Diary of a Pianist

My name's Marcus Wong. I'm a pianist, musician & a composer. I guess my being a musician is not by chance... or is it? Well, I'll just leave it be. I was born to a loveliest couple. My dad was disciplined and friendly while my mom was strict and loving. I never could sleep without music since a baby. Dad had to leave the radio on in my room so they could sleep or I'd be 'singing' through the night. Perhaps I felt secure with music around me. I was always intrigued by sound... my ears were quite sharp. At times, I'd just sit quitely, listening to every source of sound around me. The trickling water in the bathroom, the sound of the grandfather clock, bird sounds, the wind chimes.....anything at all. I loved sound..... and I still love it up to today. The 1st recording my dad bought for me was Mob Rules by Black Sabbath. I chose it as I loved the weird-looking cover. Mom was not so happy. Then came Genghis Khan, ABBA, James Last, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel and so on. Mom thought as I loved to listen to music so much, maybe I'd like to learn piano. So at 8, I started learning piano. I didn't like piano class. The studio was tiny, the air-cond was too cold, the stool was too high, the teacher had no patience. Well, almost everything was wrong. I couldn't find Middle-C for weeks. I kept on changing teachers as they didn't know how to hammer into my head where Middle-C was. I just remembered how I hated the classes. That was until I heard Richard Clayderman. I was hooked. My life changed. At 10, dad bought me Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony as a birthday present. The 1st movement captivated me. I remembered sitting at the piano that afternoon, playing and rewinding the good old cassette player and writing out the melody as I heard it and transferring the notes into the manuscript book. It was crazy, I spent a whole day doing that and played out my transcription the next morning. Mom was quite happy and dad looked proud. They knew then that their investment hadn't gone to waste. I'd say that I owe it to them that I have a music career today. Dad bought me lots of cassettes, books and CDs through the years. Mom made me practice the piano through the years. They were shaping me. Slowly but surely. The piano became my best friend at times of happiness, sadness, anger, loneliness.... it was my one and only true friend. My 2nd best friend was my portable CD player. We had no MP3 players back then. All my neigbours were tormented by my piano practice day and night. While preparing for my diploma exam, I practised till 1 am and woke up to practise at 6 am. No one dared complain because they knew i was no Angel. I had lots of free time when I was schooling and I'd do anything to fill up my time. I'd start out with doing innocent stuff which would end up in a big way. I remember the time I tried to help my dad chop down the mango tree which had grown too tall. I was supposed to saw of the top branches first bit by bit, but I chose the easy way. I did what I saw on TV. I sawed from the bottom and timmmmmbbbber! It destroyed part of the roof of the neighbour's house who shouted at me when I was practising.... at midnight. He must think I did that on purpose. When he came out, he looked pretty angry, but he backed off when he saw the axe in my hand. Perhaps that's why George Washington's dad didn't get mad at him ;) There was this other incident where I planned to burn the dried leaves I raked in my garden and ended up burning up the whole field. My neighbours knew I could do 'Big' things. Haha.