My eleven year old self after school drove along the backseat with my brother and sister, my mom sitting in the passenger seat, and my dad driving. I was going to attend my first piano tutorial to see if I was going to pursue it as lessons in the future. As I gazed out the car’s window passed the small houses that all looked very similar, I could see the variety of colours seen in the warm, summer sky. Colours of purple, pink, and orange spread along the vast area of it with crystal clear clouds to contrast the warm feelings of summer. The drive along the way was smooth and quick as it had only taken about five minutes to get to the tutorials from my house, we drove through the parking lot and parked in front of a light brown building . My young self looked a long way up the tall building observing the white letters, Sonata School of Music, attached below the windows that were spread in a straight line.

I pulled open the glass door and went through an alley of stairs, the lights were dark and flickering. I already began feeling butterflies fluttering in my empty stomach, and nausea quickly began to form. In my head I began to form many questions such as: “What if I embarrass myself in front of all these people trying for tutorials with me?” and “What if I do something extremely wrong or stupid?”. I tried my best to throw away those thoughts because I thought I was being sill. As we went up the gloomy staircase it quickly turned into a glowing and cheerful hallway, a sigh of relief washed over me. The windows that I had seen from the outside had lit up the open doors that led to the different rooms of varying music from drums to guitars. Posters of encouragement were taped along the bright yellow walls and the parents of other children standing and leaning against it. Both my brother and sister went in first to the piano room with buzzing children and cheerful teachers. I waited anxiously for my siblings to finish their tutorial that had lasted for approximately fifteen minutes, performing their skills really well despite their lack of knowledge in playing the piano. The butterflies in my stomach had flown away and I had forgotten all my fears in coming here.

When my turn approached to play the piano I felt confident with myself when observing the techniques and skills used by my siblings. I came into the brightly lit room with pianos in a set of two rows perfectly aligned. Piano music books were propped neatly on top of the stands and the name Yamaha was engraved in gold. I sat down on the black, cushioned, long chair closest to the door of the room that I had entered in. children of various sizes and parents began to gradually fill the room. My chest kept continuously, pounding harder and harder for the anticipation to play and show off skills that I thought I new based on what I saw from my siblings. Since this was just a tutorial and I was young, parents were supposed to help you navigate the keys and help with instructions if we needed help. That confidence washed away and I now began to feel the pressure of doing well because I really wanted to learn and master a new instrument. The instructor came into the front of the room and told us what keys to play along with the song that was selected for us to play with the piano. I felt a mix of emotion because I immediately became confused as I fixed my attention to the keys. They looked all the same but only one could be the right one for us to play. As I had my mother help me that confusion had turned into frustration, I did not want help because I wanted to show that I was good at something that I had never tried. I frequently insisted to her that it was not the right key because she had never played the piano either and I thought she was wrong but the instructor from the front of the room had said she was right. I was really disappointed since I thought I knew what I was doing but instead I became really impatient.

Everything we were taught, I was not in love with. I was continuously bored and was daydreaming a lot of things especially like what I could be doing rather than sitting in that room. I could be sleeping, eating, or playing outside in the breezy summer air. My eyes kept wandering to different objects around the room that were not relevant to the setting of the piano room like passed the outside of the doors to the clear windows, a reminder of all the things that I could be doing outside like riding my bike and playing with my friends. Although the tutorials were only about approximately twenty minutes for my age group playing the piano, it felt like an hour and eventually the clock ticked to the end of the time of the tutorials and it was finally done.

Leaving the room I had thoughts of never pursuing piano as a skill not because I did not show much interest in it, but because I thought I was going to be good at  it which was a mistake. I went through the brightly lit hallway, down the dim stairway, and opened the glass door towards the parking lot. The sky had turned navy blue, and stars high above. The moon was from clear sight with all the clouds from during the day that had vanished. From afar I could see the silhouettes of the evergreen trees and the rocky terrain with it. I were disappointed but I knew what I wanted and it was not piano. At that time I did not have a specific talent that defined who I was.

Not even a week of this day happening, I was observing the intricate shapes and designs my friend had been drawing. She had been creating drawings of people and with their own hints of personalities, with different styles of clothing, hair, and faces. That was when I knew there was more to art than just making flat faces with no dimension, but 3 dimensional heads and the body looking like a realistic figure. I thought this was a way to find a new sense of creativity other than learning the piano. To this day I realize that wanting to learn one passion that did not go as planned will sometimes turn into a better one that may still affect you today and possibly in the future. This is exactly what had happened to me.