My Introduction To Music

One day, nearly 6 years ago, my mother came home from a garage sale and told me that she had a present for me. When she opened the car door, she reached in and pulled out an old and tattered Vantek acoustic guitar with 2 strings missing and a broken bridge. With it was a faded brown and rainbow strap reminiscent of the early 1970’s. The fret board was worn and somewhat splintered, however, still very much playable. I was very excited to have obtained such an item and I was even more excited to get it fixed and restrung so I could begin learning how to play. One week and $20 later, I was on my way to an interesting new world of self expression and musical understanding.

For the first few weeks, I picked up the guitar every once in a while and figured out simple chord-less versions of songs I heard on the radio. Later that summer, our family went on our annual trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit our grandparents. My uncle Mark, a musician and lover of music, drove up from Oklahoma City while we were there to visit us. With him, he brought one of his guitars and offered to teach me some things about music. I was utterly fascinated watching his fingers fly around the neck of the guitar, creating a beautiful sound. I couldn’t wait to be able to do the same.

My uncle Mark drew up an introductory guitar lesson in a notebook for me and I taught myself basic chords and blues progressions. Soon after, I began taking guitar lessons at the local music shop. I learned the basics of communicating music to other people and my guitar skills began to progress. I stopped the lessons after about 9 months, mainly because I couldn’t and didn’t want to read music. Over the next few years, I kept practicing and began to play more often. During these years I was also becoming more interested in the original geniuses of rock n’ roll such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.

In the past two years of my life, my uncle Mark introduced me to songwriting and for my birthday, took me to a recording studio to record my music. Since I began writing songs, I’ve discovered an entirely new way to live. I see the world in a different light and I can no longer turn my mind off to the things going on around me. Music has taught me a tolerance for others and a love for enlightenment. Until I discovered music, I was unaware of any other goal in life other than to get rich in one way or another. The feeling one gets from playing music, however, greatly surpasses that of attaining any material wealth imaginable. Knowing this, I no longer feel pressured to become a successful businessman or other professions of the like. I am confident that music will take me down the path I wish to go, open up new paths, and provide a therapeutic safety net for me to land in should I fall from the path.