Musical Autobiography

The stereotypical “music lover” in high school is usually one of a few types of people: The person who desires to perform on their specific instrument (typically in a traditional orchestra), the person who wants to teach music in an institution, or the person who excels at marching band and wishes to follow more similar activities in college. I am none of these persons.

For the entire span of my life, music has been my favorite escape from the habitual elements of life. I can vividly remember myself as a child jumping and dancing on the bed to Scar Tissue by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s not difficult to recall the early days of piano lessons, learning how to hold my hands, and learning how to use the pedals. Memories of music pervade my childhood as if it were a sibling or close friend. The act of playing, or

I began taking piano lessons in third grade and progressed to learn the basics of how to play and read sheet music. Then, my teacher moved to another school, so I was left to work on my own. I taught myself how to play chords and began playing popular rock songs from the 1960s. Soon afterwards, I discovered that I could play by ear, meaning that I could play a song just by hearing it. Reading sheet music became less essential to me, as I could simply hear a song or melody and easily figure out how to play it. After my breakthrough revelation, I began to compose my own music. My parents bought an 8-track recorder for me when I was in middle school, and I would record covers of alternative rock songs using my Yamaha keyboard. I would layer the track so that it had bass, drums, piano, organ, and even vocals. Then, after accumulating months of savings, I bought an Apple iMac. This opened another door in my life to create music in a way I had never dreamed of before. Around the same time I started high school, I began to compose my own pieces as electronic