Through my father’s TV blaring The Day After Tomorrow, my brother’s banging Hans Zimmer’s “Time” on the piano, and my mother and me washing the dishes, I hear two succinct, successive music notes in the background: a high C, rest, then a lower C. I continue to dry a pot, until I hear the elusive notes again, and I pause with a pensive look on my face.
“What?” My mother asks.
I respond with the usual, automated response: “Nothing.”
But, this time, “nothing” equated to more than just confusion to how to organize the various pots and pans in the dishwasher; “nothing” represented a newly discovered world of dotted quarter notes and half notes, a ¾ meter, and different degrees of pianos and fortes. It was finally finding my own creation of
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It’s almost like a thesis paper of my thoughts and my life, a culmination of moments and emotions that I had previously experienced. Instead of using the keys on a computer to promote nuclear energy and molten salt reactors, I use the keys of the piano to express my sorrow after receiving the lowest score in my DECA role-play my sophomore year through a deep, minor part of the song, and my determination to become a top competitor thereafter in a heroic section. I synthesize themes from some dark soundtracks to daring hip-hop songs, lessons from Dickens’ famous Great Expectations to Sergei Lukyanenko’s lesser-known Night Watch, and experiences that vary from my introspective reflections during my lunch breaks at work to my interactions with my twin in the sounds I start to create.
I reached that point where I finally understood what art and culture meant to me. My art, my song, allows all that I have learned and experienced to flow from my fingers onto keys of the piano or the fingerboard of my cello. Those two notes were the beginning of my personal examination of the world around me. I am the medium of my own music, not someone else’s
From start to finish. The old man examined how each individual water droplet splashed once it reached the ground one after the other. He would lay on the bed and watch how the raindrops fell from the roof and how reunited they became once they landed. His rusty, most prized, phonograph, played in the background, the sweet melody of The temptations singers, soothed his ears. The rhyming beat of the instruments made the man feel young again and brought back part of the happiness he once carried with his significant other. “I guess it’s time to get up and make my breakfast already.” he said, as he looked at the clock.
Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as
“Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them.” The idea was expressed by George Bernard Shaw and I found it in Barbara Mcafee’s book “Full Voice”. In my 20s, I was hunted by the conclusion that I have a Stradivarius but I don’t know how to use it. Years later, questions as What is my music? and How do I best introduce it in the world? still mark my existence. This is a universal human problem or wonder. Many of us feel the need to bring into the world what we have inside, to be authentic, to grow. Have a voice, give voice to your passions, give voice to your dreams, raise your voice, are all beautiful prompts. How do we do that, though? I searched for answers and I compiled information offered by 4 Ted Talk speakers on the subjects of voice and the better use of it. I also include information from one of the speaker’s book, Barbara McAfee’s “Full Voice”.
This marked the beginning of his inspiration to form a personal, expressive, and religious stance on his art values and style. He has found his process and content that will be apparent in his future work.
Set in Poland during WW2, The Pianist is a biographical film released in 2003 about a famous pianist’s, Wladyslaw Szpilman, struggle to survive the Nazi invasion. The director, Roman Polanski’s personal connection to this film and the fact that it is based on an autobiography makes this text extremely meaningful. However, the production features of a film is what brings forth the director’s ideas to the audience. The interweaved themes of music and hope are conveyed throughout the film, stating how powerful music is in bringing hope and comfort to an individual. In pursuance of successfully communicating this idea to his audience, Polanski employs the techniques and elements of characterisation, tone and cinematography.
Gently swaying back and forth in an old wooden rocker, I take a break from my journaling. While listening to the creaky hum of the tired oak thumping out a blue song, I think about the art of writing, painting with my words, and wonder what hampers my creative practice. A foreboding sense of unworthiness floats into my consciousness and I ask myself why do I feel this way. Rifling through my thoughts a fog wraps around me like a blanket not for comfort but instead to shield the feelings of inadequacy. I take a deep breath and inhale the reassuring sage scent of our family room. I press on in this process of self-discovery; an old black and white photo sitting on a shelf captures my eye. I see an image of myself as a smiling, confident child, which stirs uneasiness within. Following the muddled whisperings in my mind, I return to the day in the snapshot and consider what comes to pass.
Reich, Steve. “Music as a Gradual Process,” Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials, ed. James Monte and Marcia Tucker
Beethoven’s moonlight sonata was gradually becoming audible from a secret speaker of solitude. Then everything seemingly flowed to the slow yet elegant piece as if it were not meant to be in harmony but destined. Waking to classical piano is a subtle and soothing pleasure that radiated throughout his whole body – that moment shattered as he passed the hall corner of his normal two story home…The burgundy coffee mug slipped from his mother’s fingertips falling at a constant rate in unison with every keystroke of the graceful composition. C-Sharp never sounded so shrill until the true final chord of this decelerated memory ended with the shattering of not only the cup but also a mother’s hopes for her eldest son and possibly her youngest as well. She had just finished reading the front page article headlined atop the Chicago Tribune titled “First Drug Forever”…And this begins how to world changed dramatically through the viewpoint of an average high school senior, who is your typical indecisive teenager, meet Kevin James.
