I am a musician. I am proud. I am foolish. About two years ago I was sucked into an abusive relationship with my audience. Every day I try my best to make the relationship work. I put in hours of thankless effort; not even my friends know how much time I spend. I try to stay true to myself. I try to give my partner what she wants. But she doesn’t care either way. She isn’t listening, and there is no joy in music if it is not heard. She doesn’t care about me; and yet I keep coming back for more.
I am a musician. About two years ago I discovered the joy of composing music. I write music on my laptop: happy music, sad music, fast music, slow music; it doesn’t matter. It is music, and I bring it into existence. I think up the chords, design the sounds, sequence the drums and melodies, and weave it all together to create a seamless quilt of sound. I enjoy making my own songs as much as I enjoy listening to others. Dissecting their songs and figuring out what makes them tick. Looking past the bold phrases and hooks, and finding the quiet melodies and percussion. These little guys are not asking to be heard. They stay humble whilst contributing to the grandeur of their song. They don’t seek out recognition or appraisal. They do their jobs and they do them well. I should take notes from these little guys, but it is so hard to do what they do. It is hard to devote hundreds – thousands – of hours to a craft knowing that there is a good chance no one will ever appreciate it. I am a musician, I cannot go unheard. Unnoticed. So I continue on in this abusive relationship. Putting in tremendous amounts of effort more than my partner.
But I am proud. I will not allow myself to be frozen by my cruel mistress’s icy neglect. I live for my music ...
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... When I do she will swoop in and shower me with false affection and praise, or worse, she will say nothing. She will love it or hate it, but the outcome remains the same. I will work like a slave, day in, day out, and she will neglect me, for I am not the only musician in her life. She will scour all available media looking for new works from all her “favourite” musicians. Only caring about us when we put out a new song. All we want is her love, but she doesn’t love. She preys on musicians with vulture like opportunity. I am not dead, but she will soon reduce me to the carrion treats me like.
The listener will never let musicians know that that however, she will use and abuse them until they are broken. Few will ever catch on because they are foolish. The ones that do will not admit it because they are proud. We will put up with it all because we are musicians.
Over time I began to utilize music’s powers as a form of self-therapy. I remember recently doing this to help me get over the pain of an awful breakup. I was the most depressed that I have ever been in my life. I no longer wished to talk to or hang out with my friends, I no longer enjoyed any of my favorite activities, and all I wanted to do was sleep all day. I was miserable. Finally, I could not take it anymore. I had to do something to fix it and fast so I decided to turn to my most trusted therapist to do the job: my iTouch.
It is obvious that music is very powerful treatment, but how can it be expertly applied to everyday hospital settings? This important job inspired the beginning of the American Music for Therapy Association. After four years, college students who have earned their bachelor degree in Music Therapy are ready to take their knowledge and interview for a career as a music therapist. Music therapists work in many settings, including medical hospitals, nursing homes, schools, psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, and private practices. The approaches they use are different for every person, depending on their medical condition. A typical music therapy session could entail anything from songwriting to a drum circle.
The lyrics the songs had changed the way I managed my temper. Instead of losing my temper in school, I learned to embrace it by listening to their songs. The members inspired me to want to learn the guitar, piano, and drums. I currently only play the piano and guitar. The drums are soon to come someday. In the 9th grade, to strengthen my skills, I decided to join the school band. Hesitating on the decision, I knew it was for the best. After joining, I was one semester behind; frustrated by the thought, I understood my situation. Driven to work intensely I got caught up. I’d spend the entire block completing what Mr. Leeth handed me. By the time it was for me to leave, I was completely brain dead. I still had one extra block and track practice to attend. In the following first few weeks I was already playing with multiple mallets, four to be exact. The entire Treble Clef was like the back of my hand. When the upcoming year came, I was asked to join the Pit in marching band by Mr. Leeth himself. I refused, knowing it was a mistake I was making. I regret that decision even to this day. Too worried what others would think, or if I'll get made fun of I didn’t join. In order to improve my skills, I’ve decided to join 1st block band. Mr. Leeth even suggested the same
Doris Horton Thurston, my seventy-five year old grandmother, has always had a song in her heart and on the edge of her tongue, waiting to flow over in a cascade of expression. She sees music as a connection to the world, a form that lets her reach outside of everyday life to different people, different cultures and different times. From generations before her and for generations to follow, from the memory of her mother's piano playing and her father's voice as a child to the orchestra concerts of her youngest grandchildren, she holds the connection to music close to her heart.
In the past couple of decades, music has been in trouble. It has been said to be the cause of deaths, suicides, unwanted sexual behavior, and other forms of indecency. It has taken blame for everything no one wants to be responsible for.
Ever since I started band in fifth grade, I’ve always had the capability to achieve what was given to me: a hard song, solo, or other musical challenge that most kids wouldn’t want to do. I was always the one in my section to volunteer to play the solo of a song, try out for honor bands, and play the first part. My band director looked to me when there was an issue that wasn’t being resolved in my section because he trusted that I would fix it in the correct way so that it wouldn’t happen again. Today, that still happens, and I’ve continued to grow in my musical abilities.
I am a music student. In the world of music you hear a lot about talent. However, I am not a talented musician. What I want to end up doing in my life is teaching music to middle and high school students. Music for me is fun, it makes me happy, I enjoy doing it, it’s what I spend eighty percent of my time doing now that I’m a music major. Sometimes though, music makes me want to cry, to lay in bed for no reason for hours, makes me feel like I am worth nothing, and reminds me that music isn’t even that practical of a career choice but still every single person who plays an instrument is better than me. These are the times whenever I remember I’m not talented.
