My Music Philosophies

Philosophy #1 (January 2024)

Coming from a musical family, where my father is a percussionist and my sister a pianist, I have always had the influence of music in my life.  As I have grown my musical talents through school ensembles, I have learned that through different styles and techniques you can widely change how a piece of music affects your audience. That is where my music philosophy exists. Making and playing music that influences how other people feel. Growing up I would watch my father play drums to different recordings of songs he liked. And even if I had heard the song already through the radio or a CD, when he played he would make his own drum patterns that in some instances completely changed my experiences of the music. In my own playing now in college, I have worked on how different tonguing and breathing techniques can vary how the audience hears what I'm playing. 

Philosophy #2 (February 2024)

My music philosophy has changed slightly. While I still want to create and play music that influences how other people feel, I also want to use music as a tool that helps people with their thoughts. Music, as I have recently learned can be interpreted in multiple different way depending on a person's background, sense of self as well as their cultural origins. Through using music in this way I hope to create a bridge between our immediate reactions to musical sound and our deeper psychological reactions.

Philosophy #3 (April 2024)

My music philosophy has overall been about how the music I create affects those who hear it. Knowing how different genres and styles of music invoke different emotions and thoughts, I want to harness that into helping others. Growing up in a musical household, music has always been an outlet for creative expression and emotional release and I want to further study why. Why do people use music as an outlet? How are they able to get their thoughts and feeling across to other people through music? Does music that is purely instrumental have a different affect than music that involves vocals? I want to expand how we view music and its uses in the world. In learning from  our philosophy presentations and other music classes, I have learned that different types of music and the parts that make it up can all be interpreted by people differently. Whether it's traditional orchestral music or music made using technology, they can all be absorbed in the human mind differently, and because of this, I believe music has the ability to alter our thoughts and emotions.