music n me

Throughout my life music has always served as my own personal “get away”.  Looking back, I would say that my life has been and continues to be very goal-oriented and focused.  Starting in the fifth grade I decided to pursue being a tennis player.  I took lessons multiple times a week and joined the United States Tennis Association at a very young age and played competitively in tournaments.  I also took school very seriously and challenged myself with honors classes.  Working hard just became a part of who I was.  However the one aspect of life I have always taken far less seriously is music.

I joined the school orchestra as a fourth grader and to say the least, learning to play the violin was very unnatural.  I was well aware that what came easy to other students just wasn’t clicking for me.  It didn’t take long until I decided that the orchestra wasn’t for me.  In fifth grade I joined the band and started to play the trumpet.  Once again- it didn’t come naturally to me, however band was a blast.  I realized that the 45 minutes I spent every day in the band room was a time for me to simply have fun. 

I have kept this same mentality ever since fifth grade band class.  I stayed in band through the 12^th grade and also learned some guitar, however it remains in a separate category from school, tennis, and all other aspects of my life.  Music is my escape; allowing me to feel light, free, capture where I am at a given moment and take me somewhere else. 

When I listen to a song I often relate it to a specific feeling.  Either a past feeling that I experienced when I listened to the song before or sometimes the lyrics can make me feel a certain way or remind me of something that happened.  For an example, my boyfriend in high school wrote the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s “Wish you were Here” on a card he made me when I was gone for the summer.  When I came home he played me that song on the guitar.  I predict that for the rest of my life I will think of the 2 of us when I hear that song, even though I haven’t seen him for years and no longer feel the way I did about him at the time. 

Another example is the song “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn.  When I was young, my parents used to turn this song on really loud and my family would all dance together in the family room.  Whenever I hear this song I immediately feel a sense of warmth and happiness.  Music also provokes less personal feelings.  For an example, when I hear the song “Tiny Dancer” I think of the scene from the movie “Almost Famous” and how the characters were feeling and going through during this time.  They were feeling the stress of strain of being on tour as musicians. 

In conflict, I think that music is used as an outlet.  It allows each side or team to express themselves and what they are after.  It allows them to share their hopes and desires with the rest of the world, reflect on what has gone on in the past, and where the hope to see themselves in the future.