Undergraduate / "It's not the end of my musical journey" - Common App/UC [3]

UC prompt #2: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

Common app prompt #1: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk yo have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

I realize my essay is quite long (about 950 words) so any suggestions on what to cut out would be helpful. Any other criticism is appreciated as well! Thank you.

Bam! The audience is jolted out of their seats by the abrupt beginning of the famous third movement of the Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. The characteristic dissonance of Stravinsky's style raised eyebrows and dropped jaws as we played on. The rumbling timpani echoed off the walls of the cathedral as the trumpets blasted away with the melody. My orchestra and I were fortunate enough to perform on tour throughout Spain and France last summer, with venues in Nice, Barcelona, Paris, and much more. Playing violin for all these years, I was thrilled to have a chance to share my passion with people around the world.

My musical journey started around kindergarten, when I first picked up the piano. Back then, practicing was such a chore. I didn't enjoy playing because the "music" sounded terrible. Years go by as I continue playing haphazardly on the piano and later discover the violin in fourth grade. Wow, what a different experience my second instrument was! Admittedly playing the violin was even more difficult than playing the piano and sounded even worse than playing the piano did, but the expressiveness of the instrument appealed to me more and led me to favor it. I remember my teacher always telling me how I held the bow incorrectly and urged me to change it all the time. She would recognize whether I played too sharp or too flat, or flat out wrong; every time I was awed by the accuracy of her deductions. Later, to my great envy, I found out this skill is called perfect pitch, which is difficult to develop and with which many people are born with.

After improving my skills to a sufficient degree, I was curious to share my passion with others. Therefore I decided to join an orchestra in an effort to do so. But did they? I observed many were distracted during rehearsal; someone was texting furiously on their phone while hiding behind their music stand; others were dully staring off into space; another was doing homework in the back. I realized the majority of my fellow students joined the orchestra simply because their parents put them in, not because they loved playing. Repulsed by their behavior I practiced diligently, aspiring to reach the senior orchestra, where everyone was equally as passionate about music as I was.

As I worked my way up the ladder, I thought to myself, "why not start a music group of my own?" So I started playing music with a couple friends out of mutual interest. Our ensemble grew, not in terms of sheer size, but instead we matured and learned together through our shared experiences. We realized there is much more to a music ensemble than simply sitting down and playing music together. Behind the scenes, we had to act as leaders and carry out our own responsibilities.

Searching for music and then arranging songs to fit our instrumentation was definitely a big challenge. It gave me a chance to be creative with the music and make it my own. For example, take a well known song like Amazing Grace. My ensemble consisted of a pianist and two violinists (I'm one of the violinists, sometimes a second pianist). One instrument plays the melody, but the other two must accompany. That's where arranging the piece comes in. I am able to use my imagination and express myself creatively through musical techniques and harmonies.I would spend hours at the piano arranging music, replaying parts of the song over and over trying to put together harmonies and counter melodies. What sets this apart from playing in the orchestra is that we are able to interpret the music the way we feel in comparison to musicians playing rigidly according to the conductor's taste. Playing well together made me feel accomplished. In an ensemble there is no conductor to guide the flow of music; rather, each individual has to understand one another through musical expression. Regardless of how different the players are to one another, whether we came from different social classes, backgrounds, ethnicities etc., music transcends it all and allows us to freely express our emotions.

In a sense, managing the ensemble felt like running a company. Everyone had a contributing role to make the system work. I learned the quality of leadership and that strong leadership is vital to the success of a group. It was up to me to assign roles and make sure people followed through. When we searched for music and arranged the parts together, I guided the others to the resources appropriate to the task, like online sheet music databases and music notation software. During practice, I helped to point out problem spots and set the pace of our progress. I set up a website to keep track of our schedule, performances, sheet music, and send newsletters. But in the end, all the work into keeping the ensemble in order was the effort to give our audience our best performance.

Most importantly, we spent a lot of time and effort into doing everything to the best of our abilities. I learned that with commitment comes quality. We definitely ran into difficulties such as finding time to arrange and then practice music, both together and individually. There were some times when the ensemble wasn't our first priority, and the lack of commitment showed at the upcoming concerts. Embarrassingly we would make little mistakes, like fumbling with a page turn, and not coming in on cue. On the flip side, our performances were much more rewarding when we dedicated ourselves in preparation.

Despite ending my high school career and everyone walking their separate paths off to college, I know that this isn't the end of my musical journey. What I've learned so far has only deepened my passion for music.