Final Narrative

  Music isn’t an art that I discovered during my 18 year of living, it’s a concept that has been present in my bloodline since before I was even born. I’d like to say I come from a very musically talented family. Everywhere I look in my family tree, I see talented, ambitious, driven musicians. My father is currently our church’s choir director and piano player. My uncle is a music producer with 3 Latin Grammys. My older brother is possibly the figure whom I look up to the most: a self taught piano player and currently enrolled at Aaron Copland School of Music as a music education major. I could continue bragging and raving about how much I admire many individuals in my family, but this story is about my own journey. I wish I could say I see myself at the same level and expertise as my uncle, or brother, or father, but I don’t take music as professionally as they do. Over the course of the past few years I’ve learned that that’s okay, and that music is an experience that boils down to each individual and how they apply it to their lives.

The earliest musical memory I can recall starts with my father. I remember our old Casio piano that sat in our living room for nearly a decade. No matter how many times we moved houses or apartments, that piano was the one thing that always came with us every time. When I was a toddler, I would sit on my father’s lap while he practiced the piano. From the moment he sat down on that bench until the very end of his session, I would be there with him carefully listening and observing. After my father noticed that I had an affinity for music, he started giving me personal piano lessons for a few years. I wasn’t too consistent with it, and although I don’t play the piano anymore, I’d consider that the first instrument I ever learned how to play. Another auditory memory I have from my childhood is waking up to the sound of slow jazz music playing every single morning when I woke up. My dad would play blues music on our big bulky speaker during the earliest hours. Even though the music was very loud and it was too early to be awake, it never bothered me. The music was quite soothing and I got accustomed to waking up to it every morning for the following years. I grew to love the genre of music and started listening to it on my own time.

At the beginning of 6th grade, I decided to join South Miami Middle School’s band program and be in it for the remainder of my 3 middle school years. I started off playing the clarinet in the school’s beginning band, and then I worked my way up to playing the alto saxophone in the school’s most advanced jazz band in 8th grade. Throughout my middle school experience, I took so many courses that helped train my musical ear and overall become better at music. The musical concepts I learned weren’t only applicable to the clarinet or the saxophone, but to any instrument I wanted to learn in the future. This is what made my middle school experience one of the most pivotal time periods in my musical journey. Later on in my life, when I started playing the bass guitar, I was able to apply what I learned during middle school to that new chapter of my journey.

Almost immediately after I graduated middle school, my family and I moved from Miami to Queens. It was a decision that had already been set in stone for a year, but in the summer of 2018, it became a reality. When I got to Queens, I had an incredibly difficult time adapting to the change. I couldn’t fathom the fact that all the relationships I’d spent 14 years building were gone now. I went to Forest Hills High School for all four years, and they were arguably some of the worst years I’ve faced in terms of my mental health. I felt like I had lost passion and motivation for things I loved before, including music. I didn’t touch a single instrument or even try to reawaken my passion for music because of my loss of interest in things as a whole. I struggled with making friends in high school because I was so accustomed to spending most of my life with the same people. However, in the summer of 2021, I made a pivotal decision that I believe improved my mental health and still continues to do so until this day. 

I remember in the midst of the depression I was facing, on the days where I couldn’t get out of my bed or eat, my older brother told me something that would stick with me forever: “you need to take your struggles and channel them into something great”. Such simple words changed my perspective and turned the way I looked at life. In the summer of 2021, I decided I wanted to pick up a hobby because I thought it would help me cope with my struggles and distract me in a way. I went to my local Guitar Center and signed up for bass guitar lessons. Throughout the months I practiced until my fingers had calluses and had pain in my wrist. As I mentioned previously, I was able to apply all the universal music theory concepts I learned in middle school to my journey as a bass guitar player. I practiced whenever I was in a good mood, but also when I was in a bad mood. I didn’t let the circumstances of my life dictate my everyday choices. Last month, I went through one of the most difficult emotional situations that I’ve ever experienced, and having an instrument to cope with that pain I felt has been one of the only things I’m able to handle my emotions and be strong through it all. To anyone who doesn’t play an instrument: I strongly urge you to at least give it a try. The best way I’m able to describe what it feels like is sitting in an empty, green field with no clouds in the sky. In that moment when you’re making music, your troubles don’t exist. It’s just you, your instrument and nothing else. There are many studies that indicate that music is greatly beneficial for your mental health, and I have been living proof of that claim.