Music and Passion: Who I Am

George Ma
Economos
A.P. Language and Composition
12 September 2012 A beauty clarinet solo carves a sorrowful image in my head. Suddenly, the tempo quickens, the energy rises, and the solo evolves into a plethora of bold and soaring lyrics. As I listen to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 Movement One, the boldness and beauty pours into my ears as the beautiful brass section combined with the strings. Music places me in an aurora where the most touching pieces of music are located. And it is this place where I discovered the true meaning of music. This discovery led me to realize who I really was and my true passion. Each musical note is a word. Notes by themselves are not music, but when the words are fit together, it creates something beyond this world. In each piece of music, the composer creates a story. But as the music is being played, the conductor directs the story into a film and from there; a story is told. Every story is different and in each piece of music, the composer sends you through a journey. It’s a journey to let go from the wraths of real life, and into a world where music is God. It leads into a place where I searched for the deepest meanings and let music guide me through that journey. As Movement Two arrives, the tragic sonority arrives and sinks through my skin. The notes, in it’s carefully modulated way, touch my heart, push my eyes to water, and my heart to cry out. The music’s bold tones catalyze remembrance of my deepest emotions. When the climax of the music is reached, all of the players together shine light to the pinnacle of my deepest memories and experiences. And together with the music and through the resonating wood and metal, I feel and I hear my life. Music exposes my deepest emotions and it engages me into a journey where the music pulls my emotions out and uses it to make magic. After a flooding of emotions, Movement 3 bursts out with lively and vivacious music. The waltzing theme and the slight staccatos of every note lifts me through the deep emotions to something that is light and weightless. This piece of music turns a blind eye to the pessimism of life and brings their audience to see life as half full. A road like this leads me to discover the tenacity in life. The Second Movement showed me the deepest and saddest shades of life, but the Third Movement endows me with a life lesson that life goes on despite its challenges. Through the delicate movements of the bow and the lively rhythm, each piece of music carries a different moral to be learned and to be discovered. That is the beauty of music. Each theme and story from the last three movements culminates in a frantic and grandiloquent Finale. The rashness and tumultuous development leads the mighty recapitulation of the beauty, finesse and meaning behind music. As each musical note resonates on those instruments, and as each musician pours his or her soul into the music, I feel enlightened through this journey and I learn something new about life and about myself. Through every journey a piece of music brings me, I experience some of the most moving stories that have changed me to who I am today.