“Third place goes to... Minke Zhang! Second place goes to.... Sarah Liu! And the first place winner of the 2008 Southwestern Youth Music Festival, Chopin Etude division is... Gregory Simonian! Would you please come up to perform?” After remaining gripped to the edge of my seat, I just couldn't believe it when my name was announced. This was the first piano competition I had won in seven years.

    Now, I am not a particularly musical person. My passions lie in science: astronomy specifically. I'm not the best musician in my studio; in fact, I'm far from it. My highest priorities lie in reading about new developments in science, and in schoolwork. Only after those are completed do I finally start practicing piano. This usually comes down to one hour every day; abysmally low compared to the daily two or three hours other piano students dedicate. Excuses and justifications for my poor performances were multitudinous: I'm tone-deaf; why should I put in so much time if I don't want to pursue music?; I'm a science guy; music isn't my forte. My reasons went on and on and on.

That's not to say that I don't like music. I enjoy performing, and sharing music with others only enhances my musical enjoyment; being part of my school's orchestra is something I've tried to prioritize since middle school. Since there aren't many positions available for pianists in an orchestra, I became a percussionist. Being a percussionist has been an important part of my personal development. People assume percussion is easy because you don't have to worry about pitch; you just need to hit the drums. But percussion has the challenge of being a paradox; it's the busiest yet the most inactive position. It teaches patience with its chunks of 20-measure-long rests, and it teaches multitasking with its switches from the tympani to the bells to the snare drum. I've tackled all of these challenges head-on! In fact, I plan to continue my music education, and if admitted to Caltech, I hope to join the Caltech-Occidental Chamber Orchestra. I've attended one of the concerts, and I'd be very honored to perform there. Playing and sharing music has always been my favorite part of the musical experience; however, it was the actual practice that really helped build my character.

    Now, I'm sure there's a plethora of highly academically qualified students also applying to Caltech. As my English teacher says, “Everyone else applying to your school will have the same high grades, the same high test scores, and the same number of AP classes. The essay is your chance to show how you're different”. I know there are many other applicants with 5s on many of their AP exams. Thankfully, from my drive to learn and my previous curiosity in those subjects, getting those fives wasn't too arduous. I am good at remembering facts and doing my homework; I did not encounter the need to invest large amounts of time and work. Music, on the other hand, is a different story. My mind doesn't process music as easily as a subject like physics, so music takes more dedication. That type of commitment was a new experience for me. But last summer, I decided to change. I stopped complacently accepting not winning, and consciously decided to put in the required amount of work into piano. The whole summer before the competition, I doubled my practice time to two hours. And the week before the competition, I went up to four hours. I practiced exercises that used to be excruciatingly boring, such as practicing slowly and repetitively. My goal was to iron out the slightest mistakes in order to make that Etude as perfect as I could get it. And I made it! So once those difficult Caltech classes that require endless work arrive, I'll take my cue from music, and wholeheartedly apply myself to the challenge.