Just Keep a Record of Your Life

I came across a video from ten years ago, back when I still lived in a rooftop shack apartment, playing and singing to myself.

If I really had to give my younger self a piece of advice, it would probably be this: keep a good record of your life.

Watching that video now, a lot of memories come rushing back. Back then I lived in the rooftop addition of a run-down apartment in Taipei. On a typhoon day, about half a centimeter of water would collect on the bedroom floor; the rain hitting the metal roof was deafening, and I could not sleep at night at all. In those days I would think about saving every dollar, even on clothes.

Looking at it again, I sometimes wonder: if I had gone all the way down the music path back then, what would I be like now?

Thinking about it, I am glad I did not. Otherwise I would probably have starved by now 🥲

I did once think about taking music seriously, but my family’s situation did not allow it. People say life offers many choices, but having no money often leads to bad decisions, and in the end I went with the major that gave me the best odds (Information Management). When I started my first year, I had no interest in software development at all. It just happened to be a popular major, and I had picked up some related knowledge in the electronics track in high school. Only in my second year, when I faced the pressure of making a living, did I have to start studying seriously.

This recording is from high school. I wanted to give a gift to a girl I liked, so I went to a recording studio that charged NT$1,500 an hour. It was my first time in a studio, and I was terribly nervous, afraid that one hour would not be enough to get the finished take.

The studio had an electronic keyboard. It was my first time on a weighted keyboard, which felt different from the piano at home, so it took me a while to adjust. Even though I had practiced countless times, plenty of notes still came out wrong when I actually played.

At first the engineer kindly explained that the piece is in 3/4 time, so accenting the first beat would make the whole thing sound better. I played it many more times after that, and something went wrong every time.

I was very discouraged. I had spent so much money, and only once I was in the studio did I learn that things would not go the way I wanted. My fingers did not feel like my own. Time ran out, and the piece still had many mistakes, so all I could do was rely on editing afterwards. The engineer did his best to minimize the mistakes and make the cuts sound less abrupt, and in the end he burned a CD for me.

That was right when VOCALOID was exploding in popularity, and “Just Be Friend” was one of those songs. The version I played is marasy8’s arrangement.

In high school I was under enormous exam pressure, carrying the expectations of my family, my classmates, and the cram school, and studying was painful. Listening to cover singers on niconico (like Amatsuki, Shounen-T, and Sana) covering Vocaloid songs, along with the piano in my room, was my salvation, even though I understood no Japanese at the time.

With no musical background and no connections, I am impressed that I felt my way forward and found resources on my own, with no guidance at all, and still ended up playing decently. That experience is also what led me to start learning Japanese and to work in Japan.

Compared with my student days, life now has so many things to worry about, and there is no longer room for that “I just want to play this one piece well” feeling. But seeing that my younger self would naively march into a recording studio, or be bold enough to go play the piano at Formosa Boulevard Station, maybe I should look for some of that naivety and impulse again.

I no longer have the impulse or the greenness of my youth, and if you asked me to go back to that period I would certainly refuse, but I still feel nostalgic when I think about it, so I wanted to share it.

Software development has changed a lot, but I am glad I chose this path. Financial freedom is still far away, but at least I can cover my living expenses, and I can buy instruments and take lessons on my own.