When I was a kid, I heard all sort of things about music, and to be specific, how anyone should learn to do it. How much it'll help develop creativity and those blah-blah-blah. I didn't hold much interest in music then, my ears weren't as accustomed to listening and paying attention to them.
My parents thought having me learn how to play music is a fine and dandy thing, and I had nothing against the idea. The earliest formal lesson I could remember was in Elementary School, where playing either a flute or pianica is a mandatory subject, whether or not you're good at it. And I was, or at least it felt like I was. Playing the flute for school is still the best formal lesson I ever had in music, and as it turned out, the only one that I enjoyed.
But playing the flute was only for school, it didn't grab much of my attention. Then my mother had an idea to give me guitar lesson in a local music education center. I just nodded my head, thinking being able to play the guitar would be pretty cool. So she took me there once a week, sometime after school, where I would be taught how to play from the very basic by single teacher who only has a single student each day.
It was unbearable. I dreaded the day when I had to go there and practice, and I left the guitar in my house untouched. It simply wasn't fun, wasn't enjoyable, not something I could look forward to do. I started to beg my mother to skip some days, and eventually, after only learning only the basic keys, to quit entirely. One of my mother's cousin borrowed the family guitar, and playing the instrument was forgotten until he returned it years later.
And then my mother said that maybe I could learn how to play the keyboard instead, along with my little sister, who was old enough to do it then. We have an electronic organ sitting around in the house, given by a relative. None of use actually know how to use it except for some random ting-tangs-tongs (It has two set of piano keys and one more set for your foot, and a volume control for the other foot, how are you supposed to use this thing?). So we bought a new keyboard, not a fancy expensive kind, but it does its job nicely.
Then, knowing I hated leaving the house, my mother hired a private teacher to come to our house. My little sister and I took turn with the teacher, I think about twice a week, an hour each. The first few days with the new teacher was nice and fine. And then, just like the guitar lessons previously, it slowly became painful to do. Eventually I also refused to do it, the only difference here being that the teacher could usually see me, a little kid, bawling on the living room sofa.
Since that little disaster with keyboard lesson, I gave up about trying to learn music, not even singing. Doing it, scheduling myself for a lesson, was no longer desirable. I refused every offer to be taught. But ironically, as I deny the possibility of playing a musical instrument, my love for music itself grew. My ears become accustomed. When a song, or a piece of music, is played, I listens. Sometimes my fingers unconsciously tap on the table, following the rhythm. My brain, which used to completely ignore them, is now able to play a perfect playback of any song I've ever heard.
It was video games songs that took my love at first. When I was a little kid, playing little games, I paid not a single attention to the music, as long as it's not too annoying and is there. In fact, there was a time when my computer's speakers were broken and no sound came out, yet I didn't complain as I breezed myself through computer games. But, except for the time with broken speakers, the music are always there, be it horrible or awesome. And over time, I started to listen closely to every piece.
And so, I finally hold an interest in music. It fascinates me, with its rhythms and tunes and combination of meaningful noises which create melodies. But I still held a distaste with musical instruments, which seemed to always taunt me from afar, bragging with the endless varieties of music it can make but I will never be able to do.
Then Aquaria happened, and for some reason its music captivated me. The melodies were beautiful, fascinating, and so ridiculously tempting to be played on piano, or keyboard, or whatever. So after years of being mostly abandoned, my old keyboard was played again. It was just a silly experiment, me trying to replicate Aquaria's music by ear and fingers. I could only play little tunes, which I endlessly repeated for lack of anything else I could do. But it was fun. Enjoyable. Something I didn't discover when someone actively taught me how to play.
So years after I last had a music sheet propped up in my keyboard, I tried to learn how to play the highly complicated songs of Touhou, with a left hand that still refuses to work independently, all by myself and a couple of pages on the internet. It is... not working so well. But for once, I enjoy doing it, I actually like doing it. There's something to look forward to.
I still suck, but just like playing any video game of substantial difficulty, I strive to be better.
