C
I have only faint recollections of this through a plastic folder, drawing class, and pieces of White Rabbit milk candy- the ones with the edible rice paper inside, because I always thought they were nifty and different and fun- but the first instrument I had ever come in contact with was a piano. This would have been when I was around two, because I moved to the United States then. Odd that these small pieces of memories don't come until they're beckoned, and each leads to another.
"Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it."

Piano wasn't something I put much thought in until tenth grade, when my sister was old enough to start learning, and my mom had me learn as well. I loved it, I loved everything about it. Finished my first book in about a month or two, and the moved on to the harder stuff, the harder basics with my amazing teacher. Of course, that was when my family decided to move again. It wouldn't be until another year later that I would resume my lessons with someone who was just as patient and kind.

B
Until I was six, I had never even heard of Twins, but my cousin insisted they were a real pop group in Hong Kong, and that their music was amazing. She did some digging through my family's DVD collection...which was a lot...and found a copy of their 2001 concert DVD. This was the first time I really got into singing, and the first song on there was the first song I learned, as we played the whole concert from start to finish and back again, over and over until 2004...because it was then that their next concert came out.

B flat
Ten years old saw me in Hong Kong a mere nine days or so after my birthday. New city meant new home, new school, new people, new language, new everything. Band class was not optional in primary school, and when asked what instrument I wanted to play, I had no idea, so I blurted out the first thing I thought about- the flute. Thank God, thank God, thank God Mr. Stroud said we had enough flute players, because God had something much better in store for me eight years after that happened. So, I blurted out the next thing that came to mind- the trumpet. Thank God, thank God, thank God for that because playing the trumpet opened a part of my soul eight years later I never even knew existed. The trumpet was the instrument that took an hour to learn...with only three things to press and your mouth to move...and a lifetime to master.

Seven years later, I played for the NC State Pep/Varsity Band, and then the NC State Marching Band the year after that for the rest of the time I was in college. My whole life was planned around the Power Sound of the South, and this, this was what God had in store all those years ago, when I barely even knew what a trumpet was, in a small band room on the fifth floor of a school in Kowloon City.

G
The guitar is a funny instrument that I got really into at one point in my childhood. How was it possible to move your fingers on all those strings and strum to make such pretty sounds? Shortly after starting school in Hong Kong, guitar lessons also started at a music place in Tai Po. What the heck even was a classical guitar; the entire time I had pitched the guitar idea to my mom, I was thinking about an acoustic. "Don't worry," my teacher said. "These are the basics, but you'll get to the acoustic easier if you learn classical." She stopped teaching there after six months, and my guitar was rarely taken out after that.

Worship at my first ever youth group, Fusion, saw me playing around with a guitar and the only three chords that I knew- A, Am, and E. "Here," my friend had said, and showed me the four chords you needed to play any worship song. G, D, Em, C.

E
Four, five, six, seven chords did you no favors when playing on the worship team, but that didn't stop me from picking up Ming's guitar during a break from practice one day two and a half years ago. Tim was on bass that weekend, and as I picked the guitar up and played around with it, he took off the bass and handed it to me. "Why don't you try this one? This is the E string, A, D, G..." the rest of the fret board and the way the bass was played had me trying the next run-through we did.

"Hey, that was pretty good! You should play with us on Sunday," Ming said afterward.

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It's odd how I was so against learning piano in sixth grade when my mom told me to, because I was competitive and stubborn, and I hated doing whatever everyone else did. Absolutely hated it. I hated that I had the same phone as many other people when my first phone broke (but boy was I glad to be rid of that old Motorola flip phone), and hated that I had to learn piano when around 98% of the people I knew played piano. But it opened a whole new world for me; piano is the thing I turn to when I'm upset, when I want to be creative musically. It challenged me, improving my music theory and improvisation skills, pushing me further and further because the things you can do with a piano are limitless.

Who knew that a love for (terrible) singing would launch me into the worship teams at CAIS (even though the worship teacher put me on a grand total of one time...)? And Fusion? Worship was really where my ministry started, where I could share my faith and burden for Christ with others. My heart was called to worship, and through singing, I got to be on the Fusion worship team, my first ever youth group, and then help out with Reload, before coming back to serve on the RC3 YG/adult (Sunday) teams my senior year of high school. Being involved in worship these several years have really challenged me spiritually and musically, growing not only my singing but also my piano and guitar skills, and paved the way to the bass guitar, all the while being able to serve Christ and those around me.

The Power Sound of the South was my life. All through sophomore-senior year of college, everything that happened between mid-August and November/December was planned around marching band. Playing trumpet gave me so much. The techniques in sustaining tone through the instrument helped train my lungs and breathing to improve my singing (and vice versa), allowing me to improve musically in more than one aspect. The most rewarding thing about playing trumpet was being in the section I was in with the traditions that we had. BYOM during Band Camp, the Cookout/Trumpet Party, the Dirty Shuffles, the Suicides, the music and melodies we got to play during the shows and stands tunes, Fast Fight, Slow Fight, football season, basketball season, tunnel speeches, trumpet cheers- these are precious, irreplaceable, and unforgettable memories.

I suppose guitar and bass could be placed in one category, because one bleeds into the other (all right, let's be honest; I'm not very good at guitar at all). Guitar was fun, but playing the bass...it was different. I like different, doing something that not a lot of people did or knew how to do, or even wanted to do. The bass isn't always heard, it's not a lead instrument, and it doesn't get you attention, but it's the backbone of the band. It is one of the driving forces of the music, and playing bass gave me another way to worship with or without my voice. Again, an hour to pick up, a lifetime to master. But in addition to singing, it helped me to bond with the people I jammed with, on Sundays or on retreats. This past church retreat caused the team to gel together a lot, and because we played with each other a lot anyway, it was so easy to go through the songs and gel together to create something that is musically pleasing to the ear and worshipful to Christ from our hearts.