Japan Section Special Award "Me and Song Writing" Yukio Nozawa (10, male, Japan) |
I make musical scores of my own compositions on a computer, using special audio guide software. My mother bought me my own computer when I was in my first year of elementary school, which was four years ago. She taught me how to type letters, so I could write e-mails. After a while, even though my mother was teaching me a lot, I wanted to learn more. So, I decided to teach myself about the computer. At first, I mistakenly changed important data, or typed the word "circle" instead of typing a period, because I didn't know how to type the proper punctuation mark. But after making those mistakes a few times, I managed to remember a lot of things. "I figured out how to do this. That's one more thing I've learned." Gradually, I started to understand a lot about using computers. I've been learning to play the piano since I was five years old. My piano classes are different from normal piano classes, as we not only learn how to play the piano, but we also learn rhythms and sign language. For five years, I've been playing duets with lots of friends. The practice for this is really hard, because I have to play in time with them. Even though I'm blind, I enjoy playing duets with the fully sighted. There's nothing better than the shared pleasure of playing with them and hearing, "That was good," or "You arranged that part, didn't you?" after performing a piano recital. My first step towards the idea of making songs on a computer happened when I was playing piano. One day, a particular melody came to my mind during piano class. I played the melody, and it was a lot of fun. From that moment, I felt like making musical scores of my own compositions. That night, I tried to hear some music I downloaded from an internet site, to give me some inspiration for my own songwriting. I managed to find a good song that gave me a feeling of peace and quiet. I really liked that song, and I listened to it over and over again after recording it onto a cassette tape. While I was listening to this song, I had an even stronger urge to make my own songs. The next night, I searched on the internet for software to help make music easily. But, it wasn't so easy. Some software was easy to use, but expensive. Other software was free, but didn't work so well. After about six months passed, I finally found some software that was easy to use. According to the instructions, if I just typed "do re mi fa so la ti do," the sounds would match my typing. I installed the software on my computer immediately, so I could try this new approach. It took just one day for me to get used to using it. But when it came time to compose a song, it was much harder than I'd anticipated. "Oh, that sounds too soft." "What's that? That score is such a mess!" "Darn! I overwrote the important score with another score!" Despite all these problems, I finally completed the song, "Nohara"(The Field). This was a song that had come to me in a flash during piano class. Being able to compose that song was what led me to compose more songs. As a joke, I sometimes changed the main theme of "Chuurippu no hana"(Tulip Song) to a warbling sound. Or I wrote only the introduction to "Inu no omawarisan"(Doggy cop and lost Kitty) and finished it with the sound of an explosion. I've now written about 50 songs. My dream is to become a programmer, so I can make lots of game software that I really like. Now I'm ten years old, and I've already started to create a game, the theme of which is my favorite cat. I'm working on composing songs for this game. This year, there's an event that I'm really looking forward to, called the Combined Music Festival. Fourth-year students from elementary schools in Kofu city will perform concerts or sing in groups. I'll be attending this event with nine other students from Ikeda elementary school(which happens to be an exchange school). I will play flute in the song, "Sorafune." As for the group singing, I'll take the soprano part in a song called "Smile Again." When practice started, I was so nervous because I didn't have the confidence to sing along with my friends or play difficult flute parts. But my friends taught me some things I didn't understand, and cheered me up, so I'm not nervous any more. The reason I'm looking forward to this event is that it's really fun to sing or play instruments with your friends. I can't experience this at the school for the blind. What's more, I can apply this experience to my songwriting. Music lets you express sorrow or joy through sound alone. I want to continue to make a variety of music. |
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