I started my own Instagram account to play guitar covers and develop my guitar skills. I have consistently posted daily and will continue to do so. Within these posts, I have done some singing with my guitar, collaboration with other musicians (with 20k+ followers), and have already gained a following of 13000+ followers. I hope to continue to be able to post for as long as possible, and that more people will be impacted by my music.

• Strand: Creativity
• Location: Out of school
• Date: 11 Apr, 2024 – 11 Apr, 2025 (indefinite)

LOI 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

While making posts and growing my following, I had to identify what it was that brought more followers and what I needed to improve on to increase engagement. I found that one of the main reasons people would comment was my voice on singing reels, so I decided to continue posting more singing along with my guitar. In terms of areas for growth, I identified that I wanted to improve in my guitar skills and learn not only more complex chords but fingerstyle as well. By improving my guitar playing, I was able to create my most viral reel, with around 1.2 million views and 180k likes on a reel that was exclusively guitar-based.

LOI 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills

Challenges were definitely present throughout the process. The first was definitely not being able to play some songs due to my lack of skill in the guitar. This caused me to practice chords every single day for hours, which eventually resulted in my ability to play most chords from memory and thus play the majority of popular songs without having trouble in my technique. Another challenge that I faced was maximizing engagement in the process. I did not have much media literacy, so this activity also allowed me to develop those skills by coming up with hooks, high quality content, and engaging captions.

LOI 4: Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience

As previously mentioned, I created this account on 11th April, 2024. I posted at least one reel every single day, amounting to around 150 reels, even more stories, and multiple livestreams. (number of posts in the image does not include reels) Every day, I would set apart at least an hour, even playing late into the night, to practice guitar and create content. Even as I continue on this journey, I have increased my practice time to aim for 2 hours of practice daily to improve faster, sacrificing the free time I once spent on other activities.This took extreme commitment from my side, and I am glad to see that it has paid off. In terms of perseverance, it was not easy to grow my account, especially at the start. I began with only a few followers, only getting views in the hundreds, and growth seemed slow. There were times when I doubted whether I should continue posting, but I persevered through them and kept going. Now, my account has reached over 1.5 million people in the last 30 days. This means a lot to me as I now have a platform on which I can impact the lives of many others meaningfully.

LOI 5: Demonstrate skills and show benefits of working collaboratively

While the majority of my content was created by myself alone, I also have done numerous collaborations with other musicians on Instagram, which is a great way to not only add layers to the performance and overall quality of the post, but also to connect with others. I have made a good amount of friends online from my collaborations, people that I enjoy talking to even outside of content creation. I have done collaborations with not only friends, but also larger creators with followings over 19k. Not only did working collaboratively foster friendships, but it also established connections with other large creators whom I highly respect. I’ve been able to bond with and maintain communication with accounts that have over 220k followers, many of whom are Asian. I discuss this because I want to represent the Asian community and other minorities positively, contributing to a more interconnected and thriving Asian content creation community through my collaborations.

Overall, the creation of this account has been one of the most impactful decisions I have made in my life. I have had over 50 people DM me and tell me that my account inspired them to learn the guitar or play it again after years. This means so much to me as a guitarist, that my passion has inspired others the same way I was inspired by influential guitarists. But not only did my account affect millions of people around the world with my content, but it also drastically affected me on a personal level. Through this account, I was able to maintain motivation for learning guitar, something that I honestly could not imagine living without anymore. I learned valuable lessons about hard work, discipline, collaboration, friendship, dedication, critical thinking, and reflection. I will continue posting on this account for as long as possible, and I hope that I can continue to change people’s lives for the better.