It is an artform, and art mimics and expands upon characteristics of reality. A song is comprised of individual notes, which are just simple representations of the frequency of air molecules moving throughout the air. They all play an equally important part in establishing a key and the chords that the key derives from. These chords determine the mood and direction of the piece in question, and thus art is born simply from manipulation of air. One can find parallels in almost every aspect of existence. This essay is comprised of words structured in a way to display my personality, which in turn is comprised of hundreds of billions of neurons firing in harmony. And these neurons are simple chemical reactions that work unconsciously to compose my conscious self. This realization that everything in the tangible and intangible realm originates from individual factors all stem from Dunlop pushing me to being committed to
The Starbucks at Main Street Square was my only friend. Sometimes I’d ride the rail to Hermann Park. There’s this stone where I always found myself looking for. The stone was my comfort place, and had the perfect angle to look at people, and wonder where they come from, who they miss and what they’re sorry of. Spending my afternoons after school gazing at strangers was the only thing I could do, since my communicating skills were equaled to zero. The November’s weather was quite chilly, and I had put my cold hands in the pocket of a jacket my mother had insisted that I take. As I’m pulling out my phone to listen to Beethoven “Moonlight Sonata,” there’s this piece of “paper” that falls on the ground. The “paper” was a photograph of my mother holding the five-year-old me. Behind the paper, my mother’s handwriting said; “for when you feel lost.” Within the intervals that happen between seconds, I went back to the times where life was simple, and home was the place where my mother was. It never occurred to me that the feelings a single paper held, were the feelings you might never get from people. As I got lost on what was caught on the film, all the little memories long after I had forgotten came back. “A photograph can certainly throw you out of the scent.”
Waking up in the morning is the start of any day, the feeling of being groggy and still half asleep even though you slept early. You look at yourself in the mirror worried, about how you look, your clothes or how your day will go,the normal anxieties of a human person. From personal experience, music has been a very big part in how I start my day, which then will affect the rest of my day. This is also to be scientifically proven how music can cause different emotions to rise up or calm down such as anxiety, happiness and sadness.
I have always regarded myself with having the best work ethic of anyone I knew. When at high school, I thought as myself as the best all-around student, and person. Being highly regarded by both faculty and students was a great confidence boost when I began my college application process, but I soon realized how it was hard to but all of my accomplishments, into a very short essay. I was not, and still am not the best academically in my class, but to me, it doesn’t matter if my GPA isn’t a 4.0 or if I didn’t graduate valedictorian of my class. What I know is I possess skills that make me the best candidate for anything I want to pursue.
For years, my life was constantly being defined by the things I couldn't do. Eclipsed by the shadows of political tumult, the constant pressures of life, health and the eternal “what will you do with your life” question, “I can't” started to become this unfortunate slogan. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I lost myself; it's probably one of those things that happen to a few of us that grow up in the shadows, emigrating from the troubles of our country.
I am sitting in a still room, borrowing a moment to inhale the serenity that seems to float in the air like a cloud of fog, and listening to the silence. Listening closely, I notice that the silence, an absence of apparent sound, is its own symphony; it is an orchestration that is being kept alive by a carefully beating drum. I concentrate on the drum’s beats, observing that its rhythm is steadily and confidently throbbing. When glancing, I make a discovery and erupt with laughter. At this moment, precisely 1:43 PM, I realize that the incessant pulsation is not the tempo of tranquility, but rather the ticking of my watch. A small, thin, golden band strapped to my wrist, the watch is a living creature; it has a face, hands, a heartbeat. It has its own mechanized mind, a willpower to keep ticking at the same pace despite the circumstances; some of the more durable watches even tick under water. Within each brisk movement of the second-hand, a human has laughed, some have shed tears, one is gripped by death, and yet another is being given the gift of life.
Now that we have explored my past, present, and future experiences with diversity, it is time to see how they are present within and effect each other. Firstly, let’s look into how my future is present in my past. The most obvious portion of my future that is in my past is my willingness and efforts to love and include everyone and to spread this world view. It took a fellow classmate of mine to demonstrate to my third grade self that we are all human beings and we all deserve to be treated as such. In my future, I aspire to demonstrate this world view to my students and inspire them to treat each other accordingly. This aspiration directly reflects my world view struggles I went through in third grade, for I want to help my students come to