Personal Reflective Essay: Music Analysis

I am pretty shoddy at several subjects. Year after year, math continues to utterly baffle me, and forget staying focused long enough to read a few chapters in most books. But no matter how many characters in a novel I mix up, or the countless times I get the order of operations in math wrong, there remains one ability that I can always fall back on, and that is writing music.

When I was little, my mom pushed me to learn how to play instruments and inflate my musical creativity. Before I could even spell “music”, she put me in choir and signed me up for recorder lessons to teach me how to read music at an early age. At home, she let me pluck away at her acoustic guitar and flip through books of lyrics she wrote and constantly told me how much music helped her cope with her job and her life in general. When I was six years old, I started teaching myself how to play simple tunes on guitar and explored song writing progressively. With the help of my mom, I studied for tests by setting imperative information I needed to memorize to a tune. By fourth grade, my teacher asked me to sing whatever song I made up aloud to the class multiple times a week before a test, in order to aid other auditory learners. Song writing remained the reason I received above average grades in school. As time went on, I started to write my own song lyrics and played

tunes with them on my guitar.
Even though writing music is enjoyable to me, it helped me cope with an awfully life changing experience I had when I was young. When I was ten, a doctor diagnosed my mom with and Transverse Myelitis; a rare disease that damages the spinal cord and usually causes complete paralysis. She retired from her job after being paralyzed from the abdomen down and the only hobby that kept my mom from falling apart was her music. When she was not writing poetry or lyrics, she listened to mine. Every day after school I went to play my songs for her in the hospital and realized that my writings could benefit others just as much as it benefited me. After the hospital discharged my mom, she gave me my first “music diary” for my lyrics and accompaniments. I will not forget how much I loved coming home after school and opening it up to a fresh page. Four months later, it was completely full.
Before my freshman year of high school, my parents decided it was high time to relocate from hectic Los Angeles to Texas, closer to family and a paraplegic rehabilitation center that interested my mom. The first few months of high school were far easier than I assumed they would be since I quickly made friends in choir and theater. By senior year, I wrote music for lesser student written productions and even used guitar chords to figure out harmonies during bigger musicals. By the time my senior year ended, I filled up ten “music diaries” of songs and lyrics.
One would probably assume that I was completely aware of the important role that music had in my life, but, honestly, it was not until I packed up for college that I realized just how much writing music molded me into the person I have blossomed in to.

When I opened up my window seat and found my ten full music diaries, it hit me just how much I love writing music and how substantial it is in my life. Music continuously remained such a prominent element in my life that it became a habit and not just a hobby. I still pull out my phone to jot down lyrics that pop into my head and mindlessly hum notes until I find a pleasant

melody.
When it comes to my daily life, writing music has altered the way I cope with my surroundings, and has even led to the development of my favorite hobbies, choir and theater. I found my mode of learning, manipulated it to help others succeed academically as well as myself, and have found a healthy style of handling my experiences. Being able to transform my emotions and thoughts into lyrics has given me the opportunity to truly understand myself. If it wasn’t for my joy of writing music, I do not believe I would be the same person I am today, and I might have been one of those who are still trying to come to terms with who they are.