons to make different sounds, record pieces of music and even control the sound, which the acoustic one can't do. So I got an electric piano and did my practices every day. However, my mother felt that I was being ripped off and should go towards a higher grade. It had been about a year and I still didn't move up. So my mom forced me to quit and I took lessons elsewhere.
The guy that came over to check my skills said that I should be going to level 3. So I joined a class that had almost finished level 2. Honestly, those guys are amazing. Some kids are older than me while others were younger, I even had someone the same age as me. We were all in the same class with the greatest piano teacher who helps me strive for excellence every single day. Her name is Zhanna, and she makes sure that our class is the best class and we are the best students to leave our conservatory. Which in my opinion, we are. I feel we are the best class. We take our work seriously and we always practice at home. I'm proud to say that I had just passed level 5 in an amazing state. I got 95 marks out of 100, which I wasn't surprised by because I practiced and my piano teacher trained me well. We had to play scales, 3 songs by memory plus making sure that you are playing the song with character, sight reading, play back, clap back, Hannon, and it goes into further detail. Each level gets harder and harder and more advanced. There are different components that we must follow in order to pass. In order to understand these components, we take theory lessons.
Not many people joined theory the same time I did from my class. In fact. It was only 3 of us that got shifted. We had to join the grade 6s last year for the Basic Rudiments test that people usually take in grade 6. We got the opportunity to take it now, because: A; Zhanna felt we were knowledgeable enough in piano to do so, and B; We would finish with our certificate that we are meant to get directly after our grade. So I would get my grade 6 marks with the certificate to prove it. I agreed to go because, I wanted to finish theory before others in my class did so I was okay with it. When I walked into the the theory room, I saw people that I never met before. I was lucky that I knew at least one of the grade 6s. Little did I know that these people would be some of my greatest friends.
Last year, my and my friend from piano always sat together and, this one class she made me sit beside a guy that was in grade 6 while she sat next to me. The guy barely had friends so he started talking to me and my friend. Then the 3 of us were picked to do this activity to identify notes and chords. He was the slowest one, while I was the fastest. My friend may have been in the middle but she was still faster than him by a long shot. On top of all that he got almost all the hard ones. My friend was really frustrated and wanted to start punching him until his nose came off. However I managed to stop her and I always try to sit in between the 2 of them.
This year, I always seemed to come early so I end up sitting at the back of the class where a bunch of girls are. These girls always make me laugh and we share our problems with each other and check our work with one another. 2 of the girls are in grade 10, 1 of them is in grade 9, the girl I knew and I are in grade 8 while my friend from my piano class was in grade 7. My classmate and I are in piano grade 6 while the others were in piano grade 7 but that didn't stop us from becoming friends. We all started off by sharing answers and working with each other. Then we became the most obnoxious of the entire class, laughing and making jokes. However we were also the smartest of the class. Always getting our answers in first. I have no doubt that I'll pass this year in flying colors too.
Another thing I did with music was the recorder in grade 6. I was in Mrs. Malcome-Tewarie's/Mr.Morris's class that year and our teacher (I forgot his name) taught us recorder. When or if my day goes bad I do look forward to our recorder classes, it made me feel better and it took my pain away. That is exactly how it works for piano, listening to music and singing. It takes my pain away. I sometimes think that is because the musical world, distracts me from the pain I receive in the real world. Which, I sometimes need a lot of. I sometimes need a way to take away pain and sorrow that I get in the real world. Some people do their favorite things, while others take pain away by adding more pain. Either way, it is all a distraction. A distraction from what actually happens so that we would calm down and possibly start over. I remember in grade 6 I was crying about something and the recorder teacher told me to close my eyes and listen to the class play the recorder and it calmed me down an I was able to play as well.
If you remember, I mentioned earlier that I went and still go to my mom's vocal and violin classes. I started off when I was 3 and when I started off, it was my mom's first group of students, and back then she had lot. She would use to arrange classes for the smaller grades on one day, the larger grades another day, for both violin and vocal separately. Normally she would have 4 classes normally however some people would want to learn on their own and not in groups. So they would get their own separate class with just them and their parents. They usually pick Saturdays and Sundays, So my mom usually has Fridays off so she would help me with practice on Fridays. Now, my mom doesn't have many students and she only had classes on Mondays, Wednesdays (Sometimes) Friday, and Sunday.
I don't just sing in my mom's class (they are all cultural songs), I learn songs online and sing them as well. I listen to songs through YouTube such as Jet Lagged by Simple Plan, Counting Stars by One Republic, Love Yourself by Justin Bieber and many others. Not only do I search the songs up online, I search up the lyrics in case I don't know what the person is saying in the song. This is not usually because my mom thinks I don't have enough to do at home, but it is because I felt the need to learn more songs since I do not know many vocal songs compared to my Piano, and Violin songs. I also like things in balance so I try to learn more songs. I even like listening to modified versions of any of the songs to see how other perceive the song or like to sing it.
So, I basically express myself musically through instruments and vocals. As you can clearly tell, I have a huge chunk of music in my life, and I am truly proud of it. I like music and it helps me have consciousness of the present world and look at things a different and more enjoyable way (In my opinion).
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