The Hearbeat of my Life

"Music is an art form that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is usually expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture)."
--Source from wikipedia. For the full definition of music, please visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music

Music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I guess you can say I was first "introduced" to music when I was but a little baby, in the form of nursery rhymes, with the most popular being "Rock-a-bye Baby" of course (I'm sure all of you remember it ^^). As I grew older, music started to grow with me as well.

I distinctly remember one singer and boy band very well from my toddler days. These two were the first ever boy band and artist that I fell "in love" with. It was also the start for me being a fan. Imagine a three year old toddler with loads of posters of her favourite boy band and singer pasted up on the wall around her crib. Yeap, those were my posters, and it was my crib.

My first favourite boy band - the New Kids on the Block (ever heard of the songs Cover Girl, Step by Step, etc?)

Music then made its biggest impact on my life. My mum started sending me to classes at Yamaha Music School. And that was where I learned to become one with music, one of the things I deem extremely important in my life now.

Learning about music did not just teach me how to read the notes to play and recognise them, it also taught me how to understand and actually feel it in a more intimate and deeper way (Yes, although I know naught about Beethoven or Bach or any other famous musician and composer for that matter).

Music has become somewhat like my lover. I share my joy and find my solace in playing music, and each piece I play and experience are kept as beautiful photographs in my memory. Without music, I don't think I could actually bear living.

However, music hasn't always been easy for me either. As I lack that certain music talent like most others, I believe I'm somewhat near my limitations for performing in my music studies. Take my Yamaha Electone Higher Grade Examination for example, failing the first 2 times, I was actually willing to give up. But I couldn't just do that and disappoint both my parents and teacher who has always been there for me. So I took it the 3rd time, and as they say, "Third time's the charm..." I finally passed the exam.

My "beautiful" exam results... Heheh...

Recently, I also took part in the Yamaha Annual Concert (which actually compromises of mostly young children from the age of 3-10 singing, dancing and performing on stage, while their ever proud and adoring parents sit in the audience, hands full with cameras and video recorders pointed up to the stage, trying to capture the best moments of their children's performance) held recently in Civic Hall, PJ. We were the only group of adults (sans kids dancing and singing in front of us) performing a seriously weird, arranged neo-classical (also known as contemporary) piece of the original "Pathetique" by Beethoven. It wasn't an easy task trying to co-ordinate your playing with 5 other members in the group, but somehow, we managed to pull it off, after much hard work of course.

The "Pathetique" Group performing at the concert. That's me with the white hairband second from the right. (Picture courtesy of Sue-Anne).

I'm always grateful to my mother who actually started me on music. Although I may never be the kind of girl who composes her own songs and does her own concerts around the world, I am satisfied that I was able to come this far to enjoy playing music. As much as it gives me pleasure listening and playing music, I do hope that music does mean just as much to all of you out there as well. ;)