Music And Me

 Hi! I’m Clara Stein, and I’m a sophomore music education major. I have always loved listening to and making music, and I find that most of my biggest memories have some kind of music attached to them. I play flute and guitar and love to sing. I have played in multiple ensembles throughout my school career; currently I am playing in flute choir and the wind ensemble  here at Converse and I really enjoy being a part of those groups. 

^Me and my cat Cheese, who thinks she is a parrot. 

Here is a little bit about the Music I know and like!

1. Something I like right now:

One of my favorite artists for a while now is Lizzy Mcalpine. I found her music accidentally while I was making a playlist for someone and one of her songs was recommended to me by Spotify and I loved it. I started to listen to more of her music and since then she has been one of my favorites. 

Most of her music is mellow and uses a lot of fingerpicked acoustic guitar which

I always  the sound of. Even though a lot of her songs are fairly sad, I often find them to be calming. 

This is the first song of hers that I heard. 

I got to see her in concert last May and it was such a great experience. She had so much emotion in her voice and she played piano and guitar during her concert, both very beautifully.

This song is one of my favorites and I loved getting to see it performed live. While this video isn’t from a concert, it shows how she performs live.

2. An example of music that’s deeply important to me:

One of my most vivid memories growing up is when my dad would be home and would pull out his guitar. He was in the Navy when I was young and was often deployed, but when he came home he would always play his guitar and my siblings and I would come out and sing with him. I think that is when I first realized how much I loved music and part of what encouraged me to pursue music as I got older. 

This was one of my favorites that he would play and I’d always ask him to play it for us. It was also the first song I learned on guitar. I remember pulling my little pink guitar out of my closet and being so determined to learn how to play it. I sat down for a few hours and managed to learn the chords for this song and was so proud. 

(The little pink guitar I learned on)

I rarely listen to this song, but it holds a lot of value because of those connections to it. 

3.  An example of music I don’t really connect with:

I do not connect with lofi music. I have friends and family members who enjoy listening to it to help them focus or just to have on for calm vibes. While I understand that the purpose of this music is to be calm, it is often so calm that I completely block it out and so it does not help me focus or anything. 

My older brother would make me listen to it anytime he was driving me somewhere and I do not understand how he could listen to it while driving without falling asleep or getting completely distracted. I tend to need music that has words or is familiar to me to use as background music to help me focus.

This example is objectively good, I like what I hear, however I would not be able to listen to this for any long period of time.