Noteworthy

Noteworthy

Andrew Windsor Jessie Lucas Kollin Clarke Leslie PiĂąeda-Hernandez

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Table Of Contents

N teworthy Letter From The Editors

4

The Evolution of Hip Hop

6

How Should YOU Rebel?

8

What Music Should I Listen To?

10

Musical stories

12

Moving On With music

14

Records Unspun

18

Feel The Beat

22

Tales Through Tunes

26

Contributor’s Page

30

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Letter From The E it rs

Noteworthy magazine was essentially the child of a young group of music-lovers. Whether that meant a passion for playing, singing, writing, or simply listening to music, all of the members of Noteworthy magazine had that keen adoration. In the beginning of this project, none of them knew exactly what they would write about, but, over time, they all realized what they were looking for was just their collective musical passion. And thus, Noteworthy was created. The members of Noteworthy magazine thank you for reading and hope that you enjoy reading it as much as they enjoyed writing it.

- The Noteworthy Team Leslie ineda-Hernandez did not look into music very

deeply until she started writing her article. She enjoys trying new foods, running, and, of course, listening to music.

Before beginning to write, music to her was just a form of entertainment and she did not have any knowledge of it besides listening to it. Her experience while writing this was a big roller coaster due to her inexperience with any type of music-related activity. Although there were a few bumps in the road, overall, she really enjoyed learning new things and getting new experiences in the music-related ground.

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An rew Windsor has been playing classical guitar for

over 7 years. It has been an amazing and inspiring journey for him to say the least, and music has taken a hold of a portion of his life. When he plays his mind wanders to so many different situations, and the music expresses so many different emotions and feelings. He feels like the music is taking him on a journey with some unknown destination. He thinks of music as a story, and therefore, he came up with the idea to talk about how music can tell a story.

K llin Clarke loves playing, listening to, and learning

about music. He is also constantly tired and stays awake off pure adrenaline. He has played percussion for four years and recently completed his first season with the LBJ High School Marching Band. Kollin was born in Chicago, IL, and is glad to be in Austin. He enjoys making bad jokes and bothering his group members. Things he dislikes include: Social interactions, the english language, writing, the saxophone section, and cilantro. His favorite genre is smooth jazz and he believes the sexiest instrument is the marimba.

Music has always been a crucial part of essie Lucas’s life, and when she got to the new environment of LASA, it became even more important. As a whole, music never failed to interest Jessie. In middle school, Jessie got interested in psychology and everything that goes on in the human mind, and she figured that she could somehow learn about both at the same time. Due to this, Jessie made the choice to write all about not only music but also the emotional impact of music on the people of the world. She and her teammates hope you enjoy the magazine!

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1980 1990

1974 DJ Kool Herc throws his first block party.

Kurtis Blow is the first rapper on national TV

This was the beggining of Hip-Hop music and its start of popularity

He sells more than one million copies

Tupac joins Digital Underground and starts off as a dancer and roadie Luther Camper and a Florida Record owner were arrested

The Evolution A walk through By: Leslie Pineda

1975

DJ Kool Herc is hired at Hevalo Club

DJ Grand Wizard invents “the scratch”

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1985

Sugarhill Records goes Bankrupt which causes them to close down.

Salt n Peppa first appear on “The Show Stopper”

2000 Eminem wins wo Grammys for his album “Marshall Mathers LP” um

2010

Rapper Big Pun dies of a heart attack at the age of 29

“Trill OG”, Bun B’s third solo album becomes the first lbum in five years to recieve a 5-mile award

of Hip-Hop hip-hop history

Today 1995 2005

Queen Latifah wins a Grammy for “Best Solo Rap Performance”

Tupac joins Death Row Records

Jay-Z and Nas end their long feud

Jay-Z Dae Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke seperate and sell their 50 percent stake

Most rappers today have become sucessful, with the help of the app Soundcloud.

From there, they grow a platform.

