BLACKBIRD
The Beatles - Blackbird (Cover by Hagar Elsayed)
Through the shady streets of Shubra, Egypt, where car fume was a sort of perfume and grey was the new gold, I, along with my father and brother, looked keenly for a music shop. The little store could be spotted easily, even through the bust of crowds and the pollution that seemed to swallow you. Outside, there was a red guitar shaped neon light that called to me. That day was the day I would take my first steps into becoming a musician; that day I bought my first guitar.
Now let’s take a step back. At 13 years old, music was one of few things that made me feel alive. My CD player contained the songs that gave me butterflies, that shed my tears, that triggered my laughter and gave me a rush like nothing else. Hours staring at the ceiling listening to Taylor Swift on replay taught me more about life than you can imagine. Every song was an experience; every note was an emotion, every line a cry. That is what music meant to me. Music was an emotional outlet. I envied musicians for having this alternative outlet of emotion that could universally be understood; I craved for their art. The thing about music is you just understand, and all my young heart wanted was to be understood. |
I would like to think that buying my first guitar was an impulse that came with an epiphany, but it took long days convincing my father that this was something I was passionate about. The voice of Taylor Swift and the Beatles did not speak to my father like it did to me, he was an old conservative Egyptian man. I thought it almost impossible to have him understand my perspective on music, but the truth was, although my father didn't find the same connection to Paul McCartney as I did, the voice of Umm Kulthum, a famous singer during the 1930s to 1970s, could bring him to his knees. I realized that no matter how old you are or where you come from, music has the same power. This universal power inspired me to be a musician.
Shubra was a city for the Egyptian entrepreneurs where small businesses found fortune. There was a store for everything and everyone. Along with my father, my oldest brother accompanied me as I went to find a guitar. My brother was a great support and encouraged all my musical fantasies. He did not find himself capable of learning music so put his hopes into his sister with a heart of rainbows and unicorns. He was with me for every step I took, including my first step into the Shubra guitar shop.
Skimming through the different guitars in all their shapes, sizes, and colors, I stopped at one guitar. It was a solid black classical guitar. It wasn’t the prettiest thing at the time and I’m sure if I kept looking I could have found a guitar more suitable for stage performance like Taylor Swift’s, but I was getting ahead of myself. At 13, that black classical guitar had everything I needed and with that thought, it became mine. I named my first guitar Blackbird, after the famous song by The Beatles, because when I learned to master playing the song Blackbird, it was time for my bird to fly away, and for me to move on with a new guitar.
I took that guitar home that day and without any further delay, I spent hours and hours figuring out the complexities of this marvelous bird. Day after day, I spent time with my guitar, using books, the internet, and any source I could find to teach myself how to play guitar. Hours a day practicing became my life, and for every song I drew a white musical note with corrector fluid on the rim of my guitar until the circle was complete.
Years later, I outgrew Blackbird and it was it’s time to fly. After getting my first job, I saved up enough money to begin my search for my second guitar. My dream guitar was the Taylor Koa Wood guitar that Taylor Swift played White Horse at the MTV Music Awards a couple years back. However, that guitar was very much out of the price range of a 16 year old girl with a summer job.
In my town of Tucker, Georgia, my brothers and I went walking around discovering small shops. It was then when I found my local guitar shop. The owner, Paul, kept his guitars as if they were his children. He was a nice charismatic man that was a magician on the strings. His guitars lacked brand names, but nonetheless, they were beautiful marvels. He recommended one of his guitars for me, an electro-acoustic De Rosa guitar, and when he plugged it into the amp and my fingers stroked it’s strings, I fell in love. I fell in love that day, and that night, I took Rosa home.
Blackbird and Rosa were very different, but they each helped me build my musical literacy in a different way. Blackbird inspired me, while Rosa gave me wings.
Shubra was a city for the Egyptian entrepreneurs where small businesses found fortune. There was a store for everything and everyone. Along with my father, my oldest brother accompanied me as I went to find a guitar. My brother was a great support and encouraged all my musical fantasies. He did not find himself capable of learning music so put his hopes into his sister with a heart of rainbows and unicorns. He was with me for every step I took, including my first step into the Shubra guitar shop.
Skimming through the different guitars in all their shapes, sizes, and colors, I stopped at one guitar. It was a solid black classical guitar. It wasn’t the prettiest thing at the time and I’m sure if I kept looking I could have found a guitar more suitable for stage performance like Taylor Swift’s, but I was getting ahead of myself. At 13, that black classical guitar had everything I needed and with that thought, it became mine. I named my first guitar Blackbird, after the famous song by The Beatles, because when I learned to master playing the song Blackbird, it was time for my bird to fly away, and for me to move on with a new guitar.
I took that guitar home that day and without any further delay, I spent hours and hours figuring out the complexities of this marvelous bird. Day after day, I spent time with my guitar, using books, the internet, and any source I could find to teach myself how to play guitar. Hours a day practicing became my life, and for every song I drew a white musical note with corrector fluid on the rim of my guitar until the circle was complete.
Years later, I outgrew Blackbird and it was it’s time to fly. After getting my first job, I saved up enough money to begin my search for my second guitar. My dream guitar was the Taylor Koa Wood guitar that Taylor Swift played White Horse at the MTV Music Awards a couple years back. However, that guitar was very much out of the price range of a 16 year old girl with a summer job.
In my town of Tucker, Georgia, my brothers and I went walking around discovering small shops. It was then when I found my local guitar shop. The owner, Paul, kept his guitars as if they were his children. He was a nice charismatic man that was a magician on the strings. His guitars lacked brand names, but nonetheless, they were beautiful marvels. He recommended one of his guitars for me, an electro-acoustic De Rosa guitar, and when he plugged it into the amp and my fingers stroked it’s strings, I fell in love. I fell in love that day, and that night, I took Rosa home.
Blackbird and Rosa were very different, but they each helped me build my musical literacy in a different way. Blackbird inspired me, while Rosa gave me wings.
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