Music Major Life

                   I have discussed previously, a lot, about the fact that I am a music major. Being a music major, surprisingly, connects a lot to this class and the emotions and feelings that come with the journeys. Yes, it is a journey to really be on this path of musical education, which to some seems like such a hopeless and wasteful cause. Yes, I do believe I can save all of the lost causes out there and really bring back the orchestral world into America. Yes, I am an optimist. But that is not what I am here to talk about today. I am here to discuss the number one connection I have found and felt throughout this semester with this course. Home. The word home in the music world versus the spiritual journey and philosophy world are two totally different things. The definition most musicians would give you for the musical term "home," would probably be something like this, "the place where you center yourself in order to continue the path of a specific scale, song, piece, work, etc." Now the definition most philosophers would give you, I can only guess, would be something more like this, "the place you get the feeling of fulfillment and wonder; where you know you are welcomed and have found peace and love," and all of that other good stuff! These do not sound very similar, I understand, however they seem to be exactly the same to me. In musical terms, home is very warm and enriching and no one likes atonal works where there is no real/technical "home." Sometimes in this class, I feel anyone and everyone makes anywhere and everywhere their own "home" of sorts by the way they connect with the journey. When you connect on a trail or journey or hike, you feel drawn to certain places rather than others and all of those puzzle pieces put together are what make up your "home." A musician feels the same way, especially a musician like me (a cellist) that does not have a fret instrument nor one with pads or buttons telling me what the exact note is. I have to be able to find it comfortably on my instrument by ear, on my own. So, my "home" has become my cello and being able to center myself around my instrument and ornament myself to what it needs and says. We have sort of a "spiritual communication/rambling" you could say. We connect with certain notes and things that I am immediately attuned to specific notes or intervals, (because just like every trail is different, even though it is all dirt and trees, every cello is different even though it is just strings and wood) which become my home to jump back to if all else fails. I apologize if some did not understand this analogy but it has become a revelation of mine in this semester and I would like to share it with everyone. Thank you, music major OUT.