An Unexpected Lesson by Yazmeen

An Unexpected Lesson by Yazmeen - November 2020 Scholarship Essay

When I enrolled as a music major, I anticipated a profound degree, investigating the power and the structure of aural communication. However, I was met with grueling schedules, European glorification, and an unhealthy expectation of perfection. I tried my best to be open to the methods my teachers reinforced- prioritizing technique, disregarding genuine emotion, and seeking total accuracy. I found these imbedded principles in nearly every class, no matter how small: private lessons, ensembles, theory, and history. My teachers were much more interested in making my music sound like Bach or Mozart instead developing as an individual. Eventually, I found myself embodying these dead men that look nothing like me and prospered in a world where I never could. Soon enough, I lost my own understanding of music. I'd forgotten that ecstatic feeling before the curtain opens. I forgot that strange, terrifying feeling of treading somewhere emotionally foreign in the middle of a performance. I forgot how to get nervous before presenting my work or going onstage, because I'd forgotten how to care.

In my sophomore year, I was essentially on power saving mode. Between a 18 credit hours, 20 hours of work-study, and a freelance tutoring business on the side, there was hardly any room for practice, hobbies, or even self-care. For three weeks, I went entirely numb. I stopped doing homework and wrapped myself in blankets each night, just to be as comfortable as possible. Sleep was the only thing I enjoyed anymore, and I woke up miserable that I'd have to face another day pretending to feel for my friends and teachers. Even after a vigil for a Black student who was killed ten minutes from our campus, I couldn't cry. I questioned my place in this field. I thought I was a horrible musician and, honestly, just a horrible person.

Then I realized that I could take a semester off, since I was forced to take so many classes in my first two years. With a pandemic and the exhausting fear of the racial tragedies around the nation, I was thrilled to take a break from school. For two months, I avoided music altogether. I barely listened; I barely did anything. Most importantly, I couldn't write or sing anything without hearing the echoes of my professors in every note. So, I started doing things just to be happy: watching movies, playing games, and reading, and the music still managed to come back in mysterious, secretive ways: in dreams, in the car, on the toilet. Somehow, beneath the pain of four grueling semesters, my passion for music was still there, and I had to honor it.

For several months in quarantine, I was not sure if I would return to school. Honestly, it made no sense to continue a degree that was severing me from the thing I love most, but dropping out of college meant struggling to find a day job for the next decade. However, it also meant that I'd be running from classical music for the rest of my life- a genre that has already exoticized and excluded people like me for hundreds of years. Over the past eight months, I cringed every time I heard an aria or a symphony, reminded of the numb, lifeless music I ate, breathed, and slept for the past two years. Classical music is a wound for me, and instead of dropping out, I've decided I have to heal it. When I return this spring, I will have to face a department that neglects wellbeing; I will have to make music in a place where I am not heard. I will have to push past a culture that does not seek to inspire, and I will have to forge into a career where I may have to do it all over again. It will not be an easy lesson to learn, but it will definitely be the most important. I believe that when I graduate, that will be what I am the most grateful for.