“Music is love in search of a word” -Sidney Lanier
I’ve always been interested in music. At least, for as much of my life as I can remember. And before I was interested in making music, my parents made sure to expose me to all the great music they loved, and I loved listening. As I grew up, I got into singing, joined band in middle school, and picked up a few more instruments along the way. Music has been a constant in my life since then. I was heavily involved in chorus and musical theatre in middle school, but I went to a high school that didn’t offer classes in anything remotely musical. My class load was too heavy to have time for extracurriculars, (plus COVID). So for the last several years, my musical journey has been self-guided. I kept up the flute, I learned guitar and a bit of keys, I continued teaching myself more advanced singing techniques. Singing has become my outlet. Probably the most gratifying music adventure I’ve had over the last several years has been learning music theory. I’m very mathematical, but also very musical, and so music theory is endlessly fascinating. I’ve been working on composition and improvisation on guitar and piano, and while I’m not very good, it’s one of my favorite ways to pass time.
I just started college around a month ago. I love it so far, but I immediately started looking for ways to bring music back into my life, since my high school failed me in that regard, and church choir is off the table. I intentionally chose the school I did because it has so many options of different clubs to join. Campus life is thriving here. The immediately obvious way to me to get involved in music was a cappella groups. There are around a dozen here, so I went through and picked three to try out for. I also tried out for the school musical, just for grins. I got one call back, but come to find out, I didn’t make anything. Upon doing some more digging, music lessons are available through the school, but for several hundred dollars per semester per type of lesson. The ‘Glee Club’ and more formal bands and choirs had already started at this point. Music practice rooms are available, but only for $70 per semester. There are no other music related clubs to be found, despite the school having hundreds of student orgs. Of course, finding all this out at once was pretty crushing. I had my heart set on bringing music back into my life in some kind of formalized way this year. But it turns out nothing is truly accessible to me.
Ultimately, I brought a few of my instruments from home. I’m still disappointed I have nowhere to sing, but playing has helped a lot. I have dreams of being great at music one day. I desperately want to learn jazz improv. I’d like to think I could just teach myself, but I’m the type of person who really excels with lessons. In all my time teaching myself through high school, the rate of improvement has been very slow. I miss music. I miss singing in the car. I almost crave singing. I feel as though there’s an unfilled niche for music here, but I don’t feel qualified to fill it. All I want to do is learn. This post was pretty personal, and pretty random, but what else is this site for?
Check out one of my other posts about college, or my about me. Thanks for reading Jeff.