Music¶

I was not raised a music person. As a young kid I had near zero exposure to formal music education. We would listen to Mandopop and Cantopop, and mom would hum tunes while she did dishes, but that was it.

There was once my parents picked up a 88-key keyboard for me at our local supermarket in hope I might amount to something. I never did. Sorry mom and dad :(

In sixth grade I joined a brass band as a percussionist (that was before I wore braces; the conductor looked at my teeth and said "nyeh"). For most of my band career I was in charge of the bass drum and the drum kit, but I did learn the timpani and a lil bit. My favorite performance however was Takarajima, where I played the agogo (the soul of this musical number, despite being just one bar over and over again).

As a side effect, a disadvantage I had to all the other band kids was that I can't really read pitch, only rhythm. I did not know what a Bb minor was.

Fast forward to 2021. The summer I graduated high school, I decided to challenge myself to learn ukulele. My father got one secondhand for me. It turned out you only need a tiny set of "easy" chords to get started. You can sing in other keys with a capo. And if that doesn't work, the song probably isn't made for the ukulele anyway.

On my mom's birthday I sang her "House Of Gold". It remains my favorite song to play on ukulele.

The uke sounds pretty, sure, but I'm afraid my hands are too fat to press adjacent frets (like D and Dm), and especially bar chords (B, Bm, etc). My setlist effectively stopped expanding as of 2022.

So near the end of winter break, early 2023, I took the other extreme and invested in a bass (known in guitar world as long boi). It is a red Ibanez GSR200 PJ bass, the only model that'll ship in 3 days. The date of arrival is 2023-02-02.

I learned most of my songs from Rod Nieder.

However only less than a week later I found out I was somehow admitted into UMich. Afraid that the airline might wreck it, I decided not to take it with me across the ocean. Instead, I will buy a Squier that costs about the same. (I know it makes no real difference, but I kinda prefer the Telecaster-style headstock that has all pegs on one side.)