Understanding music for UW-Madison, thank you!

UW-Madison
Prompt: If there is additional information you would like us to consider in reviewing your application, pkease share this with us as well.

I write about my understanding and experience with music

I began playing the piano at the age of 5. Believing that I have some talents on music, my parents brought me to the piano which was a head taller than me. Practicing 2 hours every day, I had got the 8-level certificate after 7 years. However, because my hands were too slim, it's almost impossible to become a pianist. Stricken by the sad truth, I stopped playing, also said goodbye to music. At that time, I thought "music" was just playing the piano.

Although not a piano student, I remained sensitive to music. In the following 3 years, I still met the key occasionally. Playing randomly the tunes I improvised, I found new meaning in "music". There were beauty and rhythm in the match and flowing of notes: ups and downs, crescendo and halt, and "music" was a harmonious combination of them.

Later, I went into a boarding high school and thus left the piano. Participating in the short movie studio, I began to know music in movies, in which I found a new world.

A blue trumpet echoing in the mist on Atlantic drew out the legend of 1900; a pure white melody flowing with a feather brings us to the fairy tale of Forest Gump. Sound, picture, and mood, those three features can coexist harmoniously. Music is not just the flow of sounds and notes; it can be happy or sad, heroic or romantic. In a word, music has emotion.

Looking from a broader prospective, life is also an enormous set of motion pictures. It is an artistic way to fill music into our everyday scenes, just like adding flavoring of mood to the recipes of life. With the presence of colorful moods, life is also becoming more poetic.

I played Viva La Vida to our soccer team when warming up for coming match. The song was a cordial for us, giving us the pictures of roaring fans, swift figures and passionate goals. When heading my SAT test centre, I chose Like a Dog Chasing Car in Batman the Dark Knights. Immediately, the sunny morning in May darkened, and it seemed that I was the only one in the street, aiming the final judgment. I heard clearly my heartbeats and heavy steps...

It might be funny looking at these scenes. But when I was entirely inside them, music gave me so strong feeling. We have joy and pain, love and beauty. These ups and downs make our life so colorful. Music contains similar elements: it is the melody of life.

Music is beautiful only when it contains changing rhythm. Life is also enjoyable only when we are not playing in a monotonous rhythm for too long. Continuous study and stress without relax will cause our strain of life over tightened, even rupture. A tune is dulcet when all different sounds appear. Similarly, our days are exciting when we can explore the world of knowledge, beauty, and love. My longing for the beauty of melodies arises when I am trapped by everyday dull routines. I am not satisfied with leading a bland life, and I am pursuing happiness, trying to make my life splendid to chase the echoes in my heart. I want to be a musician of life, if not on the piano.

What is music? Since the age of 5 I have been asking and giving myself different answers: from simply playing the piano, to the flow of sounds and notes; from the flavoring of emotions, to the melody of life. I never get the final answer, but each time I found myself closer to it in my mind. Maybe it is a rhythm and melody of the world, more than any instrument can express. So, even if we are not musicians, we can enjoy the melody of life as well.

I think ...1. too many words 2. too specific, just about music

Help me...thank you so much...

I began playing the piano at the age of five . Believing that I had some talent for music, my parents brought me to the piano, which was a head taller than me.


Your imagery here is lovely, but the tense shifts from past to present in the middle of the sentence.


This is a wonderful analogy. That makes the essay more than just about music, which is what you want.

Overall, the theme and imagery is strong; you just need to edit for grammar, paying particular attention to preposition and verb tenses.

I am glad to hear this///at least get some positive comment...thanks!

One of my friends also pointed out that there are a couple of grammer mistakes like this in this essay. So I will proofread it for several times more, maybe I paid too much attention on the meaning of a sentence and forget these details. PS, I am not a native speaker so I have to tey hard to find it...