Undergraduate / Common App Short Answer- Guitar and Exposure to Jazz in Music Club [2]

I am wondering if I could get some feedback on this short response I wrote for the Common App:

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below (1000 character maximum).

By the time I entered Enloe High School for my junior year, guitar was already a significant part of my life. I had played for seven years already, composed and recorded over a dozen tunes, and had given solo performances in front of my entire school. I had experimented as a self-taught musician in folk, slide, blues, rock, and metal. Until I joined Enloe Music Club in the fall, though, I had no idea of the impression jazz would make on me. Last October, my school's in-house jazz combo played during a meeting for the first time of the year. That same night, as soon as I got home, I emailed the band director and asked him how I could learn to play this music. He lent me a book the next day, and I began lessons for the first time within the month. Soon, I was waking up at 3:52 A.M. to allow me enough time to practice. In May, as always, I performed at Music Club, but I did not play alone anymore. I played with the combo, and my journey with jazz guitar continues still today.

Thank you in advance.
-BluesPresidente

Undergraduate / 'self-fulfilling prophesy' -Common App- Significant Experience with Youth Orchestra [2]

Hello EssayForum,

This essay is not yet finished. I will be adding more details and continuing the sequence of events. I just wanted to get some thoughts about its direction so far. Thank you!

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

I have never been more nervous in my life than at 5:45 P.M. on April 16, 2012. Stepping inside the auditorium of Peace College, I could not believe that my instincts had not yet forced me to run far, far away from the source of my worry. The rehearsal was about to begin, and I uncased my viola and bow, rosining up with sweaty hands. As I took my place in the first row of seats on stage, Grant Llewellyn, conductor of the North Carolina Symphony, stood with his baton in hand.

For the last two weeks prior to this intimidating moment, I had spent my spring break practicing my viola an average of 6 hours a day. My orchestra teacher had nominated me to be a violist in the North Carolina Symphony's Youth Sinfonietta, a chamber group for high-school aged musicians. Each day during my break, armed with a pencil and metronome, I prepared myself to play the most challenging repertoire I have yet encountered.

Along with great music by Mozart and Debussy, the program included Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1, a piece notorious for its finale's rapid-fire arpeggios and break-neck tempo. The North Carolina Symphony once planned to perform this work in a live radio broadcast, but its difficulties forced the last-minute decision to play "Hello, Dolly!" instead.

On the day of that first rehearsal, I felt out of place and out of my league. It seemed inevitable that Mr. Llewellyn would stop a few measures into a piece and say, "You there- viola player. Get off the stage!" After all, I was not even the best violist in my school, let alone in the state.

Still, it was my choice to decide whether or not I would fall victim to the self-fulfilling prophesy of mediocrity. The Sinfonietta offered me a fresh start, a new chance to prove myself, and nothing could have deterred me from seizing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.