It’s grade 12 and my mentor class is playing marimbas for our CAS creativity. The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn or rubber mallets to produce musical tones. I think the instrument origins from central and Latin America, with some variations of it also coming from West Africa. I really like playing an instrument from a culture other than my own, as I can explore new musical genres and get a sense of the effect of culture in musical sound. My class has been working on a song called ‘When I Ruled the World’ by Coldplay. Although I learnt the piano in primary school, I have never been the most musically inclined. In fact I think I’m actually quite tone deaf and struggle to hear differences in notes, tempo and pitch. This has proven to be a challenge when playing the marimbas as my teacher has been challenging us to understand the notes by the sound rather than name. In the beginning, I would loose track of what note to play and since I struggled hearing the notes, when I would get lost I would just stop or pretend to be playing until we started the song again. However, in the past few weeks I have discovered what I am strong at within music. When I learn the notes and the sequence, I am able to play quite well without making many mistakes. I think this is because I have a really strong ability to focus on the task at hand, so when playing I am highly concentrated on what notes I need to play next. I am excited that I have identified my strengths with marimbas, because I will be able to use it and learn the notes and sequence to get more confident in hearing the notes without knowing them.