The hills are alive...with the Sound of Music...

My trip to Hong Kong makes me appreciate my parents enormously.  Among many things, it was (and is) their love for classical music; hence, our exposure to it since we were born. 

Before my siblings and I began our piano lessons, we were conditioned to dad's regular violin practices.  In time, the four of us branched out to a different musical instrument of our choice.  


My sister started with the piano then moved on to the cello; my brother Tim plays the erhu, a quintessential versatile double-string Chinese instrument equivalent to the violin in a philharmonic.  My other brother plays the violin.  I stick with the piano. None of us became professional musicians.  What we have become, thanks to our parents and our training, are  individuals who understand and appreciate the value of hard work and discipline.  And because of our parents' love for music, we speak and appreciate this timeless language that requires no spoken words.  As I mature and become more interested in self-reflection, I begin to realize just how critical my training in classical music shaped me through the years, and how it continues to impact my perspectives of what's around me.  

As much as I love authentic wonton noodles, it is the affordable, world-class concerts I treasure most about my visit to Hong Kong. It is not exaggerating to call Hong Kong the cultural mecca.  During my short visit, I attended a piano recital, two Chinese operas, and the Metropolitan Trio featuring two Chinese string instruments and a piano, all within two short weeks.  I begin to recall what the energy feels like during a live performance.  I love feeling the magnetic energy while the performers interact with the audience.  I wanted badly to attend a concert by the Hong Kong Philharmonic, but my schedule does not work.  My brother Tim will be performing at a concert, a tribute to his former teacher, as a former member of the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra; regrettably, I will miss his performance, too.  

I am grateful for my music training which taught me the value of discipline and delayed gratification.  I find myself comparing learning a new skill to practicing scales.  Scales are downright unsexy and unexciting but critical to build a good technical foundation.  As for delayed gratification, my parents did not allow short cuts. There was no cheating and labeling of notes and fingers on the music score. I didn't play any "dumbed down version of Fur Elise".  I learned to sight-read.  I learned to count.  I learned music theory.  About composers and their respective periods and styles. And musical terms in Italian so I understand how to interpret the pieces and make them my own.  I learned the hard and long way, note by note, thanks to my parents.  It took time and efforts and it eventually became a form of delayed gratification to which I simply grew accustomed.

Above all, the early years of music training and exposure eventually leads to music appreciation, which brings gratitude to not only the composers and the performers but my abilities to hear, enjoy, interpret, and express.  Most of us take our ability to hear for granted.  I do.  Since I have a personal belief that gratitude is the engine for humanity, perhaps you can understand why I think music is so important to my world of humanity.

May you find what rocks your world, the equivalence of Chopin and Julie Andrews of mine.