Sources: o History.com Editors, Hip Hop is born at a birthday party in the Bronx o Hip-Hop 101, Hip Hop History Timeline o Tiki-Toki, The Evolution of Hip Hop o https://www.britannica.com/

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Is it the 20s?

Yes

No

Are you angry?

Ye s

Yes

No

Do you feel ready to be empowered?

Ye s

Do you wish it was?

Do you want a blast from the past?

Do you want to relax?

Yes

No

Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album

Jazz

No

Yes

No Elvis Presley

No Dixie Chicks

How Should YOU Rebel?

By Kollin Kollin Clarke Clarke By

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Elvis Presley filmed only from the waist up when his dance was deemed “too sexual”

1927

1957

1966 Beatles are publicly rejected after John Lennon claims The Beatles are “Bigger that Jesus”

Radio Acts of 1927 prohibits indecent language on air

Ozzy Ozbourne’s song “Suicide Solution” blamed for 19-year-old’s death

1994

1985

1 out of every 3 music videos is censored by MTV due to offensive content

1973 FCC accused of violating the First Amendment after banning talk of drugs on air

Dixie Chicks shunned after speaking negatively about President Bush

2001 Many songs not played after 9/11 attacks because of “questionable Lyrics”

2003

2016 Minor uprising after Beyonce’s surprise album “Lemonade”, mostly from Police Officers

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“What music should I listen to?”

Are you feeling happy?

Are you feeling sad?

Are you feel

Ecstatic?

Contented?

Grieving?

Disappointed?

Mad?

Upbeat, joyous music with positive lyrics or melodies can almost always put a smile on someone’s face, or at least sustain one.

Quiet, thoughtful pieces with little flurries of joy in the melodies and lyrics will help sustain the content you’re feeling.

To resolve this grief, or at least distract from it for a little bit, listen to something that has some sort of nostalgic value to you so it takes your brain back to a happy memory.

Countering this disappointment, would be music that makes you feel the opposite: satisfaction.

Chill, thoughtful pieces of music that make you think will help with this disappoinment.

Anger is a very strong emotion.

To help this feeling dissipate, listen to songs without lyrics that are calm and neutralizing. All anger is heightened, and diluting these vivid states of emotion will help with your state

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of mind.

Decide what kind of music to jam out to right now based on how you feel.

By Jessie Lucas

ing angry?

Disgusted?

Studies have shown if patients listen to “happy” or “peaceful” music, it enables them to flash back to pleasent autobiographic moments and thoughts in their life. You most likely want to momentarily distract from this feeling of disgust, and in that case, listen to light, happy — according to you — music.

Are you feeling startled?

Surprised?

Afraid?

Surprise can go one of two ways: really well or quite disasterously. A disaster of a surprise can always spook someone, consequently, you should listen to slow, lowkey music to calm your nerves. On the other hand, if it was a good surprise, exciting tunes can help with the mood.

If you’re feeling frightened, it could be better to not listen to music as to try to prevent bad reactions/ triggers, but if you listen to anything, as with when you’re the victim of a bad surprise, listen to lowkey, slowpaced music.

Are you feeling neutral?

Focused?

It depends on what you like and what doesn’t distract you, but make sure you listen to music that isn’t so selfcontrasting that it takes you away from whatever you’re doing, but not so uniform and chill that it lulls you to sleep.

Calm?

Meditation usually has some sort of rhythmic, musical intonation to it, and it can also help with sustaining the peace of the mind. If that isn’t for you, listen to music that isn’t emotionally derived.

