Personal Narrative: A Career In Recording Arts

From the day we’re in our mother's stomachs, to the day we die, we have always been listening to music. For me, listening to music all my life helped me develop a passion for it. When I was around the age of 6 my dad introduced me into the world of Rock. The very first band I remember listening to was System of a Down and ever since then, I fell in love with rock music and all its possible variations; for a long time this was all I listened to. It wasn’t until high school that I started listening to all sorts of genres and realized that I wanted to have a career in the music industry. That's when I learned about producing music.

I have played trumpet since I was in the fourth grade -- that makes a grand total of 8 years. I had always taken private lesson and taken a keen interest in perfecting the instrument. At the beginning of high school, I decided to switch teachers and start working towards the district band audition. Just like with everything else I do, I was going to put all my effort into making district band. To be honest, I did not think I was going to make district band freshman year of high school simply because it was my first time auditioning. But when it was all said and done, I received a spot in the district band ensemble. It was the best musical experience I have ever had. I have never heard so many great musicians together before, and to be a part of it was absolutely incredible. I knew that I had to do anything I could to be a part of this group year

Of course like the band nerd I am, I was really excited to try out and hopefully be a part of something that is much bigger than yourself. So a couple weeks after trying out, I figure out that I have made the marching band as a freshman! I also figured out that some of the Washington clarinets made it too. So after I passed eighth grade, summer finally came and I had to learn all of this challenging music that was above my knowledge and had to turn them into to a website to prove that I was practicing. Near end of July came and I had to go the dreaded band

I have also been a member of band and a part of the college ambassadors. I have done band for four years and my freshman year I was a part of the all-county band. All-county band is an audition from all of the best band members from every school in the county and there are limited spots with certain instruments to come together into a mass band and perform together. All county band members are known to being the best band players in the county yet alone at your school. As a college ambassador, it is a group of about ten people who come together and discuss college choices, standardized test, studies, majors and life during college. This group has helped me make college decisions, made me a better person overall, has taught me many different options and routes through college, such as introducing me to internships during college. All throughout school ever since elementary school I have been on A/B honor roll and I still am to this day. My junior year I was inducted into the National Honors Society and the National Technical Honors Society, so grades are very important to me because I understand sports do not last forever but education and knowledge

Growing up, music has always been a passion of mine. I listened to everything and anything. I would go to jazz concerts, operas, orchestra performances, or to a rock and roll music festival. But that passion bloomed into something more as I grew older. It blossomed into wanting to learn an instrument. I got to seize that opportunity when it came time to attend middle school.

Joining DHS Jazz band- It was rewarding, because I was able to learn Jazz rhythms.

An audiologist is someone who studies hearing(ears). In 2015, Audiologists were voted the second best occupation to have. Our guest speaker was Dr. Karen Mills. She shared a lot of information with us. If you want to be an Audiologists you must go to college and get your Bachelors (4 years), Doctrine (3 years), and more years for your intern. Being an Audiologist deals with anatomy, math, science, and physics. There are different places you can work. You can work at a doctor, hospital, school, military, noise environments, etc. Dr. Mills posses her own place called Hemphill Hearing Center. She shared with us that she used to be a truck driver. She would drive around Texas checking people’s ears and hearing at locations where the noise was excessively loud. There are three types of bones in your ear. The Malleus, Incus, and Stapes. They are also called the Hammer, Anvil, and Stirrup. These are the strongest bones in your body, but they can be broken. Also, there are three ways for loss of hearing. It could be because of builded up ear wax, too much fluid, or nerve damage. Once the nerve is damaged you can not get it back. Sensorineural (nerve damage) is more common in older people or people that are often

When I was in ninth grade, I was in a string orchestra playing the violin. I had been playing for nearly six years at

My sixth grade year was the most significant year of schooling for me. A few weeks into school, and not knowing anyone in my classes, I decided to talk to the school band director to find potential in me playing an instrument. At the time, I didn’t know anyone in band; I just wanted to become apart of it.

I realized I wanted to get into music and producing when I received feedback from friends, and family that I had talent after the first song I released, and after time passed all I received was just good feedback, of course, there were some negative opinions but I keep my head up. When I started writing/recording music I just saw it as something to do for fun, it became one of my serious hobbies after a while. That push I was given by friends and family has led me to believe I could make it in the music industry. That’s how the idea of getting into music came about.

For me it is important to reach my goals in order to be happy with myself. I have two career employments that interested me the the most, and they are. Music Producer and Sound Engineer Technician. Both of these careers have a lot of similarities and quite a few differences.

After listening to segment five of prx.org the nerve Music identity, I learned that no one person listens to music the same way. Individually, infants, they are so brilliant; according to the video story “infants by twelve months of age show a bias shaping of how they hear things” (prx). Furthermore, infants select differences in a rhythm that adults cannot. The rationale is adults lose flexibility as they age. What is interesting is adults may have the potential to select differences in rhythm like infants. However, infants listen better than adults. Therefore, they can absorb more variations in rhythm. Thus, active listening remains a critical component to memory and retention of data encoded and stored in the hippocampus.

I want to be a music producer because music is something I listen to daily when I can and it helps me relax and things when I’m angry or upset. Music is my dream and I want to make it a reality for me and music production and maybe a singer/songwriter is good for me also but I’m setting towards music production. A producer can be involved in the song-writing, audio engineering, recording, adding musical instruments and effects, hiring outside musicians if needed, help plan the overall promotion plan — including choosing album images and stage stunts. He can even advise the singers to get vocal coaching lessons

I once had a teacher who told me, “There are no wrong notes, but how you play them, the feelings you put in and how you play them in time. It’s all about your timing.” This is one piece of advice that has always remained with me, and looking back over the past year, I can see that it adheres to far more than just music.

It was more of a time for the most talented players to have fun, while being at the Varsity Basketball games. We’d play incredibly hard pieces and make up our own stuff as we went along, because of the significantly smaller group size. Coming into junior year was when band became a lot more challenging for me. I auditioned for my schools highest performing, highest rated band, Wind Ensemble; I was accepted into the ensemble with a high audition score. Just like Marching Band and Symphonic Band, we would have a state-assessment to attend at the end of the year. The only difference was the process of getting to state-assessment. To make us stand out, we always played the hardest possible grade of sheet music, which was a grade six. This required countless hours of in-class rehearsals, as well as outside of class rehearsals if we felt like we really had to work on a particular part. But even through all of this stress, we’ve never once come up short of getting a superior rating at state-assessment. Band is one thing that I know I’ll keep with me for my entire life, because it has been filled with many life lessons that I will always be able to apply to the real