My music life

This picture was shot in 1968 when I was in the second year in senior high school. The picture shows the Chinese orchestra, which I belonged to, was performing in the competition in high school group of Taipei city.

My eldest cousin Jinshia was the first one in the family who noticed that I was very fond of music. Once in a family gathering occasion, she said to me: “When I arrived home from Japan, I saw you squatting in the corner of the living room singing a child song repeatedly without being aware of my presence. I knew at that moment that we had a musician in Chen family.”


I was then just 3 or 4 years old. Jinshia had just come back from a one year stay at uncle’s another home in Japan.

Another family member who commented that I was a fast learner of musical instrument was Chaishia, my third cousin.

One evening, I was attracted to the sound of 洞簫(kind of wind pipe, made of bamboo as shown in the picture). I was wondering who could be playing this lovely music, so I went to search the source and found that it was Chaishia. I begged to have a try. She showed me how to blow. Instantly I could make sound out of it and in a few minutes after I had sorted out the scale, I began to play one of the pop music. Chaishia was amazed at my ability in learning an instrument so quickly because I was just 6 or 7 of age at that time. Later in my life, I had owned two different types of bamboo made flute.

Obviously Chaishia is talented in music too as at another time, when I was about 10 years old, she borrowed a violin and played a pop music. Upon sight of her playing an elegant instrument, I was so excited that I watched silently till she stopped. She would not let me have a try because it was an expensive instrument. The desire of owning a violin arose from that glimpse and was then buried in my mind straight away. I knew dad could not afford to buy one for me.


Six years after the first encounter with a violin, I was in the first year of Cheng Gong Senior High School. CGSHS was famous of its Chinese orchestra which won gold medal in the competition many times for the school. The leader approached me asking if I would be interested in learning any of the Chinese musical instruments. The desire of playing violin woke up at that moment, but I knew Chinese orchestra had no violin but er-hu (二胡). Er-hu is a two string bow scrubbing instrument. The leader told me that the tuition was free. All I needed was buying an er-hu of the most basic brand. It was priced at 65 Taiwan Dollar forty years ago, about 4 bucks New Zealand money. I thought dad could afford it and although it was only two strings, it somehow quenched my thirst in learning violin. So I confirmed my enrolment in the after-school music lesson.

In the second school year, the orchestra wanted a few more new members and held an audition. I passed and became an er-hu player. After many training sessions, we were ready to take part in the annual high school competition. The school was proud of our performance because we won gold medal in both Taipei competition and Taiwan final competition that year.

I loved music and played er-hu regularly until the day when we had our first child in 1982. From then, I gradually found I had no time to enjoy playing er-hu. In 1992, we immigrated to New Zealand.In 2000, when my two children were at their 18 and 13, I found some more leisure time back, so I learned playing flute with a South African teacher in Music Education Centre.

My son has got music gene from me. He also loves music. When he was just a toddler, he voiced an understandable melody one morning when he was playing in the bed. During his days in kindergarten, his teacher commented that his percussion beat was the most accurate one in the school. Through his schooling period, he had learned recorder, cello, clarinet and guitar. He played all of these very well but he would dedicate only to guitar.

I always remind my son of playing only good music to bring happiness and peacefulness to the audience.