Day Twenty-Six: A Song I Can Play On An Instrument

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I adore music. Heck, I'm pretty sure you lot have gathered that by now. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that my iPod is pretty much an extension of my body and I listen to its contents every day.

But to me, music is more than that. Music is about self expression, and it's writing, in another form, which is more audio, obviously. You can tell a story without words just by the tone, pitch and general key of the song.

As my host mother said to me, music is a very personal thing, which is absolutely right. Chances are you like music that's different to that of your friends. I know I do. I know for a fact that only one of my friends likes Queen and Van Halen as much as I do. I know that half my friends think that listening to Short Stack ranks about as high on the scale of desirable noises to listen to as listening to someone scrape their nails down a chalkboard does. I know some of my friends would be more than happy to jump on stage and start dancing to Justin Bieber at his concert (even though to me, the very idea raises bile in the back of my throat. But that's just me).

The point is, when I'm playing music, I'm telling my own story. I can't write music to save my life at this stage, but I know in my heart that's not true. Everyone can write music, if they try. It's just poetry with a beat behind it. I suppose that's one reason I really love poetry. I used to hate it with a passion and avoid writing it like the plague if I had the chance- now I'm writing a blog dedicated to it here. Anyone who shares my previous view on poetry and really can't stand it- think of it this way. Poetry is music that you create your own backing track to. It just takes a little bit of imagination.

So, what instrument do I play? I play piano. I love playing piano. I've played for five years and counting, and I love it as when I started. Though technically, you could say I've been playing for longer than five years. A couple of years before I started playing, my uncle bought us (my sisters and I) a toy piano for Christmas. I used to love tinkering around on it, relishing in the sound of the different notes and HOW they were different. Committing each one to memory. Then one day, I taught myself to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by sound. It was then that I realised what I still believe today. I think of the piano as containing all the songs in the world- ones that have been written and forgotten about, ones that have been treasured for decades, ones that haven't been found yet and are just waiting to be discovered. All it takes is open ears and imagination to learn them all. So mum arranged for me to start taking lessons, and I never looked back.

What's one of the songs I can play? There's not just one. I can play Not Pretty Enough by Kasey Chambers. I can play The Addams Family. I can play the Australian National Anthem- a project I set myself before coming to New Zealand that took about ten minutes, tops, to polish. I can play lots of things in between. But there are three songs I'm particularly proud of. Firstly, there's two Short Stack songs. The Back of My Head, which my piano teacher and I decoded by sound alone once we realised the chord chart we'd dug up from the internet was in a different key. Correct, but I like to play things as they actually sound. Then Planets, which I figured out completely on my own. It's far from perfect, as I only have the treble vocal line, which I want to improve. Then there's Look What You've Done by Jet. To me, it's perfect. I got a chord chart and, looking at it, I could just play it. I'm very, very proud of that.

Here's the three songs that I'm proud of:

The Back Of My Head- Short Stack

Planets- Short Stack

Look What You've Done- Jet

Tomorrow is related to today, by the fact that it's a song I wish I could play. I hope you liked today's deep and meaningful reflection on music and what it actually means to me. I hope those of you who aren't poetry's biggest fans to just give it a chance. I don't ask you to sit there and write it during class instead of whatever boring maths assignment you might have to do- because that would be wrong- I just ask you to appreciate it a little and make an effort to understand it. That's all it takes. Please leave a comment. Tell me what music means to you, what instrument you play, what you can play- tell me your musical story!!

Sayonara, fellow ninjas!! xoxo