Sources: - syncproject.co - psychologytoday.com - connollymusic.com - thetelegraph.co.uk

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n u p

s d r o c e R

s n U

The Banning and Censorship of Music

By Kollin Clarke

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T

May 29, 1913, Paris France; the show begins with a theater full of parisians anticipating the equivalent of a Beyonce concert today. The show was primed to be great — composed by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky of the Ballet Russes. The seats of the newly opened Théàtre des Champs Élysées were packed with Paris’ elite and expectations were high. The curtains drew back and the music began with a comically high bassoon solo. In the beginning, hundreds of people walked in, by the end, 40 had been forcibly ejected. This highly anticipated debut of ‘The Rite of Spring’ had ended in an all-out brawl, and made history as one of the most violent musical debuts ever.

This instance is just one example of the negative response music can get, which is just one reason that art forms like music have been censored — sometimes to extreme degrees. ‘The Rite of Spring’ is one of the earlier examples of music causing an uproar, but it still very much persists today. From jazz to pop to Elvis, music has been scrutinized and censored for many decades, often with the old and young generations contending what they believe is ‘acceptable’ to be published. Many examples of this can be seen just by looking around you. Many children growing up in the 2000s will recall the colorful Kidz Bop CDs sold in stores and handed out in children’s meals. These song covers are iconic for their comically obvious censorship, changing lines in trending pop songs to be ‘suitable’ for the American youth.

While the Kidz Bop legacy is most often viewed with a humorous light, many other examples were not accepted by the public so well. Controversial music censorship began with

the rise of radio in the early 20th century. The controversy started with the Radio Act of 1927, and the creation of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in 1934, both of which were established to monitor and prohibit offensive content from being played on air.

There have been a few famous examples of censorship in the music industry throughout the decades, ranging from Elvis to The Beatles and everything in between. While the existence of censorship has stayed prominent, the public’s stance has been ever-changing. The general public consensus has changed drastically as generations come and go. For the early 20th century, most people believed that swears and references to drugs, alcohol or sex were not appropriate to be played on air. However as more recent generations grew up in a world full of this musical suppression, they became more defiant of the radio rules. So came the 80s, and with it the Rock ‘n Roll Revolution. This tidal wave

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of teenage musical angst is what really kickstarted the modern war on censorship.

While more and more is being accepted for public airways, and the internet continuously makes it easier to access unfiltered content, a strange phenomena has become apparent: As the generations get older, the softer their view on censorship is.

Chase Brown, a millennial music enthusiast, said, “It’s offensive, that music is censored. I think music is an artistic expression.” Brown shows a prime example of the common youth’s stance on the situation. The main argument is the right of free speech, and that the filtering of music on public airways is a violation of our First Amendment rights. Although the situation has changed, the censorship is still prominent today. “I don’t know if better is the right word, but it’s different than what it used to be,” Brown said.

On the flip side, the older generations have started to see the shift of opinion.

As Gen X has grown and raised families, many have begun to understand the other side of the argument — that censorship is necessary. Jim Firestone, an advertising specialist, follows a more lenient mindset than many millenials today. Firestone pointed out the logic of his opinion saying, “You have to ask yourself the extreme questions like what if it were nazi music?” He also spoke of his biggest concern — what his children are exposed to. “In having children, I don’t know that I want my 8 or 12 year old being exposed to something they’re not ready for.”

This is a major concern of those for censorship, and one of the major push factors for creating the FCC. To some, censorship is partially necessary to keep the structure of our society. These conflicting viewpoints have resulted in a decades long war without hope for end. But it may be more plausible than it

seems, as a new factor has entered into the picture — technology.

The presence of technology and instant connection has shifted the focus of censorship, and the means. While official censorship has lessened by a considerable degree, another form has become prominent — public criticism.

Because music has become much easier to produce and publish without having to be put through the filters of public airways, it has become a readily accessible catalase for expressing experiences and opinions. While this has resulted in many well-loved albums and songs, it has also created an opening for destructive criticism and public revolts.

Take for example, in 2016, Beyonce’s Lemonade album. When the surprise album was dropped, many of the idol’s fans were overjoyed and accepted it as an all time favorite. But there were some not-so-positive responses as well. Many members of the police force took offense

to the subject and nature of the album, refusing to listen to any of the artist’s music and publicizing their feelings toward her.

