Charlene, the musician.
Charlene’s first piano was a worn crocodile with teeth for keys. It wasn’t much of a piano as it was really a toy, but her enjoyment of mashing on the keys brought her parents to getting her her own small 32-key keyboard and piano lessons. Like what seems like how all pianists begin, Charlene first started with classical music. She particularly enjoyed waltz’s and sonata’s.
When her piano teacher played Disney music before her, Charlene couldn’t believe what she heard. Truly, it was ridiculous to not think that anything other than classical could be played on the piano. But it was a movement that truly open her eyes, ears, and heart into believing that any type of music could be played. She started to play music differently — instead of reading notes, she could hear in her head the symphony, letting it flow from her fingers to the keys; emphasizing the loud trumpets that she felt to accentuating the playful flutes to slowing to the mourn of the violin. Charlene also developed her skill in playing-by-ear. Mostly, it came from wanting to play show tunes that she had heard but did not have access to the music to.
During her teens, Charlene had a new piano teacher, this time specializing in jazz. He had exposed her to a whole new different type of musical genre with seemingly odd chords and progressions. He had also recognized Charlene’s technical talent with the piano and encouraged her to enter the National AFNA Competition in the virtuoso category. She hesitantly agreed and played the Sonata Pathetique No. 8 by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Despite a performance that brought her to tears since she didn’t believe she performed as well as she hoped, she ended up taking 3rd place runner up on a national competition in the virtuoso level.
Charlene had difficulty continuing to play the piano in college since being away from home also meant being away from the piano. Three years of saving and six-hundred sixty dollars later, she bought her own Yamaha YPG-625 keyboard. Since then, she’s been exploring music composition and song writing since now her keyboard allows her to overlay different types of musical instruments together forming bands and orchestras with her fingers.
On the side, Charlene is also musician and digital artist for Solid Concept Studios, a small independent company focused on Android applications and works as a voice actor for instructional videos.