As a fellow musician and performer, I find it skin crawling when people do not appreciate the complexity yet simple beauty that is music. This misconception is generally because they have had a bad experience at some point in their life with music, whether it be grade school choir, or being forced to take piano each week by your parent. This misunderstanding of what it actually is can make or break your entire life. Yes, your entire life.
I was very fortunate to have had childhood, middle school and high school music teachers who changed my entire perspective. Most specifically, my High School Choir/ Musical Director. These two individuals changed my life.
My choir director at Joliet West High School,Tim DeBoer, is the sole reason I survived the anxiety filled, roller coaster that is high school. Mr. DeBoer was not just a teacher to me, he was and will always be a mentor and inspiration. I struggled with being an introvert for the longest time in my life and was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. When I first started high school, going to choir each day was not a chore, it was a relief from every thing else in life.
Mr. DeBoer constructed his classroom as a safe place for anyone who needed it and had the inkling to learn. Specifically, we would sing pieces that were beyond our years, things of various cultures and languages, and pieces of pure beauty. It was stressed to us later on that it was more important that we sang with truth and honesty from these words and phrases, rather than just performing the song.
In other classes, I learned counterpoint and how to analyze things such as Bach, which are not easy things to do. It was not until this class that I actually became and thought like a true musician.
When it came to music, I was always passionate. It was my entire life and the only thing that I woke up for each day. I poured my heart into everything that was ever thrown at me. One thing that I will never forget about Mr. DeBoer first of all, was his sense of humor, but most importantly, the numerous quotes and pieces of advice we were given.
I could write a novel about everything that Mr. DeBoer did for me and how he steered me in the right direction.
He once told me during a specifically difficult time in my Junior year, "You may be in a bigger pool that you have ever been in, but it is not like you have never swam." This was a quote that I used in each of my college essays and just about every essay I write about my personal experiences.
Here is a link of a piece we performed my senior year called "Sing Me to Heaven." In the video, I am giving a speech and introduction to the piece and I feel that it really expresses a lot of what I am trying to say.
Music is something that we do not do for the sake of making a pretty sound. It is a feeling and an embodiment that can save someone and make their life worth something. It is something that we do in order to help others and in return, helping ourselves.
Thank you all for reading, and the next time you listen to music, actually consider the work that went into it and how it affects you. Give your music teacher a chance, they might just change your life.
