Sports, Work, or Additional Information

I began harp at age 14 starting ninth grade in high school. Many of the other children had been learning harp since elementary school, hence they were much more experienced than me who had only seen them in movies. Starting out, I was just freestyling with all the strings. I had no technique and my form was terrible, but I had already started making songs.The harp is most like a piano, so I already had some music theory skills. I knew the foundation, which made it alot easier for her to teach me. The only thing that was a struggle was learning how to play with all four fingers in our ninth-grade year. After you strike the string, your fingers are supposed to lay flat on the inside of your palm. If I was in the mood of creating and learning my favorite pieces, it was hard to concentrate on everything at once. My teacher told me that if I didn’t close my hand all the way, my hand could get stuck that way. I definitely closed my hands then.

Moving on to tenth grade, I wanted to get ahead in the class, so I asked my teacher how I could improve. She was proud and said that if I wanted to get ahead, I would need to really put in the work since I started much later than everyone else. That’s when I started playing under the stairwell. Every day, I would play under the stairwell during extended learning periods. People would come and look under to watch and sometimes even video record. I had improved so much that she began selecting me to go on gigs with a few other promising students such as at The Southern Company. Eleventh grade, 2020, was the year when I started playing in the advanced harp class. I went to many tutoring sessions online and had my own solo performances. My first beginning gigs were so nerve-wracking that my hands started to sweat and slip on the strings. I even almost fell out of the chair sitting down. I took deep breaths and played. It wasn’t bad at all. No one noticed the mistakes and I even got more gigs from that performance. Not too long after, I started up my business and name, “Ayo’s Ascent” which basically means to tell my story of ascending to being a professional harpist. I would do live social media performances where people would watch and request any jobs for me to take and gain profit. To this day, I have done various performances and collaborations in which I am proud of my diligence and determination.

My overall goal with Ayo’s Ascent is to have a business where a variety of musicians from a diversity of backgrounds come together and produce art that will exemplify unity and cultural collaboration. By this, I mean that I would like to request musicians that play uncommon instruments from all over the world to come and join my label. Many rare instruments have unique culturalistic history and have their own story such as the Chinese zither which is an ancient Han national instrument with a history of 2500 yrs. I would combine the Chinese Zither with the harp or another rare instrument from a different dynasty, culture, and/or origin to make uncommon music that represents each culture. The artists on this label can be different and unique in any way. Furthermore, they are encouraged to stand out from the rest of the entertainment industry. In addition, it is not just ethnicities that will be diverse. Musicians with disorders, diseases, and other mental, emotional, and/or physical health conditions such as cancer have opportunities of joining this collaboration. My purpose is for children of all ethnicities and health conditions to be connected to their roots and have the ability to identify themselves in the entertainment industry.