Growing up I was always into music from brutally singing to pounding on the piano at my grandma’s house. I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t music in my life. Growing up in a small town is hard because there isn’t much to do besides hang out with friends. As a kid, and still today, I’m very shy and anti-social so I would mostly stay at home and watch TV or go to my grandma’s. When I entered Elementary School I started my first real music class with my kindergarten class and I had so much fun.

When I was 6 years old my parents split up and being to young I don’t really remember much. I do remember thought that from that point on in my life no matter what happened my mom wanted to make sure that my brother and I had to resources to discover what we wanted in life and not to settle for something we didn’t like. Not long after that I went to my first concert that any 6 year old girl would die to see at that time, Hannah Montana with the Jonas Brothers. I remember going home and just being so happy and thinking about how cool the concert was. I kept pursuing music and became more serious when my mom got remarried and we moved to Sterling, Colorado.

In Sterling they had so many more opportunities for me to explore but some at the age of 8 I still only wanted to do music. The summer before my 4th grade year My Son Pinocchio auditions were being held for anyone in the community so I auditioned and made it in. I spent my whole summer working on that and I had so much fun doing that. 4th and 5th grade I auditioned for the schools select choir and also made it in and that took up most of my after school time for the rest of my school year and when I truly started to become more serious about music was 5th grade when we did auditions to sing the Star Spangled Banner. My teacher knew how much I loved music and was able to get me a few times I could sing it and to know someone was in my corner other than my family was just amazing.

5th grade year my mom, brother, and I moved back to Nebraska. My 6th and 7th grade I joined band and learned how to play Trumpet. Then in 7th grade when I could take choir I jumped at the opportunity. I was then at that time doing choir, show choir, and band and was learning how to play both Trumpet and Flute. After 7th grade my brother, Chris, had graduated high school so my mom and I decided to move to Fort Collins. So the start of 8th grade I began at Blevins Middle School. There I was involved in the Musical and even had the lead in one of the two we put on and was in choir. At our end of the year concert 2 people in the choir class were awarded the director’s award. This meant they went above and beyond in choir and were always willing to help. My good friend Crista and I had won the awards and in that point I started realizing I could go somewhere with this.

When I came to Fossil freshman year I had asked to join choir and was placed in Women’s Choir. At the end of the semester I was asked to move up to Sabercat Choir’s, which was a more advanced choir, and I said yes. That recognition out of the 65 girls in Women’s Choir just made me feel accomplished and I started to do more with music. I joined the Praise Band at my church as well as the Praise Choir and started taking piano lessons.

Now that I’ve reached a point in my life where I have just being doing music for so long I wanted to learn the mechanics behind it and have decided to take Music Theory and Composition working to write music and all the aspects behind it. Currently I’m learning to write a type of music called Cantus Firmus and composing more individual music. Also with taking that class and choir I have also got to join Tri-M Music Honor Society. With that you have to do volunteer hours and those consist of music lessons, ushering concerts, performing at different places and many other things. With that I get to expand what I know more into the community and not just school and help people who might not know that much about music and are interested in it.

Music in my opinion isn’t just about weather you can sing good or play an instrument it’s about what goes into making the music and the experiences that lead to the song. I for example might get judged on my music choice because I want like the feel the emotion someone is experiencing weather it is crappy or the best day of there life. This type of music is what a lot of people classify as “Emo” music but it actually stands for Emotional Music. That why I like to listen to artists like Falling In Reverse, MCR, Paramore, Fall Out Boy or my all time favorite artist Panic! At The Disco. I love music because you can always connect with someone through it. People say that music is the universal language and it really is. It’s hard to learn for some people and easy for others but in the end you can always have something to say or express who you are and can connect on a different level with people and get to know there story.

Music might seem really intimidating or stressful but like sports or academics it takes work and practice. You need to put the effort in outside of rehearsal and when your in rehearsal you focused and serious, unless you make a very big mistake then everyone in the room just laughs it off. It takes guidance from teachers or coaches and even then you still have to be able to master a skill by working on you own. If you decide that music is something for you then there is so much more behind it and opens up so many opportunities for you like Tri-M, Scholarships, or even connections to get you going in the right direction in your career later on and it’s because all of these things that music has shaped my life today and father in the future.