Posted by Kunhee Hong on October 16, 2009 at 7:18pm
I was born and raised in South Korea before I moved to the United States at the age of thirteen. At the time I could not speak a word in English and going to a predominantly Caucasian school did not help. It was almost as if I had to start all over from the bottom. Sadly, I soon realized that no one was there to help me, but myself. Something had to change to make my life better and it all depended on me.Shortly after some struggle at school, I chose to learn how to play acoustic guitar, because I always loved to sing and guitar was one of the few instruments that would allow me to sing along while playing it. I devoted most of my free time on school work, but I spent significant amount of what was left to learn how to play guitar. In the beginning, I started playing because I did not have much else to do, but as time went on I got serious at it and as I kept improving good things started to happen. I made friends through music, formed a rock band, and won a Most Valuable Musician Award at school.It has been eight years since I first picked up the guitar, but I still have cravings to learn more. Whenever I hear a good song whether it is coming out of the radio or my friend’s iPod, I would jot it down on a piece of paper to learn it that very day when I went home. Learning a new song was a challenge, especially when it came to transcribing music. It took long hours to master a single song, but the moment I played a song through perfectly, I experienced the biggest joy. It gave me an encouragement that I can accomplish whatever things if I put my mind to it. Although music probably will not be involved in my job in the future, I will always have the guitar by my side.
Comments