Personal Narrative Speech!!

            Does anyone know what this is(Showing the baton)? This is a baton used when conducting orchestras. Have you guys ever seen normal batons? They usually look much different from this. Typical ones have smaller and smoother handles, and they usually don’t have their own cases. Actually, there are only three of these around the world. Those are all hand-made, while other kinds of them are mostly made by machines.

A well-known Korean baton maker in Germany made this and gave it to my teacher, who is a professor of orchestra conducting in Korea National University of Arts. It was a great honor of me to meet her, learn conducting and be given this precious, priceless baton. This is very expensive and rare, but it means much more than that to me.

I met her in the school orchestra. It was 2 years ago when I was in the second grade. She was a mother of a freshman. That was 3 months after the latest concert. At that time, many of us and even the teachers have given up to improve the orchestra. We were literally hopeless.

However, her surprising expertise has changed everything. She exactly pointed out where we should work on to make better sounds and led us to play more beautiful music. Through these efforts, she made dramatic changes and achieved a breakthrough in about 8 months. As the leader of the orchestra, I relieved: I no longer needed to worry about the concert.

However, that was when my suffering actually started. One day, 2 months before the next concert, the professor said there should be a student conductor who will be conducting at least one piece in the concert. As there were no applicants, I had no choice but learn conducting form her as a leader.

How was it? It was ‘painful’. She made me slowly move my arms in the air for an hour, which made my muscles ache all the time. I wasn’t allowed to sit down during the lesson, and had to practice the body movements and memorize the musical scores every time.

Several weeks later, in the last minutes of a regular practice, she suddenly called me to stand at the podium and handed me her baton. I insisted I wasn’t ready yet, but she wanted me to practice conducting through actual experience. I got terribly nervous. There were one hundred and four eyes staring at me. My hands, arms and legs started to shake, and my face turned white. I felt my right hand sweating.

When the music finally ended, I was only expecting her scolding and another long, painful lesson. I knew that I messed up. The professor, however, didn’t say anything.

After everyone went away, she told me something that I can never forget until now. She said, “Do not forget this moment. The sweat in this handle is yours: it is something you made on your own, through your own hard work. Do not forget this feeling. Well done.”

That day, she gave me this staff with charging me nothing. I finally did a good job in the concert and got good comments from the professor. For me right now, this baton is more like a proof. This is a proof of my hard work and painful procedure, which I will look at and always be recharged to go on.