Unlike the Von Trapps, music has always felt like a large part of my life. As young as I can remember, we had glorious sing-alongs at family Christmases and other gatherings, my aunty or grandmother, or one of my parents, sitting at the piano with everyone else surrounding. My cousins and I shaking and banging and striking a variety of percussive instruments from a bag that my mum made sure never to forget. The sound of music was very much alive in our households.

I started learning piano very soon after that, and that is when I realised that music also requires work. Practice, and potentially lots of that. Scales, exercises, finger techniques: music became a chore.

At the age of 5, I gave up on my musical journey.

And then, at the age of 6, I rediscovered what music is actually about: playing with others. I joined my school’s band, and quickly rekindled my love and joys for the art of playing, specifically on the glockenspiel. Although I still had to practice (although, mostly during our rehearsals themselves), I actually found it fun.

Very soon after that, I restarted piano lessons, this time with the person who was running the band. I enjoyed them a lot more after that, and started enjoying other things like improvising in our school’s rock band, which led me down the path of composition.

One day, after watching a movie scored by Alexandre Desplat, I loved the music so much I tried composing a piece inspired by that. It was far from perfect, it was awful in fact. It sounded atrocious but at the time I enjoyed it. I decided to post it on a YouTube channel.

The next day, at school, I woke up to the small number of maybe 60 views, and it slowly increased to maybe a hundred eventually. It wasn’t the most, but it gave me the inspiration to continue.

I slowly composed more and more, trying different tools like FL Studio and Vital Synth, and focussing on different types of music. And that is basically where I am now, continuing to make a new piece every once in a while, continuing to improve, as well as playing double bass in the school Jazz Band, Orchestra and singing in the school’s choir.