You never know how the future unfolds (a story behind my daughter's CD)

Last month, my daughter's music CD was released in Japan. She composed four out of the five songs, including played the guitar, and did the vocals. I am proud of the fact that she was able to have an album for sale while she was still in school. However, without attending that university and having many connections to the music industry through her professors and instructors, I'd presume releasing a CD would have been much harder.

Four years ago my daughter told me "Dad, I am thinking of going to Senzoku University of Music for the singer-song-writer course in the rock and pop department." She was expecting a negative response from me but I thought it would be a good idea to let her pursue whatever she was really interested in as long as she would eventually have something accomplished. So, I supported her idea.

She needed to take not only a practical exam, but also "musical grammar" and "articulation" exams to get into the university. She was confident in her practical skills, but confessed she had a hard time with the latter two. I looked at the sample tests and found that "musical grammar" was exactly what I had been studying by myself referring to a book. It was because I wanted to get better at playing the bass guitar in the big band I was in at the time. So, I taught her what I learned and she was able to pass the "musical grammar" part.

On the other hand, I had no clue what "articulation" was. I wasn't sure what to do, but I knew there was someone whom I could ask; she was an opera singer and our company's MC for our customer conferences and exhibitions. She regularly attended to the yoga class at the office which we had started about a year before then. I knew she had studied opera at university and I asked her if she could teach my daughter "articulation." She instantly responded positively. She taught my daughter in two Sunday afternoons and my daughter was able to pass the "articulation" exam. As a result, my daughter was accepted to the university.

Thinking back to why I joined a big band, and how we got an opera singer doing our MCing, goes back to some other activities I started about a decade ago. One of my staff came up to me asking, "Shiro-san, are you interested in playing the bass guitar again?" She knew I used to play. I thought it was the right time to re-start my hobby, so I joined a band which was formed by lovers of musicals.

The group had been formed through an SNS and they used to sing in karaoke, but came up with the idea of having a band and singing in front of an audience. Later, some female singers in the group formed a sub-group called Queen-Five in which I played the bass guitar. I got to know the opera singer/MC at one of the concerts and told her about our company's need of an MC for our official events. Later, she became our MC who eventually helped my daughter to learn "articulation."

A couple in the lovers of musicals' group was also into playing and singing Jazz. They were in a big band that was instructed by professional Jazz musicians. They told me about their activities in the band and I decided to join them as a bass guitarist. The more I got into it, the more I felt the need to learn "musical grammar," and that eventually helped my daughter to learn "musical grammar" too.

Due to the difficulties with my start up in 2000, it didn't allow me to spend money on extracurricular activities for my daughter such as piano lessons. When she was eleven years old, she came to me asking to teach her how to play the guitar saying her friends had hobbies (their extracurricular activities), but she hadn't had any and wanted one. That's how she started to play the guitar and eventually started to compose songs when she was in high-school.

You never know how the future will unfold. Everything is a result of your previous actions. If any of those were missing, my daughter might have not released the CD. Thinking about what we have gained until now, makes me feel the mystery of time. Those little actions we took in the past unfold to the future and create the present.