I started playing violin at the age of 11. About. I remember playing “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star”, and other ridiculous songs such as “Hot Cross Buns”. 

Thinking back on it now, I realize just how tedious and how much of a tremendous fool I was. Then again, now I have far more experience than I did when I first started, and my repertoire has grown substantially. Now I play things such as, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, The Planets, and have picked up various instruments and become proficient in them as well.

I meet new people all the time who say they “use to play an instrument”, and then follow up with, “I wish I still played an instrument”.

Indeed many people have either tried to, or have once succeeded in playing an instrument. But not everyone stays with it. Why is this? You may ask. The answer is simple. 

Most people do not recognize music as something important, or something as a career choice.  They never think music is something they will want to major in when they go to college. So what then do people do? What most people do, they quit.

They get involved in other tiresome, or uninteresting affairs such as sports. Use excuses like, “I don’t have enough time in my schedule”, or “I don’t have time to practice because I’m taking too many AP classes”.
These excuses get them nowhere.  I knew a star baseball player who was taking four AP classes and was enrolled in both jazz band, and Wind Ensemble. If he had the time, how come countless others didn’t?
In this day and age, school has become a place where standardized testing, and grades, means more than the arts. Why should grades be more important than music? Just because some people cannot see the applicable value, does not mean it doesn’t have any.

I digress. About this close minded point of view into my world, my world of music. Music should be recognized, in music we develop all the skills we learn in regular classes. English; we interpret the music just as we would a novelist, or a poem. Language; music is a foreign language, being able to read a bunch of lines and dots on a page is being able to read a foreign language. Math; in music we must constantly be counting, subdividing beats and polyrhythms and understanding different note values and how they add up in quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty second, sixty fourth, and other types of rhythms like triplets, etc… Science; we must understand the way sound works, be able to listen to minute pitch variations and adjust our instruments accordingly with tension, or other adjustments like embouchure (know how to manipulate our mouths and lips and throats). Indeed I can go on and on. 

My band director has told us multiple times, “Even if music is not what you want to do when you graduate, it can still be a fun and immersive experience.”

For reasons like, sports, and other classes, and frankly, people just being lazy and not wanting to work, music has been under appreciated and understated for a long time, especially in schools such as Mountain Vista.
Sure, our program may be recognized for winning a superior rating at the string feeder festival, but who really notices? Only the music students and the music teachers.

There is never a recognition over school announcements, never any school pep assemblies to celebrate such huge accomplishments for individuals. If I were to tell somebody that I got a superior rating at Solo and Ensemble festival, how many people would actually understand what that meant? Other music students and teachers.

If I were to approach the school board/administration, and ask them why they don’t support the music program at my school, they would tell me, “of course we support your music program!” but once again, a reality check shows us how much “support” is actually given.

Music is my life, has been my life, and will continue to be my life. I absolutely have a bias view of where I stand as a music student, but I also know when I am given the short end of the stick. The stick being recognition and support.

Kids will drop out of orchestra and join a sport, so they can letter, and be a part of a team, and win championships and get trophies. Well guess what, you can letter in music. You are already a part of a greater team in music, we all listen to each other, all work with each other. If one person misses a rehearsal, it hurts EVERYONE because we depend on each and every person as a team, to sound like an orchestra, or a band. We win Marching Band showcases, our championships. We get trophies, and awards, The John Philip Sousa award, the Most Outstanding Musician award.

Music is not just something that can be looked over, or cast aside because whether we like to admit it or not, it is a part of every person’s life. Where would you be if you couldn’t listen to music off of your iPhone, or iPod, or tablet? Our whole society and culture was built off of music. It has shaped us and made us who we are, and it needs to be recognized for what it is, and have more support than it actually does.