Kelly Truong (’18) grinning while setting up her computer to play her original piece. Photo by Alex Tran.by Anju Ito and Elise Tran, Staff Writers
Kelly Truong (‘18) is not just an ordinary student of FVHS; she is also a talented and creative composer who spends her free time writing her own music and inspiring others through her work.
Truong creates her own music from scratch and plays many instruments from the guitar to the bass and even the drums. Her primary instrument is the guitar, which she started when she was only nine and continued on taking lessons for a couple of months. As Truong grew older, she started taking piano lessons to get the basics of it and developed a basic taste for drum beats.
Truong’s interest of music first sparked due to her fondness of video games, such as Guitar Hero. As she got into playing songs in the video games, she got more and more fascinated by music and eventually, she decided to create some of her own songs.
When Truong first started, she used a free app from Apple, GarageBand, which is an app that allows her to create music. But as her experimentation grew larger, she needed more tools, and she switched to Logic Pro X.
In all of her prior years in high school, Truong has participated in the annual FNL Talent Show in FVHS, her first year performing with Trisha Tran (‘18) and in her second year, doing a solo. This year, she also plans to compete in the Talent Show using a bigger technology.
Music is a way for Truong to express herself to others. In addition to it being her hobby, music has taught her many things that she may not have been able to learn if she didn’t pursue music
“One thing I realized was how much the people around me influenced myself and my music. And through that, the simple things come together, to create like a story through song. It’s the little things that matter and spark something,” Truong said.
Truong has been recently experimenting with DJing. She formed an interest over the summer from the various concerts that she attended. One aspect of the concerts that sparked her interest was the reaction the crowd was having. Truong noticed that people were having positive reactions and hoped to make crowds feel something similar too.
In the future, Truong plans on majoring in either psychology or sound engineering, but intends to still keep music as her hobby.
Check out Truong’s original music on SoundCloud here.
