Foreign Forté

Imagine this: being just four years old, with a seven year old brother, a mother eight months pregnant, and a father hauling around the luggage at the airport in a new country. Would you be scared? I sure was. I was now in an environment with new faces, a new language, a new home, and a new life, and I definitely did not have great confidence during that time. However, over time, music eventually became my sponsor of literacy for building up my confidence and making me feel more comfortable in conversations and dialogues with new people. My presence and involvement in music, writing lyrics, singing in the choir room, and performing on stages all helped greatly to improve my confidence in speaking, and my confidence in different styles of writing.

Many people listen to music, sometimes the choice of music depends on their emotions and sometimes they depend sheerly on what they want to hear. Whatever music they end up choosing, it connects them with how they are feeling and what they are thinking. For me, music is something that positively impacts me and is something that I can relate to. When I am sad, I listen to music. When I am happy, I listen to music. When I am stressed, I listen to music. For me, music helps me get through everything, whether it be overwhelming stress for an exam, or a hype up before watching the next game. In my case, music is what ends up being my sponsor, my go to. To clarify, not all sponsors are people. According to Deborah Brandt, the idea of sponsors are there to help and explain a range of human relationships and ideological pressures that show up at the point of learning literacy (74-75). For this reason, I believe that music is indeed my literacy sponsor. It has improved my human relationships and my confidence, as well as my literacy in the lyrical aspect of reading music and the oratorical aspect of public speaking. Nonetheless, music has always been a large part of my life, and the excitement and enjoyment I receive from it has come from the love my family has for it.

Furthermore, to this day, my family is still involved with music in many different ways. My mother and father both sing and chant in church, my younger sister sings in her middle school choir, my older brother is a music producer, and my younger brother plays the trumpet for his middle school band. In addition to that, I played the violin in third grade, clarinet in middle school, and I sang all throughout my education years in choir, I sing at home daily, and I write lyrics when I get inspired. Having said this, it shows how much music has impacted me as a person, because it has always been a part of my life. Creating the confidence to sing, talk, read, or even act in in front of people, was mainly because of my family’s involvement with music.

One of the greatest places that helped and supported me was the choir room. The choir room was one of the few places that I felt comfortable in during my school years. I felt comfortable because of the family that was created with everyone in it, the positive encouragement and support shown by fellow classmates and teachers, and all the memories made. In this room, I have sang and danced, raved and listened, laughed and cried, and just as Christyada Gordon says, “The band room is a place where everyone is a sponsor in some strange way or another. Everyone has an effect on another person” (31). In this case, for choir it is true as well. The choir room is an environment where one can feel comfortable in performing, speaking, and showing off their talent. Since freshman year, I have always been involved in the choir, and when it came to my senior year, I had the confidence to run for the office of Secretary for the choir class, and I won. Being Secretary of choir, I was responsible for writing all the performances and events on the board, as well as planning certain activities while communicating with others, improving my communication skills. My fellow choir members have done nothing but support me and encourage me to sing; I have received the “mom” title from them, because it has been said that I am always there for them. My instructor encourages me and supports me with music as well helping me learn the basics of reading music. Having able to read music and understand the dynamics of it, has shaped my love for music and my confidence to perform without being afraid to mess up.

Furthermore, my first time singing or performing in front of a large audience was at my summer camp, Antiochian Village, during their talent show night called “AV’S Got Talent”. It was my last year as a camper, and as I got back to my cabin from the two day hike, I forgot that I had signed up to sing. I was so nervous and wanted to back out. But that night, I sang, messed up a few words, but it was thrilling for me and for others. I received a great sum of positive feedback on my voice, regardless of the mistakes I had made. The same thing happened for my final concert for my chorus in highschool. I was never the type to put my voice out there and sing solo, but I did it. At my highschool Christmas performance, I sang “Silent Night” with my best friend, alternating between verses, her singing in english while I sing in arabic. For the spring and final concert, I sang “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele and at the end received many positive comments. All the positive energy that is given by the ones I share my talent with, is what motivates me to get up there in front of a crowd of people and just do it. Nevertheless, it is the little things that impact me the most and help me build my confidence, using this tactic on communicating with others as well. 

In any case, performing in front of a large audience or performing in general, for me, requires much needed confidence. Other than the choir room and my close friends, my family has always encouraged me to be involved in music. If there is an opportunity to sing solo, they always encourage me to take that opportunity and to do my best. If there is an opportunity to perform, they also always encourage me to do so as well. My parents know me back and forth and they how much music means to me. They also, not only support me, but always want me to sing, perform, and feel confident when doing it. Fortunately, music and singing have a variety of different ways for someone to connect with people. Personally, performing has helped me tremendously to improve my speech as well as my confidence. When I perform, I connect with the music, the words, the lyrics, and the instruments playing in the recording. I am involved in the moment and it helps me focus on the music rather than to become nervous about performing in front of people. I apply this to my conversations with people, whether it be in front of a group of people or just a conversation with one person. For instance, when I am in dialogue with someone or giving a presentation, I take in the words that I am going to say and I try to get to the point as easily as possible without ruining my thought connections. Even if I disconnect my thoughts when conversing, I have always learned from performing that when a mistake is made, just keep going. 

On the other hand, someone may ask, what does music have to do with confidence in speech? For me, music and my confidence are directly proportional. Music connects me with both my native Arabic language and this newfound English language, in a way where it is a form of communication between someone who knows the language versus someone who does not. I remember a time conversing with my mother and a cashier and we were talking in English, and my mother did not understand a statement so I would rephrase it in arabic to her. The same thing applies to music. When my parents do not understand the lyrics in a song, I tell it to them in arabic, and the next thing you know they are singing the song in English with their accent trying not to mess up the words.

Consequently, there are still people who do not directly correspond music to literacy, but from my experience, they do link to each other. Lyrics are a prime example, they are not only a form of creativity, but also a way of improving literacy. In comparison, lyrics in any genre have one basic thing in common and that is universal literacy. In any case, just like poems, lyrics have meter and rhyme, and they tell a story or send a message. My english classes have taught me about poems, and I have fallen in love with the style of them, and this is what has brought me into loving poetry. It has eventually lead me to the love of writing my own lyrics. I would sit down and write lyrics, and I would look up words that rhyme or fit, this helped me learn words I never even knew were in the dictionary. In the end, music and literacy are closely related by the thread of their definitions and they have greatly impacted me. Music has helped me throughout most of my life and it has greatly contributed to my English literacy. 

Work Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.”  Writing about Writing: A College Reader, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martins, 2017,pp. 68-100

Gordon, Christyada. “The Cult Known as Concert Band.” From Shakespeare to B Flat: Reflections on Reading & Writing, edited by Emily Wierszewski, Apple Books ed., Seton Hill University, 2019, pp. 30-33.