Jeremy Hurley's Essay On Singing

Society has set out certain guidelines about how we should go about participating in the activities we enjoy. Our culture tells us that a passion is something you have or you don’t, that you should always push yourself for achievement, that you should grown out of silly habits, and that you should stick with things you are used to. Jeremy Hurley demonstrates through his passion of singing, his viewpoints to these cultural norms and to which he follows along or contests to.
Achievement is something that should always be reached. Is that really such a bad norm to have? Success in our society means greatness, praise and prosperity in the future, whether it’s getting good grades to get into a good college, or it’s getting that hard degree to
get the high paying job, in order to be successful in this society, you need to achieve. Because we need to accomplish goals to be respected in the future, we learn to start striving to strive for high goals young; this is what Jeremy had described to me in our interview.
I had asked “How does singing make you feel?” and Jeremy responded that he feels very accomplished and satisfied, and if his performance is not up to par, he feels the need to improve. If he does not hit a note right, or sings a little off beat, he will be persistent and keep repeating until he reaches his desired sound. He also says this about why he loves singing. His favorite part is when he hits a good note and he feels like a “badass” about it. I feel society has influenced the way we view what ideas are good and which are bad. He feels accomplished when he has perfected something while in other cultures it may be completely acceptable to have just put yourself out there and try. Another habit that most of American society follows is growing out of so called “silly habits”. We have been taught to view hobbies as a gateway to a career because the odds are, if you spend more time doing something you enjoy, the more time you are going to spend doing something, possibly even for the rest of your life. That’s why we often veer away from “childish” hobbies around the age we mature. Wouldn’t you want to be playing hopscotch or tag in the backyard? If you only focused on that habit, especially if it’s deemed childish, odds are if you do not have another skill, you aren’t going to
be diversified enough to get a job. In Jeremy’s situation, he sang when he was little, but realistically he views that as a path that does not pay well in the future so he switches his hobbies, gradually ending a singing path and gaining a thriving knowledge of the sciences. He subconsciously understands that our culture expects us to give up ideas that are not possible ways to make money down the line, and he obeys this expectation by giving up a hobby he had previously loved.
It’s not always good to follow cultural norms, yes, sometimes they’re helpful, but Jeremy believes which you follow or protest are up to you.
When he was little, his parents put him into the church choir back when they lived in North Carolina. At first, young Jeremy hated singing. He didn’t understand why they did this to him, until one day when he was praised from his choir teacher about how good his voice sounded. From then Jeremy began to practice longer and harder and eventually became pretty good. Our society tells us that we’re born with a specific talent that we should nurture, but Jeremy is able to contest to these norms by saying a passion can be taught. He disliked music in the beginning but learned to appreciate the sound and over time it became what he loved to do. Another norm Jeremy is able to disprove is sticking to what you know. Our society has a major problem with this idea, this is one of the major reasons (I believe) stereotypes exist. A society tells black people that they are good at basketball, so an African American child goes through his life believing that’s what he’s supposed to do because people told him to. So, when the child grows up, he plays basketball because that is what he is used to, so feeding more into the stereotype. Highschool Musical was a very popular American childhood staple that most of this generation watched, in this movie they preform a song “stick to the status quo”. In the song they tell the pot heads that they can’t play the
cello, tell the popular kid he can’t sing, and the smart people that they can’t dance. Eventually they go on to disprove these ideas but the fact that they are able to recognize it means that is very prevalent in our culture. Jeremy was told to do was to stick to the songs he knows and/or what he is taught. He was taught church music and preformed predominantly church music for years, but later on in his life he explored different genres and divided he wanted to take up Tuvan throat singing, which is a strong deviation from what he’s used to, granted it didn’t go great but he expanded his horizons on what he knew.
Jeremy explores a wide range on how he is able to deal with stereotypes and norms. If they are beneficial to himself, then he will graciously stay, and if he figures out that something isn’t right for him then he is able to shy away and adapt. Stereotypes are there and I believe they always will be, but look at Jeremy, he doesn’t care about what he is supposed to confine to, he does what the best for him and he ends up being happier and more well-rounded of a person in the end.