This response is only one example of how music is being oppressed today.

While censorship has changed, it is by no means gone. And that may be a good thing. The implications of censorship, though they may seem blatantly evil, are with good reason. No matter how protected free speech is, there will always be oppression in some form, sometimes coming from those who are most strongly against it. What needs to be found is a balance, where extreme negatives are excluded, but thoughts and ideas are protected. Or maybe we just need to see both sides of the story.

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Moving on with Music by: Leslie Pineda

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Courtesy of Dean Curran

eing an artist has no age limit; it is simply about being passionate and putting the effort into the work you do. Artists come in all ages, but what effect does the age difference have in the variation of music over time? What is the trend between age and the type of music someone makes?

B

This may seem like two things that do not correlate but when looking deeper into it, it is apparent that there may truly be a relationship between an artists age and the type of music produced.

A big part of the evolution of music comes with age variation and new generations entering the music industry with newer, and more modern music.

As time has passed, music has evolved.

Even 10 years into the past, a difference can be easily recognized.

As music has grown, new methods for making a sound have improved such as the autotune and deejaying. Such methods for music could have not been imagined 100 years ago. With the evolution of new technologies over time, these new music techniques were established. Before that, much of the music was very original and all of the music was made completely by instruments.

As time passed, new ways to improve the quality and efficiency of how the music sounded were discovered. These innovations in music have also changed during the passing of time because of how different artists used them. Even by accident new techniques were created.

Accidents can also be the cause of evolution in music and add to the whole concept of the making of music.

Not only are techniques being invented but the generes and diversity in music are growing too. “There is more

diversity that is popular now, you don’t just get it from one culture it’s multiple now.” KIPP music student, Alejandro “Alex” Barrios said. Although he is a young artist to-be, music has always been in his blood. The cultural diversity nowadays is very impressive all across nations. A big factor that has helped this be done is the growth of the innovation of technology.

Before we could send links to playlists or search up music in our cell phones,

“There is more diverse music that is popular now, you don’t just get it from one culture it’s multiple now.”

-Alejandro Barrios

In addition some new music is recycled over time. This happens when artists get what is called a “sample” and they just play around with the beat to make new ones. This is why some songs may sound similar to others. Samples are very useful and have not only been used in modern times but it has been used for some time now.

the spread of music from different cultures was a little bit slower. In order to spread the different types of music, there had to be a lot of traveling involved. What this refers to is that much of the music that was shared between cultures was due to colonization. In 1877, the phonograph was invented.

This apparatus could record and play music. This was a big step in the music industry because it helped artists finally save their work and it made things much more efficientwhen sharing music.

Between the late 1800s and early 1900s, phonographs were being evolved and could now have vinyl disks played on them. Finally in 1912 one of the first air radios was established. This was one of the most modern forms of music communication.

However, despite all the differences between today’s method of sharing

music and older times, there are many similarities. One of the similarities is how music itself was changed in order to make new music. For example, many people have established new techniques in music by getting original pieces and accidentally or purposefully changing it and creating a new masterpiece. An example is Eddie van Halen. “How he created the guitar tapping, I like you just pick up a guitar and become crazy” Barrios said. Freestyling and improvisation are two techniques in music that have, in a way, changed music and have helped create even more new ways of styles.

Sampling goes back to even the 1950s but was more common in hip-hop during the 1970s. Deejays were the main ones who used samples and started experimenting with them. Playing with the tempo oppined up many other possibilities and led the way to other innovations.

Although sampling is a very efficient way to create new music, sometimes it does not go as planned and artists will sue each other due to copyright issues.

Moving forward, many of the music now is more digital-based rather than live.

Having said this, music in the past could not be as easily edited as nowadays and if we take it back to the classical music era, precision was taken very seriously and music was never really edited Today, however, there are terms such as “cutting” that with help of a computer can be easily managed. This method makes it easy for

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composers to alter music and improve or edit it. It makes it so that all those alterations made can quickly be made and it makes the process of creating a song or beat become less troubling.

