picking up and learning the guitar had been a journey for me i will never forget.
when i was young, i wasn't a particularly bright kid and didnt have any interests in school or studies. i also was a really anti social person and had no self esteem. i didnt shine out in everything i tried to do. silently i lived my life as a loser. i couldnt do shit.
i sucked at sports, especially basketball. due to my poor hand eye coordination and slow reaction, i couldnt really play with my friends whenever they asked me to. i would not be able to throw the ball into the net and stuff. and i was a very slow runner. i felt discouraged.
i loved art, and i loved drawing (im still good at it...sorta). it was the only thing i could do to be confident in myself. when my parents brought me to church, they would let me take a few pieces of paper to draw. then i would show my friends and their parents whom they would be impressed. but as usual, there were some who also didnt like what i did.
and then came music, an art form which has reached down inside of me and transformed my grey life into colours.
music and music lessons weren't my cup of tea in school back in the day with an old lady/man teaching you tao gey and stuff (and blowing that stupid recorder). but it all changed when one day i was doing my homework with my dad supervising me. he and i were taking a break, and he took out this dusty classical guitar from the storeroom and started plucking a few notes here and there. the nylon strings produced soft sweet tones which i love to this day, and my soul felt the itch to do the same. soon enough, i took his guitar and a bunch of old christian songbooks from the storeroom and started learning. of course that wasn't enough. i bought a big big chord chart and everyday i would come back home from school to play and memorise these chords. id sit there for hours and just stare and try to play the notes on the guitar. i even risked taking up most of my time from studying for exams to learn guitar.
playing guitar, which i believe is a God-given talent and skill, had now taken me to new heights, new joys and most importantly for me, new relationships. it had helped me in showing my friends and family about the guitar, teaching them and appreciating music. it had strengthened my ties with my loves ones, my platoon and school mates. it had made me a much more confident in who i am as a person. and to this day i have no regrets in learning the instrument since day one.
so what do i play the guitar for? i could come up with a million reasons like 'i play guitar for the love of the crowd, fame and money', but i say i'd do it for the love of music, my passion to build ties and relationships and for touching lives.
