I walked around in musical ignorance for the first thirteen years of my life. I was unaware of the variety of music there was to express my identity with. My only knowledge of music consisted of whatever my family members put on—what they were expressing themselves with. Unable to leave me home on the weekends, my mom would drag me out to various dance studios in the city and have me wait for her to finish dancing. The offbeat and smoky drama of tangos and the distinct elegant flair of ballroom dances were interspersed with my mom’s dance friends trying to chat with someone who was clearly disinterested.
Getting my homework done was not a smooth experience. Whenever my dad was in the kitchen, the sounds of cooking blended together with the voices of bygone Cantonese stars singing lovelorn ballads floated towards my room. That, combined with the scent of whatever was cooking, let me know that dinner was almost ready. When I was chilling downstairs instead, the sound of my grandma’s Jazzercise boomed from her radio. She always set aside twenty minutes of her day to move around and keep her body strong. My family always chose what to listen to, how they could be themselves. What could I choose? I could choose not to listen and walk away.
When I was seven, my very Chinese parents did the stereotypical thing very Chinese parents did: they put me in piano classes. My weekly sessions consisted of half-hour blocks of brutal torture—learning music theory and classical music—followed by a week of believably practicing (My mom knew when I didn’t) whichever ancient classics, scales, and theory exercises my instructor deemed important for the week. Occasionally, the thirty minutes of being scolded for playing notes incorrectly was too much. The session ended with tears streaming down my face.
The cycle of not wanting to go to and then going to piano lessons continued up until my old instructor left and I met my new instructor, Ms. Mamiko Watanabe. At the time, my studio was offering a new style of classes: composition. Instead of pretending that I spent the week practicing the pieces of dead, white composers, I wrote my own fledgling fragments of pieces—short and rousing tunes for kingdoms in a fantasy world that didn’t exist, slower and more pensive melodies set after they fall. Although they weren’t delicately crafted with music theory, they were still charming in their own way. Even though I chose not to continue on with writing more complex pieces, it did provide me with a way out of the old style of classes—a way to find fun in choosing what I played.
Around that time, I started high school and my commute was finally long enough to warrant downloading Spotify. At first, I mainly listened to songs from games I played and media I watched: the opening theme from Genshin Impact, regular and boss fight soundtracks from Terraria, and pop songs like “Renai Circulation” and LilyPichu’s “Last Cup of Coffee.” Then a thought came to me: what if I played these songs? I scraped the internet for sheet music from my daily life and, suddenly, piano lessons were now bearable.
I found where my playlists overlapped with my friends’ thanks to Spotify. There were many moments of mutual discovery, we’d exclaim in excitement when we found a classic while sharing our playlists. I found that I shared an affinity with my friends for mainstream artists such as Katy Perry, Lana del Rey, and bbno$, as well as more niche and rising creators like singer-songwriters Lyn Lapid, Regina Song, and Jack Stauber’s Micropop. I also got to discover and enjoy artists that my friends liked: 80’s cantopop solo singer Priscilla Chan and group 草蜢 (Grasshopper), modern and upbeat K-pop groups IVE and Red Velvet, and rising pop singer-songwriter NIKI. By creating shared playlists, we were able to find songs that we all liked and discover new songs that the others would enjoy.
Sometimes, though, sharing my playlists would be met with scathing criticism under the veiled guise of poking fun. Multiple people from different friend groups said things along the lines of “Eww, you listen to [insert artist here]?!” “You have the taste of a white girl.” “That song is so cringe, man.” I was often tempted to change my playlists based on what my friends had said. I cut down on the number of Taylor Swift songs I listened to and the entire feeling of the playlist shifted. But when I asked some of my other friends, they had completely opposite reactions—they vehemently shared their enthusiasm for those divisive singers. As a result, the songs eventually made their way back into my head, and from there, they returned to my playlists. These friends helped in showing me that what I liked shouldn’t be hidden away from anyone.
Is my music taste truly authentic when everyone who hears it has an opinion, good or bad? Did I let people’s opinions get to me? How much of my music taste is a reflection of what other people do or don’t like? Thoughts like these constantly swirl throughout my head. I’m afraid that what people say makes me stop listening to songs, or that I see whatever’s popular and add it straight into my playlist without a second thought.
Whenever I add or remove a song, a war rages in my mind: “This is what I want right?” “Is this what other people want?” Recently, there have been voices shouting, “Why does it matter?” “Wait—I do like this song.” Being afraid of not being myself with my music choice was a result of not wanting other people to tell me what to do. I didn’t want their identity to shout over mine like how everyone used to shout over me. I was a wallflower who let my friends decide what game I should play or what show I should watch. When music helped me to find my voice, I didn’t want anyone to drown it out like they did in the past.
Art is subjective, and there’s a lot of conversation about whether pieces are only popular because influential people say it is. I was one of those people who got influenced by others around me and I let them say what I should or shouldn’t be listening to. To this day, I’m still not free of their influence, but the act of stepping away from negative opinions helps me see that there’s ample room to express myself through my music choices—lively punk and rock, energetic K-pop and J-pop, pensive R&B, and more. Finding my niche, from artists both large and small, made my days just a bit more pleasant.