Disney Dream Song

As my fingers glide over the ivory piano keys and my eyes search the piano sheet music for the notes to play, I think back and become thankful for my mother giving me a love to read. My mother remembers that, when I was a little child of just three years old I would bring her stacks of colorful books varied in thickness held all the way up to my chin to her, crawl up in her lap, settle in, and say, “that one!” I would point to a book in the stack and my eyes would light up with excitement. We would sit that way for hours…., my mother and I, completely content to bask in the excitement of the book we were reading and in each other’s company.
As my mother read the story books filled with wonderful adventures of talking animals and little children making memories, I started to pick out words, syllables, phrases, pages, and then whole books. By the age of three I was able to pull one of my favorite books (Dick and Jane- the story of a little girl and little boy who play with balls and bats, and have crazy mishaps) off my small little white shelf in my bedroom and sit on my plush brown carpeted floor to read all by myself.  
As I continued to grow older, and my love of reading grew, I moved on to a harder form of literacy, that being, musical literacy. My father played the mandolin my entire adolescent life and became interested in playing the violin when I was just six years old. My father was not sure that I was old enough to read and comprehend music, let alone hold a violin and rosin a bow, use my fingers to find the notes, and use my other arm to extend the bow back and forth at the right time to make music come out of my violin that sounded good. He wanted to wait a couple years, but I was persistent and I signed up with my father to take violin lessons when I was six years old. This was the first step to start me off in learning to read music.

On Tuesday nights at 6:00pm our violin lessons began. The teacher pointed out musical notes to me, at first they looked foreign – completely unusual and the note form didn’t mean anything, but the teacher pointed out as I read the description of what those notes meant, and I soon began to understand and read music. Musical notes are little dots located on multiple lines with a stem pointing up or down. The stem direction determines whether the note is the melody or the harmony.  From a quarter note (which you hold out for a quarter of a beat), to a whole note (which you hold out for four whole beats) when my eyes scan a piece of sheet music I can translate it into what my fingers are supposed to play whether it be the violin or the piano. My eyes look at the notes (musical words) and having years of practice my fingers know exactly what they need to do without having to stop and really think about it. It is not that easy when you first start to play an instrument. It requires time and a lot of effort in practicing to read the notes, just like when you are practicing your alphabet when you are little you have to repeat them multiple times. Then you have to teach your fingers to stretch and reach for keys that are further away while making sure that your music flows. You have to do this multiple times to teach your fingers which notes are placed where.

 It’s the same thing when I sing. When I choose a song to sing sometimes I hear it on the radio first crackling away and listen to it multiple times before I have the words memorized and the basic part of the melody learned. Other times I pick up piece of sheet music at a music store or online, having never heard the song before. My excitement builds as I cannot wait to sit down on my old rickety piano bench holding the sheet music close and I begin to slowly reach my hand out to pluck out the tune written on the sheet in front of me.

It is just like reading, you crack open the cover of a new book and become engrossed in the plot as it thickens and peoples true characters are revealed. Putting the book down sometimes is not only a challenge, but becomes impossible until you have finished the story. Music becomes that way as well. Once you learn a new song it is stuck in your head and plays over and over consuming who you are and what you think about. When I sing, I am so in tune with the music that my thoughts and mindset become the song.  I sing of loving and my arms ache to hold someone, I sing of adventures and I am already imagining the trip to take.

 Playing the piano with both hands I begin to sing and play the song over and over and over until I finally have it memorized. I can then begin to add extra harmony and minor parts to the song trying different styles and seeing which is a better fit.

Without the great gift my mother gave me when I was three, sitting content on her lap while she taught me to read, and the gift my father gave me when he taught me to read music at the young age of six, I would never have the joy of playing, singing, and making music. Music has become an enormous part of who I am and who I want to become. My dream is to one day have the privilege to sing in a Disney movie as a leading female vocalist. Without the knowledge and passion of being able to read words, which then led me to read music, I might never have a hope or prayer of one day reaching or achieving my dream, but with the literary tools given to me in my youth I am confident that I can succeed in my musical dreams.