DJing

“I can do this.”

I’ve murmured this short but clichéd phrase probably thinking that it would help me. But no. Never in my short life have I trembled so frantically. Perspiration dripped from my sweaty palms and my legs were literally shaking from anxiety. My initial response? I thought I had to run away, far from this nightmare. Fortunately though, before emotion ruled my reasoning, my sanity kicked into play. ‘You brought these people together. You must be the one responsible for each individual’s breathtaking night’, I thought. So, there I stood, encompassed by the colorful eyes of the zealous crowd, possibly among dozens of astray sheep to guide on a journey to an ephemeral Arcadia. I was the DJ minutes before the debut night, the night when everything changed.

To look back, I was once considered a kid with “kki” - Korean term for innate talent to express oneself fluently - before puberty took a serious toll on me. An occasional trip from Seoul to Daegu was especially considered a three-and-a-half-hour joyride for I could confidently brag about my trifle knowledge and dry up my father’s saliva. Turning fifteen, though, the inevitable came. The boy who used to jabber about extraterrestrials for hours was gone. The boy who used to come forward to every school election was gone. A typical gen-Z teenager I was, fashion was my primary interest, and my playlists were filled with self-explanatory genres: Hip-hop and Emo rock. Being “that quiet student”, I was masked by my alter ego - no “kki” to be found.

In the midst of this existential crisis, I first dabbled in DJing. Blessed with all thumbs, I was enchanted by the fact that DJing allowed me to mix sounds for instruments that I wouldn’t have normally been able to play – clarinet, gayageum (traditional Korean zither), saxophone, or even harp – all at the push of a button. In other words, while handling the apparatus, I was the conductor, the concertmaster, and the drummer. An all thumbs music producer. Ironic, isn’t it?

Over time, I’ve developed a strong attachment to my 300 square inch playground. I cultivated my fundamental set of skills, adjusted by DJing, via exploratory endeavors. As I learned how to tweak the knobs just before the chorus, I’ve managed to refine alacrity to cope with unforeseen situations. As I grasped the concept of syncing tempos, my yet feeble tenacity formulated perseverance to fine-tune tracks in a few millisecond units. As I started to read the flow of the crowd, I embodied the bigger picture. Most of all, however, standing in front of the apparatus transformed me into my original self, though a long-forgotten one.

As scratches were added to the machine, I’ve slowly, and partially, reclaimed the boy I’ve longed for. Just as the ten-year-old boy curious about everything he encounters, I probed the art of cutting frequency, fixing tunes, and mixing synthesizers, all while exploring every and all possible cases. With the machine in hand, I shout, jump, and empathize with the crowd, whether imaginary or real, just as the thirteen-year-old boy who used to dress up as Steve Jobs and deliver a frenetic speech.

I am now eighteen, and the apparatus once destined to take me on a grand odyssey lies deep inside my closet with all its glory behind. Nothing matters, though. I still manage to select music for school barbecues. I am also still in charge of selecting the dorm’s reveille, which my roommates hate, signifying its successful sole purpose as an alarm. Music still fuels my blood and rushes energy through the veins. Kick drums still synchronize with my heartbeat.

If my short life has taught me something, it is that life itself is music, with some high and low notes, but always a beautiful song. And just as a DJing machine embroiders music, the machine embellished “my life”, probably altering what is expected in my future. And thus abandoning the past in my early works and composing the present, I look forward to whatever the altered future brings.

So I dive in.