Music

“Music is my life; my life is music.”

That how a friend of mine described her life. I don't know about her, but it is rather an exaggeration if I were to apply it to myself.

But on second thoughts, maybe not so much of an exaggeration. Even as I'm writing this, I’m listening to "May It Be" sung by Enya from The Lord of The Rings The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. There's a piano, with three folders of music scores belonging to me on it, my acoustic guitar, capo (the metal clamp used to change the key of the guitar without having to tune the strings) a tuner, a folder-full of guitar tabs and scores. There is a grand total of eight songs in my hand phone, but as if to make up for that pathetic number, 393 tracks on my 4GB metallic green Ipod nano.

So music may not be my life, but it certainly is a big part of it. Alright, you may say that's typical of just about every teenager, but I doubt there are many teenagers in the world who continue torturing their school's population by playing the school piano at every available opportunity, going back home to practice some more, take a break by strumming a little on the guitar then go back to the piano.

Yes, I've been doing that for the past week, ever since school reopened. Why? Because I so very very badly want to play My Chemical Romance's "Disenchanted" and Linkin Park's "What I've Done" on piano. I'm a terrible pianist; in fact, I'm AWFUL at music. I'm tone-deaf and I've got absolutely no sense of rhythm. But I get by only with this dogged kind of persistence; when I WANT to do something, heaven help whatever stands in my way. (Which was what eventually lead to me spraining my ankle during gymnastics class in PE... But that’s another story.) Last year, when I was again in piano mode, I drove the school nuts playing Pachelbel's Canon over and over again. It took me two months to learn the damned song (I didn't have a piano at home at that time) but I eventually did it.

Alright, other than piano, there is guitar. Once again, I'm awful at music. I can do little more than strum, and even so, (once again) I've got no sense of rhythm. Which is where my tenacity comes in handy; I'll keep practicing until I can get the song right. I go for guitar lessons every Friday. At first I was learning from the textbook, which was really boring and since I didn't know the songs, I had no motivation whatsoever. I walked into lesson one day and told the teacher "This is not working out. Learning from the textbook is painful for me, it's painful for you. Can we do something else instead?"

And he just looked at me and said "Okay. What?"

My expression must have been something like "...Wow." So I handed him my Ipod, he plugged it in the speakers and then started teaching me “Teardrops on my Guitar” by Taylor Swift.

Cool guy.

The music I have in my Ipod is a very strange collection. I only recently imported The Lord of the Rings soundtracks. There are bands like My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, 30 seconds to mars and Green Day. Then I have random songs my friends send me, like "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls, "I'm Your's" by Jason Mraz, "The Haunting" by Kamelot and Within Temptation's "Angels" and "Memories". Then there are singers like Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Hillary Duff. (My sister's music, not mine.) And of course, my Japanese music; bands like ALI PROJECT and Do As Infinity, and soundtracks from various animes; Inuyasha, Full Metal Alchemist and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

I spent the first twelve years of my life musicless. (Yay, I invented a new word!) In Primary 6 I was introduced to anime, and my love for J pop and J rock grew from there. I was only introduced to MCR last year, and it was only this year when I (In my opinion anyway) when I really started listening to music; like just listening to random songs my friends recommend. I'm pretty behind on what's supposed to be now in the music scene, or what's "in", and I hope to stay that way. Music is timeless, whether it be Mozart's “Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars” (has anyone noticed that the tune for ABC is the same?), or Beethoven's "For Elise", or even My Chemical Romance's "Famous Last Words".

Music.

It's all around us.

It's in us all.

Signing off,

Natalie