The Beginning...

It's ironic really; it's 4 am and I'm supposed to be writing a five page music history paper on the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.4. Truly one of the most exciting things ever. But instead, I find myself constantly thinking about the extreme change of direction I've pointed my life into recently, and wanting to share it with all of you. After a lot of thinking, I've decided to pull out of university and go to music school. The cliche "Chase your Dreams" story if you will.

Here, let me fill you in from the beginning. There's a lot, but hang in there.

Let's start from the 4th grade. I had just moved to Thailand the year before and life was great. I had already made really close friends, I was playing soccer (my other passion) every day, and there was no drama in my elementary life. But this was the time in my life when I was starting to be more curious about girls. And yes, there was one that I liked. The only thing was that she was in a different class than me and I never got to spend time with her. Learning that she was taking a group violin class after school, drastic times call for drastic measures, and I decided to join the same class. I had never mentioned or even thought about music, and yet somehow I talked my parents into buying me an expensive violin. Finally, my plan was just about in the works. The only thing wrong with the whole situation is that after the first class, I found out that I HATED violin lessons... with a burning passion. This was not good. I don't know how I did it, but I made it through the semester without dropping the class. That was my first experience with music.

As I got older, my friends started to try out new instruments, yet I was still never really interested in music. Sports were more my thing- especially soccer. But as time went by, I began listening to music more and more. I joined the middle school choir in 7th grade, but discontinued the next year. Instead, I was more curious about the guitar. A lot of my friends were starting to get good, and it looked like fun, so I decided to try it out in 9th grade. Ever since then, I've been hooked. Funny story, the first song I learned on the acoustic guitar was "Romanza". I was so excited that I had learned my first song so I came home and played it for my dad, very passionately of course. He almost started to cry... The first thing he said was "that song was played for my grandmother when she was on her deathbed." Oops... another fail between music and me. But I kept playing, and playing, and playing. I was obsessed. And at about mid freshman year, I realized that I actually have a decent voice! Could this be the start of something new and big?

For the Christmas of my junior year, I got the only thing I wanted, drums! My friends came over more and we eventually started a band named PANANAS. Don't ask why, just accept it. Whenever the occasional talent show or concert came up, we would play in it. And we sounded good! There were five guys originally in it and I was the singer. Music was beginning to play a large part in my life. I would come home from soccer, rugby and track practice to play guitar or drums instead of finishing my homework. In class, I would write songs or think about playing big performances. I never enjoyed actual classes in high school and was just looking forward to what classes would be like in college. The funny thing is, they're exactly the same, except with four times the amount of people.

I love college, but I hate listening to teachers talk about things I don't really care about. I'm attending Southern Methodist University right now and I've made some amazing friends. I'm in a fraternity, I'm playing soccer for the club team and I try to jam with friends as much as I can. But school seems to always get in the way. I feel like it's about time to finally take a leap in the direction I want to go- music school!

So now, what I'm planning to do, is to blog my transfer into music school and see where all this goes. Will it lead to huge things? Nobody knows, but it's only the beginning.