I've thought a lot about this the past few hours, trying to decide if I wanted a positive or negative impact, and which person I should choose, and if I choose someone who is that going to offend. That is a lot of pressure for a blog post. So I am taking the easy way out and choosing something to write about. If you know me, the object of my choice probably won't come as a surprise. So without further ado, I give you the thing that has most impacted my life . . . .
For those that don't get the picture, music. I am pretty sure music has always been a part of my life. One of my earliest memories of music is from sometime during second grade. For whatever reason, one night, I was allowed to sleep in the family room, and in the morning, I was woken up by someone, probably Dad, blasting "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen on the stereo. What a way to wake up.
I remember music classes in elementary school, they were mostly singing, but in first grade I learned to play violin, but I didn't play the whole year. I remember being kind of good. I am not sure if I actually was or not. Then I was in the school choir in fourth and fifth grade. In sixth grade, I played the flute, I sucked, but mostly because I never practiced. Then I just kind of experienced music for a while. I didn't really play or make any most of the time.
In high school, our church started their youth Mass, which eventually became Life Teen, so I joined that when I was a junior, and I have been singing at St Laurence ever since. The one year I was at SFA, I spent my first semester as a music major, that was hard. I had no formal training, and I couldn't really sight read, so I was lost, plus it wasn't what I really wanted to do, so I quit, but my favorite class at SFA was choir. The worst was the seminar part of our voice lessons, they called it Studio, so all of a particular voice teachers students belonged to his studio, and once a week we had to sing for them. That wasn't the worst part, the worst part was what we called Big Studio, all the vocal majors in the large music hall, and the "final" for your voice lesson was that you had to sing at least once at Big Studio. Doesn't seem like that should be a problem, but that was my most terrifying experience ever. All of those people thought they themselves were the reason singing existed, that they were God's gift to music. I am not sure I have ever felt so vulnerable or exposed, but I made it through and my voice teacher complimented me on how my singing surprised him. He was a jerk and that was my first compliment from him ever at the end of the semester. I am pretty sure he expected me to tank.
Anyway, I left SFA and started at UST, but I didn't join the choir because I really couldn't afford to spend that much money for the tuition to take the course. So I just went back to the Life Teen Group at St Laurence, which I still sang with if I happened to be in town on Sunday night. December of 2000, the "traditional" choir was going to do a concert of the Messiah, and Mary invited all the choirs to join if they wanted to. I loved the Messiah, I'd learned it the previous year, and so I went to sing it with them. I was the only one from another choir to go. I loved it, and several people in that choir asked me a few times to come sing with them. Which I did, in January 2001, so I have been in that group for 10 years.
I first realized how much music meant to me in 2006, when I was put on vocal rest for 3 months. I got sick, and then I noticed for a few weeks after that my throat was irritated, and my voice wasn't right. So I went to the doctor and he put me on 2 weeks voice rest and told me to come back. It didn't help. So I had to do more voice rest, and go to an ENT that specialized in the vocal chords. He's one of the best there is for and has treated many famous singers. So he did Microlaryngoscopy which means he stuck a camera down my throat and took a video of me singing and speaking. Turned out I had prenodes on my vocal chords, which meant more voice rest. He told me I couldn't sing for another month, and then we'd see what the next step would be.
This was when I realized how much I loved music because I would go to Mass and sit in the congregation and not be allowed to sing with everyone. I had to stop going to Life Teen Mass during that time, it was too hard not to sing, and even at the morning Mass I went to, it was hard not to sing. I realized how big a part of my worship singing was and how deprived I felt without it. I remember one Sunday after Mass, probably around Thanksgiving, I was talking (sort of, I was on voice rest) with Mary, and I started to cry because I didn't think I'd be OK to sing for Christmas.
I am realizing more and more after this, just how much music means to me. People say music is my life or music is life, but I don't think that adequately explains it.
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