My Love Affair with Music

I don’t ever remember a time when I didn’t like music. I was blessed to grow up in a musical family where my mom played Piano and a bit of Violin and my dad would go around the house humming (albeit, off-key) and inventing his own lyrics to songs. I started Piano lessons at age 6 after begging for them. My mom tells me my brother and I were always singing or humming, and I can remember at least one instance when annoyed family members would ask me to stop singing along with the CDs in the car. Gradually I fell out of love with the piano and wanted to stop taking lessons: I hated practicing. So finally my parents let me stop. But that was after I started taking lessons of a different kind: voice lessons. I think I can honestly say that voice lessons changed my life. I started studying voice when I was 11, which is, admittedly, a bit early to begin. But God had given me a voice that began to mature early, and my voice teacher wisely didn’t push me further and faster than was good for me. At first, it was just another lesson. I loved singing – I always had. But then I started to listen to classical singers – my first classical CDs were of Lesley Garrett, Inessa Galante, and Maria Callas. Once I had gained an ear for classical singing I couldn’t get enough of it and I began to dream of being a singer some day. I competed in state competitions, I sang in my church, I didn’t practice nearly enough. But I was in high school at the time. And then I graduated. And college was coming up and I had to choose a major. Well, of course, since my dream was to be a singer my major of choice was Voice Performance. But my dad, always the pragmatist, wanted me to do something more practical – like Music Ed, for example. After all, the Music world is hard to break into. But my mom convinced my dad to let me major in voice. And the rest, as they say, is history. Honestly, I can’t imagine being any other major. I absolutely love what I am doing and I hope to do it for the rest of my life.