If you have not had access to formal music training,
- describe what challenges you faced in developing your musicianship,
- how you overcame those challenges, and
- how that experience might contribute to your success as a student at Berklee.
I’ve heard un-trained musicians talk about how magical and wonderful playing music is, but when it comes down to it they don’t put in the routine practice that is so necessary for good music. Scales, exercises, sight-reading, theory: learning these things is the greatest challenge I’ve faced coming from a background without formal training. I haven’t had a teacher to make me work, so I’ve taught myself to commit to a regular routine. When I taught myself to play piano and read music freshman year in highschool, I sat for hours at a time figuring out The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. I would listen to it over and over again, study a book about reading music, and stumble along to the sheet music. It was not something that came easily, but I put in the hours until I could play. The same year I moved to several Mozart pieces and my crowning classical achievement: memorizing Beethoven’s 1st movement of Pathetique and performing it at a talent show. I’ve had to search out my own exercises and create my own practice schedule. Pushing through this major challenge I have developed the ability to self-motivate and an understanding of the value of regular practice.
Being homeschooled, I never had the opportunity to play in school bands or ensembles, so I had to make music by myself. Desiring to play with other musicians, I joined a fife and drum corps. I became lead fifer and gained a lot of experience performing in front of large crowds. My musical horizons began to expand and I began composing songs for a four or five man band. But in not having access to people who could play my compositions, I took to recording them in garageband. I taught myself to play the various instruments I needed and used my dad’s macbook to turn myself into a one-man-band.
Money. A roadblock that nearly all musicians face, myself no exception. Instruments are expensive. Software is expensive. Recording gear is expensive. Private training is expensive. And most musicians aren’t rock stars raking in cash. During my senior year, I scraped together enough money to upgrade from garageband to Pro-Tools and from an SM58 to a Rhode NTK condensor. That summer I was working full time, but took one week off to record and mix my first album. I hardly slept, didn’t shower, and ended up ten pounds lighter because I was so engrossed in the project. I learned that summer to make do with what I have. You don’t need thousands upon thousands of dollars to write some good songs and produce an album that will touch a few lives.
My experience in playing classical piano pieces, being lead fifer in a fife and drum corps, playing rock and blues guitar, and singing pop covers has given my compositions a wide variety of influences. I feel like Berklee would be the perfect place for me to expand my range of influences and devote myself entirely to practice and study. I offer Berklee a disciplined student devoted to music and a mind that desires to contribute something to the great historical dialogue we call music.
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