I really like music, as you do. I used to listen to music as a listener, but now I'm a singer/songwriter, you might wonder how I got here. I'm going to talk about my music history a little bit from my childhood to late days.

When I was a child, I learned the piano. I liked it, but on the other hand I also liked the theme songs of Japanese animation played on TV at that time.  Actually, I liked better to listen to the songs than to watch stories, sometimes I often stared at the screen of TV to get the subtitles of the lyrics. Because they moved so fast, I asked my mom earnestly to get and write them down. Really I needed to know them for me to SING! I believe it was so bothersome for her to do it. (Mom, thank you so much! 🙂 

And one day, maybe I was 3rd or 4th grade student, suddenly I got an idea that maybe I could compose songs with the piano. With a piece of paper and a pencil, I don't know why, but I tried to create the title of the song at first. And next, I tried to make the melodies. For a while I struggled, I gave up making it  finally. I was disappointed and closed a fallboad of the piano alone, realizing how hard it was to write a song. Don't you think this is exactly a sign of my songwriting??

After I got my job, I started vocal lessons. My vocal coach said to me that I could choose the songs for my lessons. I chose some songs and took them to the lessons for about a year, but honestly I didn't feel strong passions to want to sing them. Yes, I realized that I had no songs I wanted to sing at that time though there were lots of songs in the world around me ! Then I thought like this;

"OK, I will compose my original songs."

I didn't see that coming, it was totally unexpected by myself. Anyway, after this decison, I started learning how to compose songs. My coach was sax player and used many kinds of chords like magic. I learned a lot of basic things from her.

It's passed so long time since I gave up making my original songs. Now I've become a singer-songwriter and release songs as SymLa-3000. If I could tell her who was a elementary school student about this, how would she react to me? I wish I could see it !

　特に意識していなかったのですが、歌うことが好きだったと思います。特にテレビアニメの主題歌。場合によってはアニメの内容より曲の方が気になってテレビ画面を見つめて歌詞を覚えては、歌っていました。母によると、1歳半ごろにテレビで流れていた演歌曲を覚えて、勝手に歌っていたそうです。どうやって覚えたのか私も不思議。小学生になるとピアノを習い始めました。

あるとき、ふと「作曲してみよう」と思い立ちました。しばらく考えて音符をいくつか書いてみたものの、、、メロディが出てこない。そうか、曲にはまず始めのメロディがいるのか。いわゆるイントロというやつですが、何のメロディーも思いつかないまま、少し失望してピアノの蓋を閉じた子供の私。しかし、これがソングライトの萌芽だと思えなくもない(笑)

大人になりボーカルレッスンに通うようになりました。歌いたい曲を選ぶのですが、好きだなと思う曲をいくつか歌いつつ、けれどもなんか違うなという違和感がずっとある。探し続けたけど、こんなにもたくさんの曲が身の回りにあるのに、自分が強く「歌いたい」と思える曲がなかなか、ない。選曲の試行錯誤を続けて、ようやく気付きました。

「自分が作ればいい」のだと。

まさかこんな結論が出るとは．．．。長い間、リスナー専門だった自分には、全く予想していなかった展開です。とはいえ、こうなるのが当然というか自然というか、ようやくしっくりと来た気がしました。ソングライトのレッスンはプロのサックス奏者の先生でしたが、魔法のように多種多様なコードを使える方でした。先生から学んだ作曲に関するたくさんの基本的なことは、今でもとても役にたっています。

ソングライトをあきらめた小学生の私に、将来SymLa-3000として曲をリリースするよと教えてあげたら、一体どんな顔をするか？？すごく見てみたいです(笑)。