I've been involved in music almost all of my life. My first interactions with it were in fourth grade, when I joined the choir at my school and was miraculously selected to be in the All State Honor Choir. Ever since then, music has been an immense part of my life. I have been in many choirs, awarded many honors, and made most of my friends through the art. Most of my mentors in life are musical, although I do not look up to them just for the music they make. Music has the power to impact those who create it in many strange and beautiful ways.
Anyone who has sang, played an instrument, or composed a piece of music will tell you that to be good, you must have discipline and professionalism. Because of this, I have been taught both of these things from a very young age, both very important life skills. I give credit to both my high school music teacher and my voice teacher of over six years for my current personality. My interactions with music and the musical community have shaped who I am as a person over the course of my life.
Not only has music shaped my personality, it helped me express myself, which is something that is very important as an adolescent. Music has always been the thing that I do when I need to calm myself down. It lets me sit down to do something that I enjoy, and pour all of my feelings, negative or positive, into it. Some of my most treasured memories are of moments in a choir when the overtones tuned just right, or a moment of silence that made me feel something. Music, after all, isn't as much about the art, as how it makes us feel.
Other than this, most of my friends have come out of the musical community. When you sing with someone, you are mixing your own air with theirs in a beautiful cacophony of sound waves and breath. There is a special connection that comes from singing in a choir with someone. For a short period of time you are completely aligned with those around you. You understand them, you are a part of them; and a piece of that oneness stays afterwards too, serving as an eternal connection that you share with those you have sang with.
In short, I owe everything about who I am to music. It gave me amazing mentors who helped shape me as a person, it gave me friends who I shared legitimate, emotional experiences with, and it gave me an outlet for personal emotional expression. All of these things are incredibly important for a young person to have and, although these can come from other sources and music is by no means the only way to live your life, it's the way I live my life, and I'm proud of it.
