commissioned essay

     It is dark on the stage. The light turns on and I am standing on the stage, looking at the face of the people standing in front of me, looking back at me. The drum starts to beat. Looking at each others’ eyes, we start to play the songs. The moment that we start the show-that is the moment when I feel the most heaved with happiness.

The first time I sang as a vocal of a rock band was after I got into KMLA and became a member of PLZ, the school band. At first, I applied as a rock band vocal just because I liked singing. I didn’t have any experience of singing with a band or not even much experience of singing on a stage. I didn’t know much about rock. It was a whole new thing to me. I started to listen to new songs that I used not to know of and watch live videos of bands that I used not to have interest in. In the process, I learned that singing as a band vocal was different from just singing alone; it is like playing in a sports team. It is important that each one of us do well on our parts, but it is also important that we play in harmony as well. If we didn’t listen to each other’s sound, we wouldn’t play it well, even if we all did well on our parts. That was what I liked about singing in a band; I wasn’t just singing alone but singing ‘for’ the whole group.

     Once there was a time when we were banned to perform because of the liability for food delivery to school. Many people ate delivered food, which was against the school law, at the third floor of Chungmu hall and left the trash there. The problem was that our practice studio was there. Teachers decided that we were responsible for not managing the third floor, and for the punishment, we were excluded from the list for the performance at the welcome party. Since it was true that we were those who used the place the most, we couldn’t resist the decision. At the party, we all felt depressed, and that was the time when I wanted to be on the stage most. Fortunately, on the party day, after all the performances were over, we were allowed to perform just one song, which became the stage that I will never forget. That was the time that I realized how meaningful PLZ was to me. Since then my life at KMLA cannot be explained without mentioning PLZ.

     About a week from that, we performed in Rock Festival that took place in KMLA. That was the show that I enjoyed the most. When we sang ‘Happy Ending’, which was the favorite stage of mine, I felt different from what I did at the debut stage in Christmas party. As I had eye contact with every people under the stage, I felt like talking to each one of them. I really felt thankful to all of them, that they came to see our show, that they listened to our music, and that we could play for them. When I heard someone say that of all the stages that day, ‘Happy Ending’ was the most moving, I felt so proud of our members and myself. Maybe he could also hear me say ‘thank you’ to him as I sang the song.

I learned and felt many things as I played in PLZ for two years, about harmony, about working together with our members, and about being on stage. I have changed a lot, from a shy little girl who couldn’t even sing in front of her family and who quit learning piano because she was afraid of contests, to a school band vocal who freely expresses herself. I am still a shy person at times, but more of the time, I am an passionate, enthusiastic person, always active and alive.