Shifting around notes, changing the dynamics (volume), and tempos just got a whole lot easier with the new technology being implemented in the making of this music. The importance of all this is to compare and contrast how efficient these methods have helped the overall process that comes within producing music.

Music has always been and will always be a big part of the human culture. The methods of creating new music and improving it have proved that there is always something to improve or even discover when working with subjects like this. That is why as time passes by and as we evolve and change, everything that defines us as a community will too.

Therefore, we will move on with music.

Courtsey of Dean Curran

Photograph by Fernando Balderas

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Courtesy of Alejandro Barrios

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Courtesy of pixabay.com

Feel The Beat The Way Music Effects One’s Emotions

By Jessie Lucas

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Courtesy of pexels.com

M

usic — it’s a universal language that, when spoken, most everyone can understand clearly. It can make people laugh, sob, take action, rethink decisions … needless to say, music is an irreplaceable tool, and it’s deemed so by many around the world. But is music’s only purpose to be white noise for everyone’s lives? Maybe not. Music, as described in the words of the German poet Heinrich Heine, is omnipresent: “Where words leave off, music begins.” What can be drawn from this is that music can be considered background for people’s lives. However, music also can be a medium of much more importance. It could be used for reasons such as telling a story, historical recollections and even emotional expression, for both the listener and the creator. Music is an incredible outlet for emotions due to its melodic, ever-changing nature and the fact that the music doesn’t even require lyrics to instill emotion into the listener. It depends on a person’s own immediate personal factors, but there is almost always a song for everyone and how they feel in specific moments.

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Juliana Sheffield performing with her coworkers at a local venue in Austin (courtesy of Juliana Sheffield).

The actions people take every day interacting with their co-workers often illicit reactions, causing emotions and feelings to be prominent in the typical person’s life. It’s safe to say that emotions govern a big part of the lives of the human race, and people spend years trying to regulate, understand, express, mask and sometimes repress these emotions. Music, even from hundreds of years ago, almost always contains a concentrated amount of emotion that can be picked up on by listening and following along with the lyrics, melodies or harmonies that the composer wove together.

Although there are countless people that do love and cherish music, there are also several people that recognize music but not as one of their interests.

However, just because there are individuals that wouldn’t listen to music on a regular basis, this does not mean

that music doesn’t still bring emotions out of said people. An example of this could be that music, along with a few other triggers like olfactory input, can take a person right back to a specific, vivid memory, place or person — all it takes sometimes is a couple thoughtful, nostalgic words and some plucks on an acoustic guitar. To prove these points, Deidre Craft of KOOP Radio’s “Pearl’s General Store,” singer-songwriter Juliana Sheffield and Suzanne Pence of UT Austin speak on the importance of music in today’s society by identifying their own emotional standpoints and touching on why or why not music could affect the human populous.

When it comes to music reaching a large audience (and gauging the emotional reactions of this audience), DJ Deidre Craft is an expert, being an employee of a relatively large and well-known community radio station.

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“If you love music, you can always, always create.”

- Juliana Sheffield Craft touches on how she got hooked into the music and radio industry via her early discovery of music. “So I kind of got hooked on it. And then they started training me to substitute for people, you know, the first community radio station I was at, and it was just, you know, the rest was history, basically,” Craft explained. “ But it was… it was by fate, I guess.”

Craft, being the owner of her own radio show, is knowledgeable about music

in general, but also about how music affects people. “So, everybody knows, you can hear one song on the radio and it’ll just take you back to every memory that you have of when things happened or age you were, or I’ll hear a song in a store somewhere and I’ll just go right back to high school, you know, 35 years ago, because that’s what the song meant to me at that time,” Craft said. “I mean, the way it affects people is quite astounding. It really just works its way into your subconscious, and it’s there.

