As usual, I'll start with the piece I'm listening to when I'm writing this post.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5T0CtyFnwvkqwtfiIDAHnl?si=Xoch1SKFT0i2cfg046hajQ
It's Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's 24 Negro Melodies, Opus 59! (Yes I'm currently listening to the whole album)
It bugs me that I never really knew any black classical musicians except the Kanneh-Masons family, or any black classical composers for that matter. I tried Google but it always referred me to jazz musicians. I love jazz, but Google, that was just not what I was looking for. 
Anyway, I was following Classic FM's 2021 Hall of Fame and read their article about one of Coleridge-Taylor's compositions, Deep River, making its first appearance ever in the countdown. I've never heard of the composer's name in my life so you bet I was excited to delve into his works.
I've never really studied music so I'm not at all familiar with musical terms, but you know how Rachmaninoff just sounds so Russian, and Satie so French? I recently watched Inside the Score's video on YouTube called What Makes Debussy Sound French? and learned how Debussy was heavily influenced by Satie, who ignored the Germanic Rulebook of the perfect cadence and successfully turned dissonant chords into consonant chords, leading to an extraordinary breakthrough in French music. Now how is this related to Coleridge-Taylor's music? The article said, "A progressive writer of his time, Coleridge-Taylor’s compositions wove together western classical instrumentation with traditional African sounds...", which makes me wonder, what are traditional African sounds? What makes African melodies sound African? And how would they look on the music sheet? I'm so excited to hear more of his compositions and learn more about them!

Now onto the recap! There were three things I started in late 2020 that I never thought I'd do in my life.
1. Learned how to make homemade candles
2. Learned the guitar!!!
3. Made a podcast!!!!!!!!

Let me just tell you that I LOVE making my own candle. I made a vanilla and lavender scented candle for mother's day and I might have liked it a bit too much, even more than my mom did lol. I initially wrote that making my own candle wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be but who I was kidding?? It was the exact opposite! It does look easy but there are so many rules in candle-making. The essential oil should be 6-10% of the weight of the wax, you shouldn't put the essential oil when the wax is too hot, you need to use the right size and amount of wick to prevent tunneling, and you even need the perfect timing to decorate your candle with the dried flowers, or else it'll either submerge too deep into the candle or won't stick to the candle at all! Regardless of the tons of rules, candle-making feels so therapeutic, and isn't lighting a scented candle in the first place, store-bought or DIY, so satisfying?

Also, I learned how to play the guitar?! Never in my wildest dream did I imagine I would be holding a guitar and playing it, let alone singing along to it! But I did and it's all thanks to Kak Tia for lending me her guitar for... I'd say nearly four months now. 
....I really need to give it back, don't I?
So I've been learning for a few months now, but I can only do simple chords and only learned a little bit of fingerpicking. I still struggle so much to cover all strings in a fret with my finger. Every time I try to do it, I just end up making dead notes. Anyone got any tips?
Anyway, maybe I'll get there someday, but for now, I feel content just by being able to play and sing my favorite songs. I miss my piano terribly, but I don't know when I'll be able to afford another one and I was desperate to produce music, so the guitar will have to do for now. 

Le guitar

I also made a podcast! Here's what it looks like:

I used to love reading as a child. Well, I still do. Sort of. To be completely honest, I've been struggling to finish my books for the past few years. I used to read for hours and hours a day, but now I can't even sit still for over five minutes! I guess as an attempt to get back to reading, I dug up some of my favorite classic children stories and discovered new ones to read aloud on my podcast, the White Crib Club.
And can I just say, that the classics sound so horrifying when read in the present time?! So many killings and deceit and other traits and activities I probably wouldn't want kids nowadays to hear! I guess it's probably why I started looking for more modern works or even retold versions of the classics that promote... less violence, and diversity, and whatever is more fitting to the current trend. 
Committing to frequent uploads is also much harder than I thought it would be. Coming up with a good prologue is hard enough, and I also have to read aloud a 5-minute long story in just one take! I also need to control my mouth so that I don't smack my lips too often cause it sounds terrible in the audio and I do it a lot!!! I can probably edit the audio with some app, but I guess that means I might as well just buy a proper mic and the app... Yeah, perhaps later. Anyway, here's the link if you're interested to hear the stories I've read so far!

White Crib Club - Bedtime Stories for Children

All right, that's pretty much what my late 2020 looked like. So many things happened in early 2021 so I might write about it in my next post!