I grew up in Yazoo City the middle out of nine children, and like the rest of my siblings I was almost entirely homeschooled. Music was possibly the most important subject, which incidentally happened to be the only one my mother didn’t teach. While my parents never actually said it, we all knew that it was a given that we would be taking piano lessons from around fourth grade to graduation. But when I was little I had zero interest in piano. I –for no reasons I can remember anymore- was very draw to violin and tried my hardest –without actually coming out and asking- to get my parents to let me take violin. As a six year-old my idea of “subtle hinting” was cutting out a violin shape from cardboard, and using a pencil as a bow to show my mom how well I “played”. In the end when I turned eight my …show more content…
Christmas present that year was a violin and the promise of lessons beginning in January. After a year or two my teacher put me in her group called the Kid Fiddlers; a folk-fiddle group made up of students whose ages range from 6-14.
When I was around fifteen her daughter took over teaching the fiddlers and would often have me lead a separate group. Around this time I started to think about what I wanted to do in life career wise. I had never really found any career that appealed to me, the thought had been that I would eventually go into music education, however teaching my sister violin for a year and later my three younger brothers for around two more years made me pretty certain that I didn’t want to become a teacher. During all this time my art had been on a back burner, just a something I would do to destress. All this changed when I bought the book The Art of Tangled; a book all about the production and development art of the move Tangled. I had no idea so much work was put into animated films, and the idea that that was someone’s actual job was exciting to me. I started researching what type of degrees were needed for a concept art job which lead me to the not unexpected conclusion that nowhere in Mississippi offers any kind of illustration
program. This wasn’t the worst thing since I already knew I would want to start out at a community college anyway, so I decided to enroll in which ever had the most art courses relevant to me. I ended up choosing Hinds because the website showed more art classes, and at the time I thought Hinds still had a strings teacher. When I came to enroll the counselor had me go see Ms. Cheryl to learn about the honors program. I heard a little about the officer program from Erik and Olivia and decided that it would be a good idea for me to try both to challenge myself with a heavier workload since art schools and art jobs in general are well known to be taxing, and also to build up my leadership skills incase at some point in the future I would ever want to try and lead a film crew’s story, or art department.
My mom required my three siblings and I to take piano lessons for at least two years when we were younger. I enjoyed playing, so when my two years were up I decided to keep going. I played for another four years, but my life started to get busy and I had too many things on my plate, so I quit piano for good. I have somewhat regretted my decision, and noticed a decline in my math skills during the past two years, and other areas in school as well. The absences of math and cognitive skills will dramatically affect a person’s life, because without these skills it makes it very hard to become a successful person in the world’s view. Contrary to what the New York Times article, “Music and Success” by Samuel Mehr stated, listening to music or playing
Few would argue against the idea that we educate ourselves and our society so that we have adequate means with which to understand and interact with elements of the world around us. Subjects such as mathematics, language, history, and the hard sciences are granted immediate and unquestioned legitimacy in our schools, and with good reason. We encounter each of these elements of our lives on a daily basis. We need to have an understanding of these disciplines in order to interact with them, otherwise they are meaningless to us. I submit that the same can be said for the fundamental concepts of music. Music is something that we encounter in our society every day. It surrounds us. Indeed it would be practically impossible to escape. Like so many other naturally occurring phenomena, a discipline has been developed over centuries to help us interact with music, and that discipline is what I and those of my profession are charged with teaching.
My fingers ran in a blur over the black and white keys, hitting the right notes at the exact moment—it was mindless work. The chords struck true until the end of the piece; once I finished, it was time for me to repeat.
I was practicing the routine for my opening act, for the Broadway musical "The Sound of music." I am an actress playing the lead role of the main character Maria. My director Jane Marshall says," Barbara, you only have twenty minutes until your performance." My only chance to start a satisfying reputation for myself and please the audience. As I listened to those words come out of my directors mouth, that's when it dawned on me. I will only have one chance to do it right. I wouldn't want to cause any disarrays.
Do you know what it feels like to give everything you have into one performance and then get first place, because I do. The West Branch show choir competition provided me with the life lesson of perseverance, determination, hard work.