It’s incredible.”

While Craft may not have actually realized early on that she wanted to go into the music industry, freelance singer-songwriter Juliana Sheffield knew from a young age that she desired music in her future career. “I just loved music and sang everywhere, all the time. I wrote songs and cried as I sang them, thinking they were powerful love songs,” Sheffield said.

Later, Sheffield discusses her thought process on moving to become a musician. “I became a musician because I felt I had no other choice,” Sheffield explained. “There was nothing that moved me in the same way, and I was encouraged to follow my passions.”

Sheffield has had years of creative songwriting under her belt, and from

Deidre Craft’s homemade signs advertising a fundraising event for Pearl’s General Store (courtesy of Diedre Craft).

this knowledge, she informed how music is supposed to work emotionally.

“Like any art form, it should transport, incite, confuse, delight, enrage, embolden, pacify and inspire,” Sheffield explained. “It can completely change how you are feeling in an instant.”

Over her years of songwriting, Sheffield has come to discover that music has an almost transportational effect on the listener. “Music is a direct emotional portal,” Sheffield added. “It is visceral and undeniable, and its effects are immediate and often unexpected.”

Although the jobs of Sheffield and Craft are both in the part of the music industry made to create music, Ph. D. Suzanne Pence, instead of writing or broadcasting music herself, educates in the field of creating or learning music.

Dr. Suzanne Pence directing her students at UT Austin (courtesy of Dr. Suzanne Pence).

Pence is employed as a professor of music at UT Austin.

Dr. Pence has been teaching for most of her working life (and knew that she wanted to do so from her youth, like Sheffield), and therefore is a source of wisdom for anyone who wants to learn about music. “There is quite a bit of research about the connection of music and the brain which is where we all feel emotion,” Pence said. “Music will evoke response in the brain based first on memories, and then also on how the brain reacts to certain intervals and melodies.”

Living and teaching music in Austin, Texas — dubbed “The Live Music Capital of the World” — has molded how Pence treats music, including how she listens to music in a general fashion. “If I am listening for pleasure I will have an emotional response,” Pence explained. “If I am listening for my work, I try to take the emotion out of it and think about it as a teacher even though I know others will have an emotional reaction to the music I choose to perform.”

In spite of the specific profession of any music broadcastor, chances are they recognize an emotional weight when deciding on music to share.

Disregarding the specific employment of any music creator, they will most likely know that music has a vital emotional aspect when writing and recording. Even despite the certain occupation of any music educator, they will most likely acknowledge what kind of emotional filter that they have to put music through to teach it. Regardless of anyone, they will almost always feel the beat.

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What often draws someone to music, whether as a performer, a composer, a producer, a teacher or just a listener, is the broadness, the choices and the infinite opportunities that music presents to each individual.

Some interpret this as music’s story.

The ever changing melodies, like feathers lightly falling back to the earth, or maybe as heavy footsteps crashing through the once-silent forest bring music to life. The melodies set the scene of each individual piece leading and alluding to the climax.

The imposing presence is defined by

so many individual notes blending together and forming a synchronized, powerful army, yet, the lightness of it all, each note seemingly casts its own personality like a speckle of color on the blank, white background.

Each piece, having its own opinions and characteristics defined by the abundance of parts and voices that bring it all together, gives music its broadness, its choices, and the infinite opportunities that draws people into its grasp. This is what some may call music’s ability, the ability to express one unique story.

Often music brings to mind a mix of emotions, feelings, and thoughts that beg the question: how can so much come from what some see as small, unimportant notes? How can a story be depicted from only a few pages of notes that appear as if they have no

26 - Noteworthy - Fall 2018

correlation to each other? To some people, somehow, it makes perfect sense, as if it were no different from understanding their first language.

Either way the fact remains. Music ushers thoughts, feelings, and sometimes memories or events, from the depths of one’s mind, and the distinct thoughts, feelings, memories or events that arise is how each individual interprets music’s story.

