This picture of me playing at a local Starbucks charity event organized by my teacher Mrs. Rose. My story of how I picked up different musical instruments follows.

Elementary School

I began my music journey in fourth grade. My school music teacher made the whole class learn the recorder to prepare for fifth grade, where we would be allowed to choose from many instruments. To make learning music more fun, I remember my school music teacher gave everyone a “Recorder Karate” book. Each page contained a song and a few fingerings for the recorder. Just like karate, there were white, yellow, orange, green, purple, blue, red, brown, and black belts that could be earned. The first song was a “White Belt” song, so playing the song well would earn you a white belt. Each “belt” was a rubber band of whatever color of belt you earned wrapped around the end of the recorder. As you progress through the Recorder Karate book, the songs get more challenging, but the fact that you earned a colored “belt” was enough to get me to practice my recorder every day. Eventually, I got every “belt”, with my black belt being my greatest achievement at the time.

My recorder from 4th grade, honored with the 9 belts of progression.

In fifth grade, students had a choice between joining band or orchestra. My perception of bands at that time came from marching bands, and I definetly did not want to march and move awkwardly as I played my instrument, so I joined orchesta. I took the violin because it was the least hassle to carry. I felt bad for the cello and double bass players as they lugged their large instruments.

The violin was fun as I learned the fingerings on each string. It was when I got into middle school when I decided that I wanted more diversity in my music experience, so I switched to band. Amongst all the wind instruments, I spent hours trying to determine which instrument I would play. I landed on the flute since it was small and did not require delicate reeds that always need moistening.

Middle School

I quickly learned that playing wind instruments is different than playing string instruments. There was no bow to play the sound for me, I had to shape my mouth correctly and blow into the flute. For the first month I was met with failure as I tried to muster one note. I began greatly disliking band, wanting to return to orchestra and continue playing my violin. Unfortunately, I could not change my class from band to orchestra, meaning I would have to continue playing the flute until the end of the school year.

Thankfully, I did eventually get the hang of the flute. I had even grown to become passionate for playing the flute, so I continued band into seventh grade. By this time, I thought I played very well. My father also taught me some Hindi film tunes to play on the flute. Seventh grade saw me audition for entrance into the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra, but I did not get accepted. I talked to my father about getting me flute lessons to improve my flute skills. That is how I met Mrs. Rose, my flute teacher.

Under Mrs. Rose's training, my flute skills improved immediately. There were numerous things that I was previously doing incorrectly on the flute that Mrs. Rose had me correct. There is no substitute for a good teacher.

By eighth grade, I had become confident in my flute skills, and I was accepted into the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra. I also competed in some music competitions in my school. My highest point in Middle school music was when I got to play at the state level in WMEA All-State Junior in February 2020, which was right before COVID shut everything down. My school closed down for the rest of the year, and all of the music events I was involved in were cancelled. By the end of the school year, I quit Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra to focus on my new chapter of life: high school.

High School

Picture of me playing the bansuri on a stage recital arranged by my Indian classical music teacher Satyajit ji ('ji' as a suffix to the name is used to convey respect to a person in Hindi).

In high school, I continued to play the flute and have lessons on it, but since I quit playing for the high school band in 9th grade, playing the flute took a backseat as I was introduced to a new instrument: the Indian flute (bansuri).

My father introduced me to the bansuri since he wanted me to play Hindi film songs, and I took a liking to the bansuri because it felt and was played similar to the flute. I was fortunate to have Satyajit Limaye, an Indian classical music teacher close to where I lived. I started lessons with him. On my first class, he asked me to play what I knew on the western flute. After hearing me play, he told my father that I would quickly pick up the bansuri.

As I started playing the bansuri, I found one critical difference: holes in the flute were either fully open or fully closed, while holes in the bansuri were either fully open, fully closed, or half-open (or half-closed, which one is it?). Looking at how far my fingers could stretch, Satyajit ji got me started on a ‘G’ flute. Over a period of time, my fingers got used to the stretching. With practice, playing bansuri became second nature to me.

… and beyond

When I look back over these years, learning to play 4 musical instruments was quite a journey, but this journey is not over. I want to take my musical skills, engagement, and appreciation to the next level. Thus, I plan to do a minor in music in college.

Let’s see what is in store for me next.