Summer

So I feel like I owe you guys quite a bit of Blog now that I've been slacking lately. It's just Summer destroys my sleep schedule, as you can tell by the ungodly hour that I'm blogging. I try to keep active and do stuff during the Summer, but it tends to just involve going to a friend's house (or staying in mine) and playing/watching games or watching movies. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love hanging out with my friends, but I kinda feel like doing more, I kinda just want to drive somewhere and be there for the day. Summer is usually a welcome break from the frustration of the semester and all the headache it brings, but as some of you were aware, I wasn't in school this last Spring. I got a stomach bug that completely knocked me on my ass for the week and I was advised by the majority of my teachers to drop. So I've been in a state of doing nothing for the last 8 months, and I'm not okay with this anymore, August 23rd, I welcome you to arrive. This semester I'm taking all general education classes, because I need to start working on getting a degree. So I have German 101, English 102, Nutrition 100 and Communication Studies 101 to look forward to.

Speaking of school I had mentioned last night that I wanted to blog about my opinion on the importance of music education. I'll try to keep this to biased opinion and facts that I can remember from my Senior Paper I wrote on this (or very similar) subject, but first some background on me and music. Going through my elementary we didn't have any music education, I had to seek it out on my own through private lessons. In fact, because I was so woefully under informed on the subject when picking out an instrument that I would like to play I said I want to play the Piccolo (caps because I knew its name because of the DBZ character) while I went on to describe a clarinet. So in the fifth grade my mother and I went to the local music store Mario's Music to look through their selection of clarinets. We looked at a handful of new and a few used clarinets until we decided to pick out a nice, well-loved, used clarinet because it was significantly cheaper. I went on to have private lessons from then through the rest of my elementary school years, which was up to sixth grade (last sixth grade class of Sunnydale Elementary WOOT!), and my middle school years in which I also had a band class at school. I continued taking band in high school in both concert and marching varieties. In my Junior year I went to a different music store, Simonetti's (I may be massacring his name) where I had been getting my instrument tuned up since I bought it and we proceeded to purchase a professional-grade, wooden clarinet. This Buffet R-13 was the most lovely thing I have ever created music through. Senior year I picked up the Bari Sax to be a section leader in marching band. In college I continued to take a few band classes when my schedule would permit and I also took the three (four if you count Fundamentals of Music, but it barely counts) semesters of Music Theory. So while I may not be the most well versed person in music education I do have a strong foundation myself.

Music education is such an important part of school. Yeah, kids who take music classes may be shown to perform better in school and have better attendance/attitudes, but that's just the facts you throw onto a pamphlet to get a parent to sign their kids up. Music education (especially a performance class) can be something that anyone can look forward to. Music when listened to helps soothe emotions (or invoke others depending on the mood of the music [NOTE: Just listening to a type of music will not turn your child into a murderer, there are other factors in their life that would contribute to this]) it is more-so true when one plays the music themselves. Even just knowing more about music can help you appreciate the music you listen to all the more.

Since I'm running short on concepts of how to convey what I'm trying to say without it turning into my Senior Paper I'll just put stuff here.
- Music made me me and I love the me that is me
- "One time at band camp" hahaha American Pie, you're so funny.... no, band camp is a really nice experience and can result in awesome stories, but don't expect tales of instruments and body parts
- One last one, without music education you will find more music with less actual music and more just abusing auto-tune. Music education affects all music in every form of media. So please Mr. Government Man, don't cut music education.