Comment by vel0city
3 hours ago
I was often really frustrated with my parents pushing me to learn at least some basics on the piano. Why do I have to practice, I want to watch Dragonball Z. Practicing is sooooo boring. Ugh.
I'm still not amazing at piano. But having a basic understanding of musical theory, understanding how a lot of these concepts of harmonics and tones and waves are related, have really unlocked a lot of neat things throughout my life. Their push for me to learn an instrument drove me to performing for family events including a couple of weddings, with my involvement in their day still quite a powerful shared memory between us. It led me to learn additional musical instruments, which I enjoyed a lot more than piano. It helped me in other artistic endeavors like theater. It helped me understand music production, something I moonlight in as a volunteer. It gave me instant connections with lots of people who were important people in my life but probably would have forever been passing strangers. It has given me something else to share with my children, as they routinely ask me to play for them and show them how instruments work. A basic understanding of waves and harmonics and what not even helped me understand a lot of more complicated EE topics.
Learning an instrument early in my life was definitely a powerful and deeply impactful thing in my life journey, almost entirely positively outside of many afternoons where I had to catch up on DBZ later.
I didn't have that but I instead did a lot of music production as a teenager, hand dragging midi notes. It turns out, I have perfect pitch. But I learned that at 27 where a musically trained person noticed it. I make melodies all the time in my head.
It was a funny moment where she was like "you have perfect pitch!" "What is perfect pitch?"
I guess it's a shame, I could've been a great musician if I was trained.
In any case, if you want to meet up online, my email is in my profile. You sound fun!