Music has been a huge portion of my life for most of my life. I have always been a lover of music, most of which comes from my family, with my mom being a part of one of the best choirs in the world, and many of my extended family having careers related to music. I started to play the upright bass when I was 10 years old, and it is easy to say that it was the most impactful decision of my life. In my 7th grade year, I was moved up to the top orchestra of my Jr. High school. The band director also came up to me and invited me to join jazz band, which I did, and have been doing since. I’ve been a section leader in my school's orchestra for five years now, and the lead bassist in jazz band for six. I also picked up the bass guitar at the end of my 7th grade year, which allowed me to join marching band in my sophomore year, continuing to play in it for the rest of high school, and becoming the front ensemble section leader in my senior year. I have also participated in High School All-State orchestra since I was in 9th grade, and Davis Youth Philharmonic for just as long. I’ve been brought in last-minute to play with my schools Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble, as well as Percussion Ensemble, which I have recently joined and begun to learn percussion. Perhaps my favorite orchestra that I have played in have been the pit orchestras for school musicals. These have connected my two loves, that of playing bass and that of musical theatre. These groups have showed me my future goals of music, which is to play in the pit orchestras of professional musical theatre. I have dabbled in composing and would someday even like to write a musical. In the midst of all these band and orchestras, I have taken private bass lessons for as long as I have been playing and have had a solo recital last year, and I auditioned at a state school just a couple weeks ago, getting into the music school and the bass studio. I am very excited about continuing to learn and study music. A very exciting step towards studying music is that I have just recently bought a new bass, clearly showing how dedicated I have been, and how much I have improved to need such an upgrade. I have two main goals in music that I would be devastated to not accomplish. The first, as previously mentioned, due to my love of playing and my love of musical theatre, is to play in professional pit orchestras, especially in many of my favorite musicals. The other goal, which is less of a career, but likely more achievable, is to play Dvorak’s New World Symphony in its entirety, as it is my favorite piece of all time, and is quite likely to happen within the next few months. In some ways, it’s easier to list what I haven’t done in relation to music throughout my life thus far, for it has played many roles to me. It has been my comfort and my joy, just as it has been my pain and suffering. Music has been everything in my life, the good and the bad, and I hope it continues to be that way.

I first read this book when I was 14. It took me 3 months to read the entire thing, but it was over 1000 pages of Victorian-era writing, so 3 months was quite fast. The book was Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. At the time, I’d become obsessed with the musical and wanted to read the book. Often nicknamed “The Brick” for its immense size and weight, Les Miserables is a famous novel, but I doubt very many people have truly read it. There are many things about Les Miserables that make it a strong contender for one of the best books ever written, but there are also many things about it that ward people off and keep it as more of an exclusive book. The first of which is its Victorian style of writing, a given as it was published in 1862, but still something that prevents it from being an easy book to read. Likely the top reason that Les Miserables is not a popular read is the long, mostly unrelated digressions that Victor Hugo adds. Personally, I believe that 200 pages of the Battle of Waterloo, or 20 on the sewer systems, just adds some spice to the book. Despite the difficulties, Les Miserables is still well worth the read. Through the inspiring story of an ex-convict who became the most caring and generous man ever known, the readers gain a knowledge of justice, forgiveness, and both the good and evil that are in all people. Reading of Les Amis de l’ABC, the young men who gave their lives because they believed in a better world, the readers will often start to question their own world and may start to stand up for what they know is right. Reading Les Miserables will change your life, because the whole story started from a single act of kindness, that set in motion a chain of positive events, and improved the lives of nearly every character in it, even if they weren’t ready to accept it.

