Among the various stories my parents have of me, one that they love telling is how I scared them in the middle of the night. This occurred when I was around four or five years old; I was in my own room while my parents slept together in theirs.

We lived in a pretty quiet neighborhood—maybe the loudest noises were caused by cars driving by, but that was it. So, when my mom woke up to music playing, she was scared. There was nothing in my parents’ room that could make those sounds, so she woke up my dad.

Since it was clear that my mom wouldn’t drop the topic or let him go back to sleep, he accompanied her to investigate the source of the noise. They followed it, and found themselves being drawn to my room. The radio player, thought to be too high for me to reach, was playing a disc of classical music for kids. Sometime during the middle of the night, I had gotten up and inserted it into the radio player to help me sleep.

This is the earliest recollection I have of my interaction with music. For years to follow, I kept in touch with it through piano lessons, something that became a natural part of my everyday life as I grew up. Playing the piano was just something I had to do and grew to be more of a chore rather than an activity I derived any enjoyment from. Since I’ve done it for so long, if I wanted to quit, it would mean I would be wasting my parents’ money. Yet, even after discovering that I could play something other than classical music, which didn’t occur to me for an embarrassingly long time, I was still very dispassionate about playing. So, I said goodbye to the instrument that accompanied me for the nine years that I played it growing up.

In retrospect, I appreciate staying with the piano for as long as I did because I have picked up quite a few skills from it. If I wanted to, I could learn how to play songs I like, whether it be by ear or through reading sheet music. Because I’ve been able to read music for so long, it surprises me when I hear that some musicians can’t read sheet music. As I had to learn a little bit of music theory in my years of learning piano, it became a skill that I found useful in the future. In fact, it taught me to appreciate musical breakdowns of songs, allowing me to enjoy the songs more as a whole.

Playing the piano and hearing the occasional pop song coming from the radio were some of the few ways I barely remained connected to music, until around seventh grade.

Before this, I didn’t really use the computer or the Internet, unless it was for schoolwork. The discovery that I could look up my own music and listen to it on YouTube was life-changing. It felt like something incredible appeared and showed itself to me, giving me a power that was too much for a curious 12-year-old kid to handle. I delighted myself by listening to songs I loved over and over again. Even if it was the same one that I had been listening to the previous week, I’d have it open on the YouTube tab, and open another tab to do something else.

It was during this period that I found myself really attached to rock songs. My tastes drifted into the typical angsty teenage rock genre. I had listened to and sang them so often that, to this day, my younger siblings can still vaguely recall them. It’s a little embarrassing to remember, but isn’t that part of the process of growing up?

While that kept me occupied for a while, one thing led to another, and I found my interests drifting to Japanese Vocaloid songs. Vocaloids are basically voice programs that can be used as substitutes for singers. Each of them have an anime character design that goes with them, the most popular being Hatsune Miku.

Transitioning from English songs to Japanese songs was a bit of a jump, but not for the language barrier as one may think. Actually, I have a really hard time distinguishing English words in songs—they all sound like collections of syllables arranged in aurally pleasing arrangements. I’d have to read through lyrics or watch lyric videos multiple times before I can hear the words in the songs, but, even then, I’d maybe only remember the chorus at most. It wasn’t much different with Japanese songs; however, the difficult part for me in transitioning between genres was actually the difference of vocals and instrumentals.

Even though I learned to adjust to the change from real people’s voices to robotic voices, I struggled a little more with the different types of songs within the Vocaloid song genre. Because Vocaloids could be picked up by anyone who wanted to try making music, that meant there were a lot of different song producers, making all sorts of songs. The songs ranged from pop, to something more EDM, or even more rock.

This new world of music fascinated me, even more so when I found out that some of these producers were weaving stories through their songs—stories more compelling than those told through English music videos.

It was through this interest that I became convinced of the idea that stories didn’t have to be told solely through typical texts and books, a conviction that would influence my thinking and other interests in the future.

Having found my interest, I shared it with my closest friends, and we were able to gush over it together. I also shared it with my siblings, who weren’t interested in it at first, but grew to accept it over time. This was a two-way street, as they also shared what they were interested in. Funnily enough, both my friends and my brother had gotten me hooked into another music genre, Kpop, which became a frequent topic whenever we got the chance to get together and have a meal. Without this shared interest, I think we definitely wouldn’t have remained as close as we are now.

For a while, I’ve wondered why questions like favorite music genres or groups were always included in icebreakers or security questions. Looking back on my history with music, I realized that music genres are an integral part to a person’s identity. Because I found it difficult to open up about my own interests, it was difficult for me to see what was so obvious. Music, as I learned, is how people can learn to connect with each other. I’ve been able to connect with many people through music. It’s helped me, as well as helped others, too.