Descriptive Essay; To Be Great

There are people that in life that want us to do great things. Some people think that it might take years to be even good let alone great at anything. However, there are some things that just take a little thought to be good at. I can remember my dad telling me that I needed to do something with my life. He always said that I quit everything as soon as it got hard. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew it was true. He even went as far as calling me a loser to make me do something with my life. So I decided I wanted to prove him wrong.

By the time I had gotten that conversation I had already been doing sports so I didn’t take it to heart, knowing that my dad can be harsh sometimes. I felt that doing sports was enough for, “doing something with my life.” I had already given the guitar a try, but had given up because, sure enough, it got too hard. I knew he was right it wouldn’t do me any good if I lied to myself. So a few months after track season was over I realized that just doing sports wasn’t enough because I had nothing to do after track except for just sit around and be told to do something. I decided to give guitar one more try, but the bass caught my eye for some reason. I was swaying back and forth trying to decide which one I wanted to stick with. For guitar I thought of  all the cool crazy solos that you hear in classic rock songs that people go crazy over, but with bass I thought of all the funky songs that have sick bass riffs that you can never forget. After a few months of going back and forth between the two, I finally made up my mind and stuck with the bass.

I decided I was going to learn the bass because I loved how sweet it sounded in songs. Luckily my dad had a spare bass lying around that he didn’t use so I had something to practice on. He gave me a book and a little advice and just told me to learn. At first I thought that I couldn’t possibly learn myself because I don’t have the self discipline to practice on my own everyday. I felt as though I needed a teacher so I could have a set time each day to practice. With that mindset it wasn’t long until when it started getting hard I quit once again on the bass. After a few months of being told I was a quitter and telling myself that I was a quitter I said I didn’t want to live life like this. So I picked up the bass again and toughed out through the hard points to prove my dad wrong and because I wanted to do something good for myself. It felt good knowing that my dad noticed my improvement from when I started to now. It actually got easier the more I learned about the instrument, so easy I even started over thinking it. For example, I thought learning the note of each fret was impossibly hard. With 4 strings that each have 24 frets, give or take a few, at first glance that seems impossible, but I found out that I didn’t need to learn each individual fret and that they all went in order which accelerated my learning massively. Some other key moments of when I over thought playing bass was when I learned how scales work and chord progressions. Those two things allowed me to understand how jazz works. People also noticed that I played bass and wanted me in their band. Even though I don’t really listen to the type of music they play I still feel good that I did something all the way through to get noticed by other people that I barely even know.

Overall it feels good to have done something all the way through. It pays out in the end. Although I’m still improving on my playing, but I can at least say I know how to play an instrument without having a single doubt in mind. Not only that, but my dad is proud that I finally did something with my life. I’m proud of myself too because not many people can learn from a book on their own. Even though I’m not great yet at I’ve at least made a good start being it.