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Friendship and Music
NAKAO, Yuki (Asahikawa National College of Technology)
What does music mean to you? We can learn many things from music. In my case, I learned the importance of friends through music.I began playing the guitar in my junior high school days. I couldn’t play well at first, but I practiced every day and gradually came to know the pleasure of playing music. And besides, I tried writing music for the guitar. Creating lyrics and tunes from scratch was very difficult, but at the same time, it was challenging and enjoyable. I was satisfied with performing and creating music just for myself. However, I can now see that it was completely self-indulgent.
My attitude toward music changed dramatically after I entered Asahikawa Kosen. Soon after the entrance ceremony, I went to see a concert by the light music club. Listening to a band perform live for the first time, I was so shocked! “How cool they are!” “How different it is to play with other members in a band than to play the guitar alone!” Excited by their performance, I joined the club immediately, and put together a band with two of my classmates. Compared to playing the guitar alone, it was so difficult for me to play in a band, because you have to harmonize your performance with other instruments. However, when we got through the difficulty and performed in perfect harmony, I felt a great joy which I couldn’t feel when I had played alone. Playing together with my friends taught me the real pleasure of playing music.
But to my surprise, they taught me one more very important thing, which I realized when I was trying to write an original song for the concert at the school festival. I couldn’t make a good song however hard I tried. Writing music for a band was very difficult, because before then I had written music just for a guitar. Making a song for a band requires you to think about the sounds and rhythms of several instruments at the same time. As I couldn’t have made any satisfactory song even a few weeks before the concert, I decided, though reluctantly, to have the band members listen to a song which I had previously written. Although I didn’t like the song and thought it was a failure, I wondered if we could rearrange it to make a new song for the band. I had no confidence that they would like such a boring song, but surprisingly, they said, “Oh, we love your song! It’s so nice and cool! Let’s arrange it to make a song for the concert together!” I was overwhelmed by their warm encouragement.
Of course, we had still a lot of difficulties to overcome before completing the song. In discussing how to arrange the song, we often disagreed with each other. To be honest, I was very stubborn and obstinate at that time. I used to simply insist on my own view, and hardly ever listened to other members’ opinions. We had trouble making the song because of my stubbornness. One day, however, simple advice by one of the members opened my eyes and changed my attitude completely. He said to me and the other member, Taro, “Yuki and Taro, you two have different ideas, and we can’t adopt both of them at the same time. Then how about combining a part of Yuki’s idea and a part of Taro’s idea?” Unexpectedly, his suggestion was satisfying for all the members. Then, thanks to his advice, we could finally complete the song. I was sure, without a doubt, that it was the best song I had ever composed. It was like a miracle that we could change what used to be a boring song into such a wonderful song! I found that there is nothing more important than having friends, and cooperating with each other.
Recently, there are people around me who just insist on their own ideas and don’t listen to other people’s opinions. Without listening to other people’s views, we can’t build up good relationships and get along with each other. Even if you think your own idea is the best, you should not ignore other people’s opinions. Accepting other people’s views certainly enables you to come up with new ideas which are much better than your original idea. Music taught me the importance of listening to others. Music taught me the importance of friends who kindly give me valuable advice. So why don’t you start playing music with your friends, if you haven’t yet? I promise that you will rediscover the importance of your friends. I strongly believe that the more people play music together, the more harmonious our society will be! Thank you.
