Around three years ago or so, I was in my junior year of high school—not one of my prettiest years. It was a pretty tough time for me, both with my transitioning phase to college and also the fact that I had no sense of self-care or understanding. I wanted to grow out my hair, for example, during this time, but I never did anything to make sure it looked good; it was awful! And to make myself feel even worse, there was this aura of "talentlessness" around me, where I felt like I was always trying to prove my skills for properties I did not have. It sucked. Like, really bad. And so, with my mother's birthday coming up in a few months and my desire to improve in a skill and do something nice for her birthday, I came up with a crazy idea: I will make an entire music album for her! A great idea on paper, but not without its flaws. For one thing, I had zero actual experience with music—I played the piano when I was a little kid, but I remembered nothing from my experiences. Two, I had no grasp of music theory, which is incredibly important if you are making music. And finally, three, I did not understand how to use a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), which is what every artist in the modern day uses for music! Obviously, I had some growing pains, and I knew that this would be difficult, but that did not mean I was going to give up! And so, I began learning how to use a DAW known as GarageBand in December of that year... whilst in the middle of English class. Stupidly, I did this right in front of my teacher—a strict, crazy cat-lady kind of person—and she was definitely not happy with what I was doing. "NEVER do this in my class EVER AGAIN." Those were the harsh words that I remembered from our encounter that day; out of pure spite and hate for my English teacher, however, I doubled down and worked extra hard to understand how music works…whilst in her class specifically. By January, I finally decided the kind of artist I wanted to be: a music producer, focusing on mainly hip-hop! I would spend my English classes searching for obscure samples online or cool drum kits to make my beats sound cool, and day-by-day I was slowly improving. It eventually got to a point where if you listened to my music carefully, it was almost not terrible! Yeah, my early work was trash, but here's the thing—it was MY trash, and I was extremely proud of it. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was this album! By mid-February, I finally finished that album I had started only a few months ago, coming out to a whopping eighteen beats! I then came to the realization that my beautiful masterpiece did not have a name, and so I quickly looked up some obscure flowers in order to "stand out" and "be different from the crop" for my album name, which was my actual mentality during this time. I came out of the search with "Gladiolus", which is the real name of a flower and not just some obscure disease. I gave it a cover of a red gladiolus flower next to some black text, all on a white backdrop. If I were to describe the inspiration for my album cover, it would probably be in-appearance to something like... George Michael, maybe? Anyways, here's the climax of the story: my mother's birthday! I got all of the files set up to play to her, and then I told her that I made an album for her. She was shocked, both that I was able to do this, but also that I did not eventually rat myself out for attention! I let her listen to every song, and she told me that it was "super impressive", a compliment back then, but an insult to the person I am now. I know she meant well back then—I really do—but come on, it was trash. I recently re-listened to it, and about four songs in, I turned it off and wished that I hadn't—I haven't listened to it at all since then. I kept improving, even after my mother's birthday. And at this point, three years later, I have made hundreds of beats, each bigger-and-better than the last. I have developed a lot of my understanding on how to make music throughout the years, I've learned some new DAW's such as FL Studio, and I even got a computer that doesn't lag every time I do actually anything! What started as a way to make my English teacher angry out of spite has transformed into a love and passion for something I genuinely enjoy. I don't think this hobby of mine was ever truly done out of anger, though, but more-so fulfillment—I love doing this. And I want to keep doing this for years to come, and then more years after that, because it is super fun! My main takeaway for anyone who wants to learn a new hobby or skill is this; start the baby steps. Sure, you probably suck... at doing whatever you want to do currently, but that does not mean you will always suck... as much. Maybe, in time, you will get better and actually become talented—granted, you need to be able to take proper criticism. Trust me on this though, once you finally improve in a talent or hobby over months and months, it feels awesome.