The quarantine of COVID-19 did a lot to isolate people throughout the year of 2020. The separation was necessary, but still harmful to communities. After 4 months of quarantine, my family planned an event to bring people together, without breaking any 6-foot social distancing rules. My family is known in our community to be very musical. Since these events, my mom has become a member of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, most of my siblings have learned at least one new instrument, and I’m currently planning to pursue music at an in-state college. Because of these talents that we were all blessed with, we decided to organize a porch concert, where our family would all perform music on our front porch and invite the neighbors to come and hang out (keeping our distance from each other) and watch us perform. This not only gave my family something to plan for but our entire neighborhood something to look forward to. We each planned pieces to play either by ourselves, as a duet, or as an entire family. Our big ‘showstopper’ ending was an arrangement we did of the Beatles’s Eleanor Rigby, with my mom on cello, my sisters on viola and violin, my brother on tambourine, and me on bass. We also did an arrangement of Happy Birthday with much of the same orchestrations, save for my brother on piano, my dad on guitar, and me on bass guitar. In truth, the specifics of what we played that evening don’t matter, but what does matter is the turnout for the concert itself. Many of our neighbors came to watch. They spread out on our lawn, on the driveway of the house next to ours, wherever their families could gather that didn’t break any social distancing rules, and my family played. Everyone had a good time, and my mom received many messages over the next few days from neighbors gushing about how amazing it was. Since then, we’ve played in sacrament meeting multiple times (with more spiritual songs than the Beatles, obviously), once or twice with all of us, and even more with just solos or duets. Through this concert, I discovered a love of performing that I hadn’t had before. As a musician, I do have a certain love for performing, but this was different because it wasn’t to show off, it wasn’t for profit, it was only to serve as an opportunity to bring together our community in a way that we hadn’t been able to do before. I’ve loved playing in sacrament meeting (it’s much more enjoyable than speaking, at least), and I have enjoyed the other opportunities I’ve had to perform, just for the sake of service. I’ve played in orchestras at retirement homes, as background music for the opening of an art show, and many other services that have been just as much of a joy to me as to those I perform for. I can’t say for sure that this concert is the reason I want to pursue music professionally, nor was it the only thing my neighborhood did during quarantine to bring the community together, but I can say that this porch concert was a great way that my family was able to serve our community and bless ourselves through doing so.

I grew up in a red state, in a very sheltered community. I didn’t even know of the existence of queer people until I’d moved to a different city – still in the same state – and spent much more time on the internet. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that I first started exploring my own identity. I’d made friends online as well as learned about many different sexualities and identities, and I started to feel different from those around me. I’ve never had a crush, I’ve never been on a date, and I don’t necessarily like the idea of marriage. I’m in my senior year of high school, and I feel like I didn’t experience it like anyone else did. For a long time, I thought it was just the social anxiety that isolated me from those typical experiences, but I know now that it was much more than that. I was 16 when I tried the label “asexual,” and finally found an explanation for a lot of my life. I then added “aromantic” and eventually, “agender,” adopting the pronouns “she/they.” It took me a while to come out to my parents, even though they’d never been queer-phobic, and they were quite supportive. Discovering the LGBTQ+ community has been a truly wonderful part of my life. There are my online friends, who got me through many difficult times in my life, and now, there are many relationships I have with people in real life. I don’t think I ever sought out the queer people in my school, I just found them. Or, in some cases, they found me. Many of my long-time friends have since discovered themselves to be part of the community in some way, and there are others that I’ve met more recently that are also queer. There are many reasons that we’re friends, and being queer is only one of them, but it is still a huge part of our lives and a very important shared experience. The major that I’ve chosen to pursue after high school is music performance. I’ve played the bass for about 7 years, and it’s a just as big, if not bigger, part of my personality than being queer. The reason that I’ve chosen this major is because of just my last few years of being involved in music in high school, and I think a large portion of that has been the parts of the LGBTQ+ that I’ve found within the music programs. From the very first marching band rehearsal I attended, I felt safe in my sexuality and gender. That day was the first time I was asked my pronoun preference. Within the orchestra, there were some members that I found myself drawn to, that I quickly became friends with, and they are all queer. Music classes have been one of the only places within my school where I’ve felt truly safe and accepted, which is one of many reasons that I chose to pursue it. There have been many wonderful experiences I’ve had since discovering my sexuality, but there have also been many difficult things. I’ve dealt with homophobic comments and preaching from teachers, snide remarks from classmates, and misgendering and assumptions made by all sorts of people, but I’m still proud of my identity, and very glad that I have found the community I did. I know there are still many steps left to go for the community as a whole, and for me individually, and I don’t know what I can do in order to move forward, but I know that I would like to.

