Personal Narrative: The Making Of Music

Orchestra has always been one of my favorite classes to go to during the day. After choosing to play the cello in middle school, I continued playing the instrument in high school. It was in this class that I had made most of my closest friends, many of whom I still love to this day. I also loved how the rich deep tones that came from playing each note of the cello and how they were able to blend with the rest of the orchestra. I knew from my freshmen year that I wanted to get into the top class, Chamber Orchestra. I thought that I would have done everything in my power to get into the class, however when the time came I could not even bring myself to audition.

My interest for Music Production began when I started paying attention to what made others and myself like music. As it became more apparent, I wanted to formulate my own ideas and create, but of course it required knowledge, understanding and resources that weren't at my disposal. So, for a very long time I struggled to grasp the ability to make appealing beats, also I knew nothing about Mixing and Mastering, meaning it was hard to keep people

Growing up in Louisiana I was surrounded by all kinds of different physical activities. All of my siblings were involved in sports and it was only natural that I developed a love for them too. As a child I remember going to the park to play basketball with my cousins or just playing football with everybody from the neighborhood. Sports became a huge part of my life, and I surrounded myself with people who loved them just as much as me. Things began to change when my family and I moved to Georgia. I noticed that I wasn’t playing football in the neighborhood anymore. The kids were different they would rather sit in the house and play video games instead of being outside. My love for sports was always there I just needed a spark to bring my passion back to life.

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.

Playing sports was the highlight of my childhood (BE12). My friends and I played pretty much every sport there was to play. All the seasons flowed together. The day after football was over, we were all shooting hoops and playing basketball. As we all grew up, some of us are still busy with sports in every season of the year. Others of us chose to stick with one or two sports. Football and basketball, until this year, were the two sports that I chose to stick with (SC11). However, these two sports are very different from one another.

Sports have always been a major part of my life. Since the beginning, I have always been involved in some type of sport. I am the middle child of two boys, so i wasn’t exactly “girly”, I was mainly considered a “tomboy.” I tried gymnastics, but it just wasn’t my thing, I stuck to a bat and a ball. Growing up there wasn’t a time when you wouldn’t find my brothers and I, or my dad and I outside throwing pitch. We all played baseball/softball, so it was kinda our thing just to go out and play a game of wiffle ball.

My entire family is an athletic family, everyone did or does sports. However, I never really enjoyed sports to the extent that my family did. I tried to find something I had a passion for, but didn't really find anything until I was in 5th grade. A time that I was open to growth was my entire time in Phoenix Boys Choir.

I have loved music since I was born, it has always been there for me. Although I love all genre of music my favorite has to be country music. You can interpret so much from one verse of music. From kindergarten to fourth grade I was in the school talent show singing. I loved getting on that stage and showing people what I could do.

I think that my family realized that I had crossed the threshold between childhoods when I began to form my own opinions. This first took hold when I took part in poverty stimulation at my local shelter. I was giving a character and a story behind the card I was given; the story made me become emotionally attached to this name I had been assigned and the family in which I came from. The experience made me question the prejudice of the society I was living in. How many times had I avoided eye contact with the people on the side of the road begging for money? I began a long journey of soul searching and questioning the beliefs my parents had raised me on. My thoughts were continually brought back to a book by C.S Lewis, it was called Out of the Silent Planet; a character named Weston believed that individual human lives don’t matter, they must be sacrificed to save mankind.

No sooner than we came back with the drinks than one guy who I found was named Dan pulled out a baggie and rolled a couple of big joints. Those were passed around and it seemed like Jazz always had one in her hand as the guys kept passing them to her.

Working with music takes a certain type of patients. That’s why when I knew this project was present, I had the perfect person in mind because I worked so close with this person once before. So, I decided to gather my resources and get in contact with our family friend Dr. Snodgrass who is the superintendent of the Fort Osage R-1 School District and ask if I could receive her email so I could set up a facetime call with her and get this interview on the road. Her name Is Erica Gregory and she is a high school band teacher at Fort Osage located in Independence Missouri. The reasons I decided to interview her were simple. First, she was my star time teacher which meant she was my study hall teacher. As a freshman coming into high school and being placed in a study hall class

Those people were called musicians. At that point, it was rap that let me express my feelings of hurt and loneliness. Looking back, I realized rapping was a bridge to a greater passion. When I started seventh grade, I began taking guitar classes. Everyone in the class was excelling, except me. Most of my peers would get praise and glory from the teacher, while I struggled, but it didn't stop me. Months went by, and most of my peers disappeared, I stuck by and kept practicing. By the end of my eighth-grade year, I had composed and performed a song for my graduation. After I had performed, I had felt an amazing sense of accomplishment, and joy. As I started to reminisce, I found that music was not just a profusion of instruments clashing together, but a creative gateway into human emotion. It gave me a purpose because I knew I could touch souls, and bring something beautiful to a broken world.

I have a horizontal file cabinet in my office that can tell you a good story or two. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t stop to have a seat on this file cabinet and share a story or two with me. I enjoy every minute of it. I love hearing other people’s stories and how they connect us, but most importantly as Robert Coles states in his book, The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination, (1989) that we learn lasting moral lessons through stories.

When I first joined the band, I was a quiet, emotionless guy. I didn’t have any close friends in the band either, so honestly, I wasn’t having the best time. The people around me always seemed so happy to talk to others, and it confused me in a way. But then when band camp rolled around, people started to talk to me, so naturally, I began to respond to them, and eventually I began to start conversations for myself. I was a whole lot less awkward as days turned into months, my stuttering was reduced to almost none, I'm pretty loud, and I'm pretty friendly too.

I have grown as a critical and creative; I think that I have grown as a critical and creative because in the beginning I would not elaborate on my work. I really was not specific. I feel that I have grown as a creative thinker because at the beginning of the semester I would have not thought that I would have written a play for my IDS paper.