Music has absolutely been an enormous part of my life and who I am. However,
I now suffer with frequent nightmares. This has been my reality for 7 years. To this day, if I wake up from a nightmare or cannot sleep, I play one of my favorite songs, “The Unforgiven III”. This song helps me to daydream and lets my mind drift off to sea, so to speak. The lyrics relate the troubles and pain of life to the sea, adventure, and gold. We seek the gold or life but never expect the unforgiving sea and storms of life to throw us off course. This song helps me to use my imagination and to distract from my nightmares so that, eventually, I can fall back asleep. I can imagine sailing and smelling the sea and seeing shiny gold. To me, this song means he was taking control of his life until he was “pulled off course by the light of golden treasure” (Metallica, 2008). Then he falls into a depression, “These days drift on inside a fog it’s thick and suffocating” (Metallica, 2008) and he becomes psychologically defeated by it. At night, I feel defeated by my past and wonder if there is any escape. Listening to the lyrics and rhythmic beat is a healing process for me. It’s a ritual in which I can temporarily let go and cry. I am alone and safe to feel. I do not have to struggle to relate to the feelings the lyrics are expressing because I have lived them. “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music” (Huxley, n.d.). Metallica knows my life without even
At the age of 15, my father got me my first acoustic guitar. This could very well be on the top 5 days of my life. After choosing a guitar teacher with experience in multiple different award winning bands, I decided to go into my first lesson, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. After growing a strong connection very quickly with my teacher, he was teaching me lessons in our guitar lessons that he didn’t have to teach me, like the importance of songwriting in the music industry, because like Jeff always said, “there can be a million people who want to become artists that can sing, but if you can’t write the songs that you are singing nightly, you aren’t an artist, you are just a singer.” Every time he told me this this only strengthened my want, and need to write more and more, to expand and improve on my abilities. Because of both of the influences in my life musically, my grandfather and my guitar teacher, I have evolved from barely being able to write 3 lines of a song so being able to knock out a song in a matter of days, which I believe will help me exponentially throughout my career in the music business
The world of music is full of songs from variety of genres that include pop, rock and roll, country, and has a way of effecting us. It’s found in almost every part of the earth, as a way of making the world more derive, and helps a way to relieve stress from our daily lives in this world. But, no matter what genre someone listens to, everyone has the favorite songs they like to play in the car or on their phones. As Billy Joel once said ‘’I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by, no matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music’’. I consider many songs from different artists related to Gun N’ Roses, Bon Jovi, Green Day, and Daniel
Music: the art of organized noise. The blend of pitch and rhythm combined in different mediums and enjoyed by our ears. A very interpretive art, music isn’t very clearly constricted or defined by one definition. With so many varieties of music, it’s difficult to say what aspect is really the most important. Some people think music’s history and the appreciation of music are the most important aspects to take into consideration. Some think complex in rhythms and melodies make the best music. Some people devote their whole lives to studying one genre of music in order to fully understand how that genre works. While all of these aspects of music are important, none of them can truly be compared with each other on a fair playing field. Music of different genres, eras, and geographic backgrounds were written for different purposes, different people, and different settings. Still, there is still one overarching theme that applies to all forms of music new or old: the way the composer presents his or her creation. The performance and presentation of a work of music is like the icing on the top of a cake. The cake may be the best you’ve ever tasted, but if the icing on the outside doesn’t look appealing or doesn’t taste good, chances are you’ll take a different piece of cake with better looking frosting next time. The performance of music is what appeals most to people. With live performance, an artist must “sell” his or her creation. They must put smile on their face and convey to the audience that this is their music and through the music explain why it’s awesome. They must persevere through whatever the stage, the audience, and their surroundings give them and put on a good show. In today’s popular music though, this aspect of showma...
into the extent or the severity of this issue. Furthermore, this is excepted as part of the music culture.
For most of the trip we listened to classic rock music, my dad’s favorite genre, but after a while the radio station started playing the same songs over and over again, so we began to surf the channels for something new. That’s when Ke$ha’s song “Your Love Is My Drug” came screaming through the speakers. I excitedly turned up the volume and began to sing along when my dad grunted, unenthused. I admit Ke$ha wasn’t my favorite artist, nor was she the most talented, but it made me a little upset that my dad couldn’t appreciate her music with me. When the song was over I turned the music down and asked him why he didn’t like the song. To which he replied, “This isn’t real music, it sounds like it was made by a computer.” I just thought of the song as catchy and fun with a nice beat to dance along to, it had never occurred to me that people didn’t like the song because of its auto-tuned aesthetic. For me, a good song was anything I liked to sing or dance along to; yet, for my dad, a good song was something that had to have live, authentic instruments with little to no altering, or in his terms, “real talent.” Ultimately, this got me thinking: What qualifies music as real and not real? Who determines what qualities of music make it good? And what defines
Music is one of the most crucial components to keeping our existence whole. Without having music life would become dull, dry and even monotonous. Music has many purposes and applications to be applied, dozens of situations and incidents that music can make an impact on people. Police officers in Miami, FL have started a band to bring the community together and change the meaning of the “blue uniform”. Playing music for the cops helps them show everyone that the “blue uniform: doesn’t define but the music lets them show who they truly are as a person. Tom Petty is as legendary as they come when it comes to Rock ‘n Roll but even he struggled with a problem as big as drugs. The thing that got him back together and made him who he used to be was