Musical Autobiography

For all my life, I have been surrounded by music. Not this new, overly processed, tempestuous pile of talentless noise people pass off as music these days, but instead actual music played on actual instruments by people with actual talent. I can recall all the way back to my very first memories, all of which are filled with band practices, concerts, and many things music related, and every single one I was enamored of and each had a great effect on me and my liking for music. When I was young, I, myself, did not play a musical instrument of any kind; however, my parents did. Even though I couldn't play any kind of music, I was still around people who could, and I enjoyed being able to listen to them. I was delighted to listen to these people

I had no formal teacher to teach me. I had to teach myself by using a beginner's book and reading through it to learn all the knowledge it had to offer. My parents, though they were completely capable, never taught me much as I started out. Perhaps they wanted me to learn by myself, or possibly they didn't think I needed their guidance to be successful at playing music. Whatever the case may be, I flourished either way. I found myself to be rather proficient at playing the clarinet, and by two weeks of playing it, I already was able to play in the high school band, and a few weeks after that I started playing in the Babahatchie community band in Harriman. Granted, I wasn't the best in the band, but I was still able to follow along and learned as I went. I enjoyed being around musicians that had a much more expansive knowledge of music than I did and learning from

Starting at the end of my sixth grade year, I began to go to band clinics. Not to be confused with medical clinics, band clinics are a sort of competition, one might say, though with a much friendlier atmosphere to it. In band clinics, band members go to auditions to get into the bands. Depending on how well they did, they got placed in their appropriate chair to play the part most fitting to their skill level. I always scored fairly high at all the clinics I went to, usually getting either first or second chair, and even though I was technically more skilled than almost everyone there, I still learned a plethora of new ideas and concepts at each clinic. The people there might not have been as skilled as I was, but they had many different teachings and ideas that I could put to use to make myself better. Those clinics were some of the most enjoyable musical experiences I ever