Musical Autobiography

Music has always been a part of my life. The extensive record collection between my father and grandfather. The music teacher grandmother. The composer cousin who lived in L.A., New Orleans, and Nashville who married an operatic vocalist and toured the country with his jazz group who now directs a middle school band. Then, there is the other cousin who was in high school acapella choir and a guitarist and a bassist and a drummer and a bagpipe player. I went to church children’s choir practice every Wednesday afternoon with my little sister. I participated in elementary school choir. I auditioned for every musical and was cast each time. However, I never realized how deeply music and performance were rooted in me. I grew up assuming I would do something in music because it was such a large …show more content…
So many feelings and stories can be told through it. The fluttering heartbeat of someone falling in love represented by quick melismas of a flute or a violin, deep sadness and grief of a lost loved one expressed through a cello concerto, and many other feelings speak to me through music. I have listened to different pieces to reflect on my feelings when I have lost loved ones or fell in love. Music is always there for me, and I can’t begin to count the number of times that I have just listened to a symphony and blocked out the outside world as a way of coping or working through challenging times. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer my freshman year, I often found myself listening to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The piece had the sadness and fear that I was feeling, but the way that the song fades away at the end made me feel that all the challenges we were going through in my family would fade away. Through music, I have grown into a person who is able to reflect on experiences and get through challenging times without completely losing it. Life does not completely stop for me, I just take an hour or so to feel my feelings, then move