My educational journey can be described perfectly by this analogy: I was given broken crayons expected to draw a house and a dog with black and white spots, but instead I created a mansion with stained glass windows and added a terrace with porch lights. Others always expected me to do the average, but I always surpassed their expectations--thus making the ordinary, extraordinary. My educational journey began at Ludwig Van Beethoven, my neighborhood elementary school. Unfortunately, the school’s accessibility from my grandmother’s house was the only factor considered when enrolling me and my other sixteen aunts, uncles, and cousins. The school had a very low budget which reflected the resources and neighborhood I grew up in. The class sizes
She attempted to get me to switch my minor to business or language, even though I made it clear I had no interest in either subject. This was a big deal to me because I usually do everything my mother asks without putting up much resistance. This was the only time I did something that was just for me. I’m glad I did not switch. Drawing 1 was one of the hardest classes I ever took. I had to sleep in the studio just to have enough time to finish my artwork, as did all of my classmates. The entire class of about twenty people became close, a result of spending every meal together. I learned how to be friendly in this class, and my awkwardness from high school evaporated. Even though I loved Drawing 1, I still wanted to make my career in the
It was my first time dancing in front of a big crowd, I was nervous and felt stupid for letting my sister talk me into going on the stage in the first place. I knew I was in over my head dancing against these men who probably had practiced a thousand times but it was too late to turn around.
Ever since I was a small child, I have loved music. The strong, steady beats, the
Fast forward six months, while sitting at dinner one evening my mom inquired about my willingness to take piano lessons. She often found me tinkering on our old, $25 garage sale piano, playing show tunes or popular song from the radio. I found it interesting and challenging to see if I could re-create the songs without sheet music. My mom was always impressed with my ability to play music by ear. She only knew she missed a note when her mom yelled, “That’s a B flat, not a B sharp,” from the kitchen. I don’t think my mom was very fond of playing the piano. Nonetheless, she encouraged my love for music, and thought it was time to get some lessons.
A couple years after he passed, my grandmother on my dad’s side bought me a curio cabinet with a glass casing and six shelves. It was her’s and my mom’s idea for me to place things in there that belonged to dad or things that my dad have given me that I wanted to preserve, yet still be able to see regularly. This is where the cactus skeleton and the cotton that I mentioned earlier in this essay are currently. Along with those two things, I have many more objects that were once my father’s, and held by him in his hands. Not only do I have objects, I have his notebook that he wrote in while he was out driving. It has a bunch of random writings in it, of numbers and what seem to be nearby stores at whatever location he was at. My mom even gave me some of the post-it notes that he would
Music means many things to many people. Music has the power to transcend boundaries, motivate, inspire and influence our emotions among other things. Throughout my life music played an important role, especially during my more troubling moments. Many of my dearest and fondest memories are easily relived by merely listening to music. My musical tastes have changed as I have grown. During different time periods in my life my musical sensibilities provided the soundtrack that I lived by.
“You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.” Three areas in my life where I have broken these walls and mature as a person is when passing my level 8 piano exam, learning how to code, and completing my first service trip. Specifically speaking, I learned practice makes perfect during my piano exam preparation. Coding taught me the importance of patience, as it took countless hours of trial and error in order for me to acquire the perfect code. As for my service trip, it was learning how to step out of my comfort zone so I could develop a mindset filled with compassion instead of pity. Despite the differences in all three experiences, I truly learned what it meant to preserve to the end.
During the school year of 2015-2016 I was 10 years old turning 11. This was my second year studying ballet at VKDCNY. Before I studied there, I went to other dance schools around NJ. In October my teacher, Olga, came up to me with an enormous smile and said, "Katherine, I just talked to the director and she told me that you are ready to compete at VKIBC!" I was so happy that I embraced Olga and told her," I will work harder than I have ever worked."
Careers in the performing arts are not sought as being monetarily lucrative, but I choose to believe that is the opportunity cost for having a career that creates so much to affect today’s society. I aspire to have a career in dance because I get to have a balance of strength and grace, the two components I deem necessary for navigating daily life.