Dear Diary: The childhood experience of learning an instrument

I’ve always been a music fan. I still listen to many kinds of music when I’m writing something down or I’m going on a walk. When I was younger, I would often repeat scenes on DVDs that had particular songs I liked. I listened to IHeartRadio and later songs I discovered on YouTube. 

You get the point; I love the way music makes me feel. It helps me feel relaxed. So, it was natural that at some point in my life, I tried to learn how to play music myself. It was time for me to go through the classic childhood experience of learning how to play an instrument. And I happened to go through that not once, but three times. 

When I was younger, we owned a piano. Up until that point, I had been content to press random keys and enjoy the little chimes they made. Learning so many keys to press in order made things a little more complex for me. 

So, I had some help. We had these tiny little stickers that had the name of each note or key. We placed them on each key so I can tell which key was which, and we had a music book with a collection of songs. These songs would list what notes to play in time with each lyric, and with the stickers, it was much easier to tell. Those stickers were like training wheels for the piano. 

We had a regular music book and a Christmas themed one. I played a bunch of little songs that you’d expect for someone learning to play, like Mary Had a Little Lamb and Jingle Bells, for example. I tried some other songs, but I didn’t exactly recognize the lyrics, so I was mainly going by the keys that the song told me to play. It probably sounded good, but I wasn’t satisfied since I didn’t know the songs in any other context. The only other one I do remember is Angels We Have Heard on High. This was probably the most complex one I played, and it was a song I knew well. 

However, despite all this, I treated playing the piano like nothing more than a game, and I wasn’t exactly invested in it. There were many stretches of time where I just wouldn’t touch it. When I got a little older, I began learning my second instrument, and this fell onto the wayside. Once we moved house, we ended up getting rid of it. 

The second instrument I learned to play was a classic. The recorder, or as I liked to call it, the “simpler flute”. We were enrolled in a homeschool Co-Op, a place where a bunch of homeschooling families brought their kids once a week for extra lessons. Here, I took on lessons to play the recorder.

We started out in a huge classroom. A lot of kids had wanted to join, apparently. The teacher guided us through the many different notes and combinations, and we learned how to play simple songs like Hot Cross Buns. Later, we were able to do harmony songs thanks to the large group we had. I enjoyed it decently enough, and I heard recorder classes were going on the next Co-Op semester, so I wanted to join that. 

In the meantime, I was told to practice the recorder and we were given a copy of the music book so we can continue playing new compositions. I liked it so much I continued to next semester and learned even more harmonies and songs. I still own my recorder, but it has gone dusty and unused since I had begun losing interest in the instrument itself. 

The last instrument I will discuss is the ukelele, which I learned when I was a teenager. This was a part of my actual homeschooling, with my dad teaching me. I was able to get my own ukelele, and Dad had one as well. It was a bit of a struggle at first, with most notes sounding awkward and strained. At first, I was not motivated at all, only using this to progress my schooling. But then, I learned more notes, and I learned more songs. Feliz Navidad, How Great Thou Art, and my personal favorite Here Comes the Sun, among others. I began enjoying playing just for the fun of it, and sometimes I practiced on my own. This was the instrument I was the most invested in, now that I had gotten enough practice in. 

So what happened? It wasn’t a lack of motivation. It was simply because of time. When I finished high school, I was done with that responsibility, and I soon got a job that ate up my time. Among the other hobbies I wanted to train up, ukelele didn’t make it up high on my priority list. So, I dropped it. 

I still love the ukelele. On many days, I simply don’t have the time to play it anymore. Besides, at that point, I started realizing that I loved listening to music far more than I loved playing it. And to be honest, I’m okay with that. After all, by learning to play, I can appreciate all the hard work that goes into musical pieces, even if I don’t join in myself.