“How can you create such a smooth sound from every simple string, dad?”-I cuddled my guitar inquisitively and asked my father. He said: “A romantic and soulful mind will help you do that.” It was on my eleventh birthday. I stopped cutting my birthday cake to pay attention at my father. Despite the Happy Birthday song being familiar, I could feel something new through the melody of the guitar version my father was performing. Watching him play every melodious rhythm with his agile fingers on every string of the guitar like a real artist, my sudden curiosity to discover the beauty of music was immediately invoked.

I first started learning to get accustomed to guitar through fundamental chords. Holding my guitar in hand, I struggled to stick my weak fingers tightly to the strings, hoping to make a smooth melody like my father did, but instead it sounded so rough. The steel strings hurt my fingers, leaving the rating pain and livid bruise on my nails. I felt a little worried, but my father helped me with several effective methods to strengthen my finger muscles by doing some stretching and caterpillar exercises. Although it was simply fretting some easy notes and learned to switch from C minor to A minor, E minor or G minor, it helped my fingers slide more flexibly on every string. My fingers developed fully calloused and numb to the pain that I could confidentially create beautiful sounds. “Finally I can do it”-a little happiness appeared on my face when I was able to play half of the song You raise me up of West Life on my guitar–a nice song with beautiful lyric that I spent much time practicing.

I tried to sing first few sentences while playing guitar, and realized that it was not easy as I thought, since a boy who just began playing guitar could not combine those skills simultaneously. “You raise me up, so I can stand on mountain. You raise me up, to walk on stormy sea.”–I tried to raise my voice up to the highest intonation. Unfortunately, I got a sore throat for a week due to screaming too much rather than singing. Since finding other ways to practice singing and also took care of my voice by gargling salt water regularly, I recovered quite quickly. “Oh your voice sounds like Jackie Chan and your eyebrow raises up with a creased face like a monkey”-my father teased me when he caught me singing. I said: “Dad, those melodious rhythms are so powerful that they submerged me deeply into the musical world, I do not know what I feel, but my facial expression implicitly reveals my feeling.”

That night, I sat in the dark and silent room where I could find music as my soulmate, tried to complete the rest of the song. Every rhythm slowly resounded from bass to high, subtly embedded in my mind. Magically, I could catch up the tune of the melody, and my fingers automatically slid faster and naturally on the strings without practicing before. That feeling was also like the moment my father teased me, but a little stronger and wilder. I closed my eyes and flied with the rhythm. The lyric song suddenly crossed through my mind, forced me to yell loudly: “I loved you mom and dad.” Right, it was not too late for me to express my love for my parents through the lyric of the song. I gradually understand about the thing my father told me: “A beautiful and soulful mind will help you do that.” That was exact, I could not play music unless it touched my soul and music did not come to me unless I opened my heart. A little artist shining among darkness, “You are more mature, Trung.” – I told myself with a full of euphoria and a little pride.