Invicta Vlogs
My Journey with Music
My name is Yingtong, and I am part of the Senior Prefect Team at Invicta. In this blog, I would like to talk about music; the history, the different genres, but especially why it is important to me. I hope that you find this blog interesting and hopefully learn something new by the end.
A little bit of history – music dates as far back as 500,000 years ago and the earliest known instruments are at least 35,000 years old! The first piece of music written down (recorded) was back in 600 B.C in ancient Greece and Rome, and music built a foundation for the development for language. The first piece of music which was ‘recorded’ was in the late 1850s, by Édouard-Leon Scott de Martinville in Paris using a machine called a phonautograph* (invented by himself). This was two decades before the invention of the first telephone by Alexander Graham.
Now, music can be accessed in many different ways eg., the radio, TV, streaming services, and through social media platforms as well. For me, I mostly use Spotify to access music because it is so easy and quick to use. I listen to music every day when I walk to school because it puts me in a positive mindset and overall, improves my mood.
However, it hasn’t always been this easy for me to listen to my favourite songs. For those of you that don’t know, I was not born in England, but in China. I moved to England when I was 8 years old, and during my early childhood, I was often taught traditional Chinese songs by my lovely grandma (I am still able to remember some today) but I would only ever hear modern Chinese pop music when I was in the busy city of Guang Dong. None of my family could sing but I seemed to show some creative skill when I started school. When I was 6, I was entered into the whole school singing competition and I won.
Here is a picture of my certificate.
When I won that competition, I realised that I was actually good at singing. Fast forward to when I moved to Maidstone, I participated in the school choir when I was in Year 4. I joined North Borough Junior School in November 2011 (Year 3) and I was not confident enough in my English yet to join any clubs. Although, with the amazing support of my friends, family, and teachers, I picked up English quite quickly and I slowly became more fluent.
In Year 3, I remember when I heard a song by Bruno Mars for the first time, playing from a stereo on the school playground. That was my first experience with western pop music; and I thought it was the best thing I ever heard. I wasn’t aware that there were so many genres of music until I heard different songs on the radio. My stepdad has been the biggest influence in my life, introducing me to country, indie, even punk-rock and heavy metal (which I was not a fan of!).
My stepdad has been playing the guitar since he was 15 and I was fascinated by the amazing sound that the strings made when he struck a chord or inventing little tunes by fingerpicking. He bought me my first guitar, which I try to play every day.
If I am being honest, the guitar was sitting sadly in the corner of my room for 2 years but when COVID hit the UK, I made a promise to myself that I was going to learn to play it properly. During the first lockdown, I started taking song writing seriously and channelled my emotions in a positive way to come up with meaningful song lyrics.
Last Christmas, I got production software and I tried producing my own songs. I have one song on Spotify right now and it’s called ‘My Reflection’. I released this song back in March this year. Releasing this song was so important to me because I wanted to let others know that they were not alone. The mental health of millions of people was affected by COVID and all the restrictions, and although I wasn’t able to put how I felt into proper sentences, I tried my best to translate my thoughts into the lyrics of the song.
This is the link to my song if you would like to have a listen: https://open.spotify.com/track/0D7wZMbJTJxLDY2ncooWZr?si=8cbdd929c8a844ee
I still try to write something down every day, just to get my thoughts down. Listening to new music always inspires me and clears my mind.
Especially since COVID arrived in the UK, music has become extremely important to me. I don’t just mean listening to songs by other artists, but actually being creative myself – messing around on the piano or learning new chords on my guitar. Music has significantly improved my mental health over the past year. Making music was ultimately what helped me through the difficult times.
It has been my pleasure to write this blog. I hope you have gained an insight into how music has affected me - please do give song writing a try! Do not be discouraged at the start because I was also very bad at coming up with decent lyrics but trust me, when I say that you will improve with time and practise, so keep writing! Inspiration can come in all sorts of ways, so be as open minded as you can.
Thank you so much for reading,
Yingtong Jarrett
Senior Prefect
Reference Websites:
https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/art-music
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/your-musical-self/201209/which-came-first-music-or-language
