For those of you who know me, you know that I am constantly singing or humming (sorry, not sorry). I am often surprised when I get asked why I decided to be a music major, but I started to realize that I didn't have an answer to that question. I generally responded, "Well, I really couldn't do anything else," but that isn't true. I was decent at chemistry in high school, and I always wanted to be a veterinarian. So why music? I thought I would sit down and write about my journey as a musician.
A lot of people talk about how they have been singing since they could talk, but that is literally when I started singing (well screaming) along to songs. From then until the end of high school, I felt unstoppable when it came to music. I was always involved in choir, I performed throughout the community and I wrote songs regularly. When I hit college, everything was fine in the beginning, but my confidence started to decline because I was surrounded by so many talented people and I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't enjoy music anymore, and I wasn't able to write anything to save my life. Because music is all that I really know, it was an incredibly rough couple of years, but I tried to stay active in it.Singing in front of people gives me an unbelievable rush, and I love performing. But that isn't what I love most about music. Music has this kind of healing power over me. A ton of research shows that music is therapeutic for just about any kind of injury or condition. I have had insomnia for my entire life, and I have recently begun struggling with anxiety. Doctors have given me prescriptions for all of it, but none of it seems to give me relief. That is where music comes in.
As soon as I start to feel overwhelmed, I put in my headphones and turn on "That Wasn't Me" by Brandi Carlile. If you aren't familiar with her music, look her up now. I always choose this song because it is one that is malleable to my mood. If I am sad, I can easily cry to it, and if I am happy, it gives me hope. I believe that everyone needs that one song as a go to for great times or hard times. I may be partial to this song, but all music has healing powers for me.
Since I realized that it wasn't other peoples' thoughts of my voice that mattered, but how music made me feel, I analyze everything differently. If you haven't done so, I strongly recommend putting your favorite song on repeat and focusing on a different detail of it every time. You learn so much about music, and about what the writer was feeling at the time. I try to do this every day with a different song, kind of like meditation. You don't need to be a music major to focus on the beauty of music itself and how it can ease your soul.
In closing, music is my everything. It is my safe haven and has gotten me through incredibly dark times. I truly believe that music has saved my life.