Music has shaped every aspect of my life, which certainly has an impact on how I view the world. There are many scientific studies about the impact music has on the brain, the body, and the functioning of both. Making music is known to impact neurotransmitters, that can influence concentration, mood, sleep, anxiety, and pain. Music also can help retain memory, which is why it’s often used as a mnemonic device to help remember something. There are many scientific ways that music impacts a person, but there are even more ways that aren’t as easy to study. To be completely honest, it’s difficult to notice the impact that music has had on myself and how I view the world around me, simply because I’ve been involved in music for a long enough time that I don’t remember how I viewed the world before music became so important to me. Still, there are a few things that come to mind. I have never been a particularly social person. I’m very much an introvert with a huge amount of social anxiety; I’ve never been good at making friends until I started playing music. Since then, nearly all of my close friends have been found through music. My section in marching band, anyone in the pit orchestra of the school musical, and those that just hang out in the band room after the school day ends. These are the people I am good friends with, because none of us were ever very good at making friends, but the involvement in music and the effort we put into it, put us all in the same places for long enough periods that we quickly got to know each other. Music has taught me the power of Deep Listening. I use this to help in the process of learning a piece or preparing for a performance. This is where I listen to the piece, only the piece, letting no other sound in, and often imagine myself to be the one playing it in the recording. Through the process of Deep Listening, I hear everything about the piece, every bow stroke, every string crossing, every detail of the vibrato. Deep Listening is a powerful skill that I’m still improving, but it has definitely had its benefits in the world outside of performance. Instead of music, I can listen to a friend talking, and be better at picking up on the music in the way they talk. I can listen to nature and find the musicality within that. Deep Listening is a powerful skill, and one I certainly wouldn’t have without music. Certain words or phrases, or certain events cause a song to pop into my head. I think of the Morning Mood flute solo whenever I see a sunrise. The colors red and black will always make me think of Les Miserables. Nothing brings me more joy than just listening to the radio and having a song I played come on, or hearing Sing Sing Sing played in the background of a movie. I’m listening to music as I write this essay, and I have to take breaks in typing to conduct a particularly cool tempo change or air-play along to a bass part I learned months or even years ago, or one I never learned but I can hear very clearly. Music is in everything I do, in a way, because everything I do makes me think of music. It is my first and forever love, and I view the world as a much better place because of it.

It’s often been noted online that Tobey Maguire was the best Peter Parker, Andrew Garfield was the best Spider-Man, but Tom Holland was the only one who was even decent at both. For a while, I agreed with this statement, but since the premiere of No Way Home, I, along with many others, gained a greater appreciation for Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of the hero. I didn’t grow up watching Spider-Man movies, or any superhero movie at all, for that matter. It was only recently that I watched any of the movies, but once I did, Andrew Garfield was quick to become my favorite, for many reasons. One reason that I believe Andrew Garfield portrayed the best version of the character is that of the three, he seemed to have a much better grasp of the spider powers and was able to use them in more creative ways that the other versions didn’t. In the first movie, he used a web that was spread throughout the sewers in order to locate the Lizard. Garfield has noted that he did in fact study spiders and how they reacted to the world in order to incorporate more of that into his acting. In addition to the powers, Andrew Garfield also had the best grasp of Peter’s character, showcasing his intellect. Garfield’s is the only one to fully create his own suit and web-shooters, and even came up with the equation to regenerate limbs that Dr. Connors couldn’t figure out. He also has a very good grasp on the character of Spider-Man, incorporating those snarky comments and overall sense of humor that the comic book version is famous for, as well as demonstrating the true, “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" aspects of it all. Spider-Man’s main job isn’t to fight supervillains (while he does end up doing a lot of that), but to save the day in little ways. He didn’t only save the child from the burning, falling car, but he encouraged the child, even giving him the mask, to make him feel strong enough to save himself. His relationship with a child in the second movie is even more special, helping a young kid to fix his science project, and encouraging him along the way. No other portrayal of Spider-Man has moments as important and awe-inspiring as those. Even though I strongly believe that Andrew Garfield has the best portrayal of Spider-Man, there are certain aspects of each that made No Way Home such a joy to watch, seeing each of them interact together and show their individual characterizations of Spider-Man. In the movie, Tobey Maguire’s Peter has been Spider-Man for a long time, and he brings his experience to the story, helping both of the younger ones on their journey. He’s been through it all, and he wants to help the other versions of himself to get through it, too. Andrew Garfield’s version has been struggling for a very long time, nearly to the point of giving up being Peter, and only the interactions of the other versions helped him to start to heal. Tom Holland’s version had been a hero for a long time but only started to truly become Spider-Man after the events of the movie. There are many things about each portrayal that make them great and other things that they lack, but overall, Andrew Garfield’s portrayal shows the best parts of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. If Andrew Garfield had been given the chance to dive deeper into the character than just the two movies, I’m sure he would have been a favorite far sooner.

In my mind, my future self is confident, happy, enjoying life in a career that I chose, and has the freedom to do whatever I want, without a level of anxiety holding me back.