Each time I reread this text, depending on my life moment, I have different impressions about it. I remember writing to motivate a dear friend. I wanted him to feel motivated and happy with his own journey.
Two years later, I realize that this same text has the potential to cheer a lot of people! What a wonderful surprise!
Let’s go!
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When I was a baby, learning to pronouce my first words, I was also hitting some pans, appreciating the sound of them! Creating sounds was so nice! And after that I received a gift from my parents. A little wooden piano, of those you play the keys and the hammer hits a little piece of iron. Some time after, my father was so interested to make me happy that he sold his Telefunken (a german old radio) to buy my first keyboard. A real keyboard! Not a toy. A portable Yamaha! PSR something. I can’t remember the model … I was 5 years old.
Time was passing … at the age of 11 or 12 I started having keyboard classes, then accoustic guitar, then electric guitar. The accoustic guitar was also from him. A Di Giorgio 1977! No, it’s not a collector’s model. It’s more of a sentimental relic. I changed the order of the strings because I’m left-handed.
The bigger keyboard was a gift for both of them, mommy and dad. My other keyboard :)! I remember searching for the exact keyboard model, just like the one of the music school, on a street just for electronics in the downtown!
The electric guitar? The most beautiful of all! That black and white guitar. The one I always thought was wonderful! Also gift from my father.
Time was passing and I was there, with the first gradient, coupling a karaoke microphone on its output and recording some Nirvana and Guns n ‘Roses songs on cassette tape. Then I made a crazy “gambiarra”. (Gambiarra is a brazilian word for fixing a problem in a creative and cheap way)! I put the tape I had recorded on the jukebox and I kept the microphone close to the sound box, so I could play it over again and record what I was playing with the accompaniment I had played before! I was about 14 years old.
From 15 to 17 years I was a little lost. I thought music was not for me. I thought the sheet music was a mystery. I felt like a cheat by having ear skills, for being able to easily copy a sound but not being able to read. Because, after all, music was that little book there written “Music”, full of notes and just it. Just paper. Of course!
Of course not!
It was the year of the college entrance exam. What should I do in my life? Doubts and doubts … The school that I studied made a vocational test and I was interested about it. So, I did it. I remember that a maximum score for a specific type of intelligence was 18 points, and if I am not mistaken there were 7 types of intelligence. I know I got 17 points in music (!!!) and 5 points in languages, but other things I do not remember well.
– Wow! 17 points on music! But music is not for me. Music is reading sheet music…
Then I was blessed once more. I discovered UNESP (a very good music college here). My father was with me there once again to see what it was like. And those sounds out the study rooms windows… those beautiful voices! How beautiful were those voices studying! I felt like I was in a fairy tale!
And how horrible was or the sound of “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring” in my music test! Terrifying! I had no idea what was that. I could only listen to a lot of tension. And, believe me, listening to this lot of tension when you are tense is not good! Hahaha!
Unsurprisingly, I did not pass at my first college entrance exam. I cried a lot. I almost was knocked over by a car on the street, because I was disconsolate and I crossed the street without looking at the sides. I cried, I cried, I cried … I listened to Nightwish on the radio … and then I screamed “I AM GOING TO DO IT!” And I remember the plenty of fire in my belly when I said that. It even looked like a bull preparing to hit the target.
I was back on my feet! I studied a lot and I got a good scholarship on the preparation course for the entrance exam, and, once again, my father went with me to find someone to give me music lessons with the specific focus of the college entrance exam.
In the test day, I was a little embarrassed talking to the conducting examinator “Look, teacher … I do not know if I did well. Could you please tell me if I should keep doing those other tests? If you think I had a bad mark, then I give up everything and I won’t do the other tests anymore.” Yes, it is true …. At the age of 18 I had this whole courage. Or that strong temperament all over. Obviously, I wouldn’t give up. I would just try the next year in the worst possibility.
The result of all this is that I doubled the last mark I had on the music exam! I passed the entrance exam! I fulfilled my dream! And even today, ten years later, all my prayers begin with “My God, thank you for passing the UNESP entrace exam”. After graduation, that phrase became “My God, thank you so much for passing the And thank you for graduating in UNESP” . I always do that prayers to keep that gratitude feeling, to remember how challenging it was, and to remembering that scream I did …. “I AM GOING TO DO THAT”, that enabled me to change my life.
And here I am. I did a mobile game soundtrack, I sang into a musical, I conducted two choirs, I composed songs for those choirs. Now I am about to perform my first opera and to realize another huge dream, perhaps as great as the college entrance exam!
Here I am today, remembering all this, recovering my essence and remembering that scream so mine and so deep.
“I AM GOING TO DO THAT”!