Bandwagon XI

Ever since I was in junior high school, I was always a fan of bands.

The year was 2008. Internet was not widely accessible through your conveniently reliable pocket-sized computer yet. Spotify was not a thing. If you wanted to listen to music, you get your arse to the local music CD shop and buy a whole album. If you're more tech-inclined you went to limewire or napster and burn a couple of tunes into your monochromic-screen mp3 player or polyphonic feature phone.

MTV was still a primary resource if you're into the music scene, and their top 40 charts were generally still filled with rock songs. MCR was a huge topic, musical and sub-cultural. Thirty Seconds to Mars new music video during lunch break. Muse dropped their biggest album yet and Starlight made their way into mainstream. Avenged Sevenfold's copy of City of Evil album was handed over during recess to curious eyes in my classroom. Green Day thrived as their single American Idiot sparked controversy. Special rock segment in TV programs in allocated time. All in all, it was a thriving era for rock bands.

I wasn't one to avoid it; in fact I found it enticing. Just ask my former classmates how transparently obsessed I particularly was with Linkin Park. I was in their official fanbase, I contributed writing to fansites, I checked out their news regularly, following their tour dates and videos of live shows one day afterwards. There was not a single day I could shut up talking about them.

Years passed by. New albums were released. Internet became even more widespread, more accessible and more clever. Algorithms recommended me more variety of music to listen to, as I found more and more bands to take notes of, and video streaming services provided more contents to my liking. My computer was filled with 16 GB folder of music, and I religiously updated my iPod. Growing up in the 00s, it was mostly bands, and I liked it loud with fast-paced drum beats and pounding guitar riffs.

It was not until high school that I picked up my first guitar. My family wasn't musically inclined; the only instrument in our house was a small violin my brother bought for an extracurricular activity, which at the moment only gathered dust on the top of the wardrobe. I bought yamaha guitar, an oversized stringpiece that's seemingly too big for my stout figure. Got myself a private teacher but what do you know, apparently classical guitaring and rock 'n roll guitaring are two completely different things.

I quit after three months.

I was oblivious to this fact at that time, but I was clearly tone deaf. I had no trouble memorizing chord patterns and finger positions, but synchronizing the sound produced by guitar strum and the actual note was a struggle. I couldn't differ between a C and G, let alone comprehending how to tune the damn thing. The whole time I just mixed and matched between the chords people had written out and strumming it accordingly, but it just didn't come naturally.

I just stared in awe as my instructor showed me which fret I should hold on to for each verse, after I told him a song I wanted to play on guitar. It was probably a basic knowledge for him (and maybe for you), but it wasn't for me. It was beyond my understanding how someone could pinpoint exactly what chord to strum after only listening to it the first time.

I think at one point he said that if I can manage to play guitar classically, mainstream songs become easier to play. I just nodded when he said it, thinking he got a point, and I was already eager to be that girl in class who plays guitar flawlessly. I wanted to channel him, playing people song by request without looking out google for help or seek shelter from ultimateguitar.com. I didn't know it then, but it was the equivalency of taking Gardening 101 in a culinary academy to prepare a gourmet meal because you want to try cooking chicken alfredo. It's expensive and it takes a long time, while your stomach is already grumbling for dinner.

But when you've spent your early days eating gourmet meals, you just kinda assume it's a basic privilege for everyone to get and to give. It didn't occur to you that people spent years and years of their lives grinding away at the culinary academy to bring you a sufficient plate of delicacy. Just because you enjoy eating fancy pasta doesn't mean it's your path to become an Italian cuisine chef. It's possible, some shonen manga would even consider this as their main concept, but in real life it doesn't always work.

So for me back then, it was never about the music.

It was more about the feeling of being in a community larger than yourself. It gives you something to naturally connect with other people, hey yeah I listen to x too! great band! Like I said, I've contributed in fansites, I met many fellow fans online from all around the world, it was a refreshing way to occupy my spare time and it just so happened to be.. bands.

I liked the sense of teamwork they emit. A group of different people, but like-minded in a particular way, working together with family-like bonds, getting through hard times side-by-side, producing sounds and words that speak to other people, until they managed to rise to fame. Surely fame is beside the point, but without it their music would never reach me, a mere student stuck bored in a classroom in some third-world country unreachable from their world tour. Physically they were far, far away, but information behind computer scene is beyond fast, you would find out where they are touring right now without having to ask. I liked watching their interviews, discovering more personality traits of each individuals, seeing when one of them improvised on stage, pinpointing the exact outfit for each show venue, and so on.

But beyond the shallow reason of idolatry, of course there's the subliminal point of message. Even when I didn't understand music, I could understand the emotion it evoked inside me. And it was one thing you can't take away. You can argue how musically bad or lyrically cringy an album is, but you can't say that I don't feel powerful listening to it. The bands I listen to, they were angry, they were fast, the vocals are screaming, the choruses explosive, the lyrics gargantuan. They were channeling my inner rage I didn't know I had, and it was amazing.

Growing up, the bands I listen to become less angry, as did my emo level. It was no longer two-layer electric guitar distortions, but two actual guitars: steel and acoustic. Four chord songs became eight chords with weird annotations like #7 (got it from UG, I still can't play guitar). Shut up when I'm talking to you turned into the water's clear and innocent. I found out that you can still make the music fast and pounding, without so much of a rage. But yeah of course I still listen to bands, old habits die hard.

In a sense, I still kind of regret that I didn't seize a chance to play in a band while I had the time. I know what I did wrong; I was supposed to learn guitar with a group of friends, jamming along to songs we all know and like, embracing the poorness of our untrained vocal cords, collectively developing small callouses on our left-hand fingers, writing out cringy lyrics during class hours and passing the notes on among us, jokingly cursing that one person in the group who was clearly more talented than the rest of us, all done together.

Perhaps it's just a case of 'the grass is always greener on the other side'. My life would probably become so much different if I was actually in a band. I could be cherising it really much and still have former bandmates I can talk to now. I could be regretting that decision because somehow I got too caught up in playing and neglected my academic responsibility. It could be that it's not so much different, that I still graduate with a bachelor's science degree and I just play my jukebox part whenever there's an event. There's no telling.

It's just among these what-ifs that I could do so my adolescence years were less lame, I know for a certain that I can't change the past, but that doesn't mean I should be tone deaf forever, right?

Maybe it's time for me to pick up the guitar again.