College Admissions Essay: How Music Changed My Life

Knowing how to sing is a blessing that may come naturally to some people, but to others it requires practice and effort to learn how to properly develop this gift. Having seen many live performances and having a dad who could sing was an inspiration for me to develop such a talent. Music has always been my passion, and I knew that singing would give me another exciting opportunity to enjoy the feeling performance creates. I did not have a natural voice from a young age so learning to sing was challenging and pushed me beyond my orchestral limits--emotionally and physically--but with the strong desire I had and the toil I was willing to endure when learning this art, I persevered to becoming a singer.

During middle school I became involved with the varsity orchestra; this is where I developed my basic musical and performance skills. I began to crave the talent of singing during my eighth grade year, especially after my dad revealed to me his singing capabilities. Having listening and practicing with different music, I learned to keep a pitch, but I did not have a good vocal tone. My voice was weak, soft, and far from producing the least amount of musicality. For about two years my father and I practiced singing by simply exchanging melodies from different songs to help me gain control of my voice,

Working as much as I could with him, my voice improved drastically, but my sound had not completely formed to my goal tone. Continuously and slowly improving, I learned various techniques and exercises that formed the foundation of my voice, the air support from the diaphragm. The only obstacle that prevented me from progressing more was the natural anchor of my voice still changing, which prevented it from having a developed tone. It was not till my twelfth grade year that my voice matured and developed the musical tone I always knew I could