student trumpet

I am going to be a Junior in High School, and like so many other people my age, I am thinking about College. I am considering the possibility perusing a degree in Music. However, I have lately been pondering the point of music, and why we as musicians play it. For me, I find that I play music to let out my feelings. And I guess that my goal as a musician is to make the listeners feel how the music makes me feel. So I am wondering why do you play music, and what is your goal as a musician?

Tim Will

nplotts1

I play music because I love that I can speak a language that many others never took the time to try. I like being able to take one piece of music, and play it an infinite number of ways depending on my mood (slow and melodramatic, fast and Jazzy, etc.) I also play to let out my feelings. No matter how I feel when I pick up my horn, a few minutes of playing and everything is gone, I am in a world of my own. It's somewhat of an escape from reality (until i miss a note). and lastly of all, I play music because I want too, no one is forcing me to do it, except myself.

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Georgia Southern University Music Ed. Major

Equipment
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- ZeuS Guarnarius Polished Copper Bb - Wick 3C, GP
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- NYTC Stage 1 California C Silver

BergeronWannabe

I play music because I love to, doesn't matter if it's classical or jazz. I wish I could play all day, but school is a drag. I don't think I'll be a music major but I want to keep playing as much as possible.

rowuk

My mom made me a picture shortly before she died in 1980. It says:
"For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul's own speech"
That pretty much sums up why I play and what is important when I teach!

Robin

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

WhatIsHip?

After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music.
---Aldous Huxley---

I think this sums up why most of us play music.
Greg

Vulgano Brother

Frankly, I got into music because I loved being able to control all that power the trumpet can display, then I discovered that I could express my personal feelings as well, then I discovered that it was all about expressing the conductor's feelings, who was trying to convey the composer's feelings to the audience through the orchestra.

So yeah, music is about communication, and at the highest level we translate thoughts from the composer to the audience. It is a wonderful challenge, and as trumpeters we can make violists jump out of their seats, too!

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www.letsbuildhope.org

Siegtrmpt

It's fun to do.

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Bill S.- NY Bach 6, 38 Mt. Vernon 43 Bach "C" cornet, NY Bach trombone 6vii Monette mouthpieces

student trumpet

Thanks for your thoughts guys. I went to a clinic put on by Byron Stripling, and he spoke about the importance of music. Which is similar to what we have been sharing our feelings about. He referenced the quote that says "I don't sing because I am happy; I'm happy because I sing." Which really shows the power of music.

veery715

My young cellist friend says music is what feelings sound like. My dad said music was love.
I play it because I must.

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Music = Love

Brekelefuw

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963), "Music at Night", 1931

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
George Eliot (1819 - 1880)

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
George Eliot (1819 - 1880), The Mill on the Floss, 1860

Music like religion, unconditionally brings in its train all the moral virtues to the heart it enters, even though that heart is not in the least worthy.
Jean Baptiste Montegut

Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.
John Erskine (1879 - 1951)

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Twelfth Night", Act 1 scene 1

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
and doleful dumps the mind opresses,
then music, with her silver sound,
with speedy help doth lend redress.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)