Reconnecting With Music

In April 2007 when I was leaving Starehe Institute, I looked for a church in Nairobi where I could be playing the piano during my time at JKUAT where I was to enrol the following month to pursue a degree in electronic & computer engineering. Having been brought up a Roman Catholic, I visited two catholic churches in Nairobi but they didn't click with me.

Then one Saturday night that April as I was surfing the internet in a Starehe Institute computer lab, I thought of going to All Saints' Cathedral, an Anglican church. My Starehe schoolmate Moses Aran had narrated to me the rousing reception he had received in the cathedral after playing the trumpet during one of its services.

That night as I contemplated going to All Saints' Cathedral, I asked Aran where the cathedral is as we surfed the internet in the Starehe Institute computer lab.

"It's next to Uhuru Park," he replied, a tad too lightly.

Armed with that scant information Aran had given me, I set off for the cathedral the following morning. I didn't have trouble locating it when I reached Uhuru Park. Upon entering the cathedral, I sat through one service and after it was over, I approached the organist who didn't show much interest in me.

Undeterred, I attended the service that followed and after it was over, I again approached the organist. And wow! This time, the organist was an amiable gentleman called Dr. Imbugi Luvai. As soon as I informed him that I was a Starehe student with skills in playing the piano, he went out of his way to introduce me to the cathedral's 9.30 a.m. English service choir which I joined and came to love being part of.

Two or three Sundays after my first visit to the cathedral, Dr. Imbugi Luvai allowed me to help him out on the organ by letting me accompany the majestic hymn "I Will Sing the Wondrous Story". I played it so well which was nothing new to me since I had accompanied hymns on many occasions during my Starehe years. But guess what! Some of my fellow choristers were taken by surprise that I could play the organ. They looked at me in amazement and wonder as if I had just discovered a cure for HIV/AIDS.

For the next one year or so, I continued attending church services at the cathedral where I learnt more hymns and accompanied a number of them on the organ. And oh my, aren't Anglican hymns beautiful and inspiring!

But guess what again! Beginning some time in August 2008, I stopped attending church in the cathedral when I started going astray at the university in JKUAT. And for the next four or so years, I also ceased playing the piano regularly and the organ as well.

A few friends became concerned that I was wasting my talent in music by failing to practise the piano during those four years. One friend called 'Sir' Emmanuel Karanja, a brilliant housemate of mine at Starehe Boys' Centre who I met in JKUAT, told me on several occasions, "Thuita, you can play the piano!" He told me so in a tone that suggested I was wasting my musical talent.

Even my brother Paddy asked me some time in 2009 whether I still played the piano. I replied that I did which was a lie because I had no access to a piano and was then not regularly attending church like I used to do before I went astray at JKUAT in 2008.

Come 2012, I decided in earnest to reconnect with my musical talent by getting myself a piano keyboard. I asked for help from my friend Shemaiah Mwakodi, who used to run a piano school in downtown Nairobi, but the piano keyboard he gave me was too old and decrepit to be of any use to me.

Around that time I was craving to acquire a piano keyboard, something fortuitous happened to me which I think was a divine intervention. My brother Paddy organized for me a job to teach piano to the family of Mr. Seni Adetu, the then CEO of East African Breweries Limited (EABL) who was about to emigrate to England with his family. I taught his family for only three weeks and, believe it or not, the money I earned was enough to buy myself a piano keyboard.

On the afternoon of the day I was paid for my teaching services at Mr. Adetu's posh home, I hastily bought a piano keyboard in Nairobi. I felt a deep sense of fulfilment as I travelled home with the keyboard; the kind of fulfilment that authors feel when their first book is published. The piano keyboard helped me to reconnect with my musical talent. I still have it to this day here in my room; it makes me fully alive when I play songs on it.

Plato stated that music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. I have therefore purposed to fully reconnect with music by playing my piano keyboard regularly as well as by listening to music on my laptop with a faith that I will develop into the creative and motivated young man I desire to be. So help me God.

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