The feeling someone experiences is sometimes a result desired by the composer. Rossini’s William Tell Overture in the finale of “March of the Swiss Soldiers,” the orchestra plays at a very quick pace with sort of a thunderous sound about them, causing the listeners minds to wander to a violent battlefield with mounted soldiers valiantly coming to the rescue on their galloping horses.

This is not always the case, however.

Courtesy of pixabay.com

interests.

Everybody has their own specific ways that they understand music.

Every person is unique and everyone may interpret music differently.

There are also pieces that have no clear, defined storyline. These are the pieces that allow minds to wander to various places and times, past, present or future.

Often times, however, the musical compositions that mean so much to people were created without anyone else’s feelings in mind. They were composed with one person in mind, themselves.

As Matthew Hinsley, the Executive Director of Austin Classical Guitar, put his personal experience, “The songs that were the most personally meaningful to me were probably the ones I was writing as a teenager; I wrote a lot of rock and pop songs as a teenager.”

He was simply writing and composing music for himself. “They were they were just me me me, and they were about the stuff I was going through, and the stuff I wanted to express,” he said.

That was just what he did, and he was doing it for himself. That was his way of expressing things that were going on in his life, and it was unique to his life.

It was specific to his situation and it meant more to him than it ever would to anybody else.

Other people create music not only as a way to express situations in their own life, but out of a necessity they feel.

Just as Joe Williams, Artistic Director and Composer in Residence for Austin Classical Guitar, said, “I wasn’t really interested in learning other people’s music. I wanted to discover my own, so I wrote and wrote and wrote little pieces of music.” As a result of a lack of pieces that interested him, he began to write his own music. The music that was one-of-a-kind, and he wrote his own personal music to satisfy his

Music is also an outlet for tough, miserable times in people’s lives.

Nobody knows this better than Travis Marcum, Director of Education for Austin Classical Guitar. One of the things he does is he uses music to help heal, and comfort others. He works on so many projects that have powerful meanings to many people. One of those projects is called the Lullaby Project where he writes songs with mothers in very difficult situations who are expecting to have a child.

One such mother was 17 years old with a 9 month old baby who had fled her home hundreds of miles away to have her baby. As expected, she had to grow up extremely fast and learn things in a few months that others would have taken years to learn. She had always longed to be a musician but the current situation had prohibited her from pursuing those dreams.

“Together we wrote and recorded an absolutely beautiful song for her son.

She sang on the track and could watch her confidence grow each time we met.

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She was eventually able to perform the song for a large crowd. She had all of her friends and supporters there who showered her with compliments.

That night I saw her confidence grow and Aly got a little bit of herself, her purpose back. She went on to continue to write and record her own songs,” Travis said.

It completely turned her life around and helped her put it on a positive track. Even amongst the most difficult of situations, music brought her dreams back to life, and now the story of that music is not merely limited to her situation. It is filled with unwritten

text of the power that she gained, and that she utilized to rise above her circumstances.

Music unlocks a world of opportunities, and when those opportunities are taken advantage of, a story is created. Music’s story can be expressed through many outlets, and a piece’s story can be interpreted in many ways.

A story can be broad or very specific.

It may not bring anything to your mind, or it could make memories and events more vivid than ever before. A story can be expressed directly through

Courtesy of Travis Marcum

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musical techniques, or it can choose to remain just below the surface, and only those with the key can unlock it’s true details. Music is very powerful, and the way that power is utilized and manipulated for each situation is the ability of music to express one, unique story.

Photograph by Arlen Nydam Dr. Joseph Williams II, conductor, giving a pep talk to the 2016 ACG Fest Orchestra before their performance at the Austin Independent School District Performing Arts Center.

Courtesy of Matthew Hinsley Dr. Matthew Hinsley teaching a student at Lamar middle school in 2009

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Thank You Ms. Giuletti!

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The End.

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