Here is mine.

The lights began to feel like hundreds of miniature suns on my skin. I stared blankly at my director, the bell of my trombone sitting on my shaking leg. My heart beat was drowning the sound of the big band surrounding me. I had missed the rehearsed cue to move to the front of the ensemble by one measure. I took a deep breath, my hands playing with my slide lock, and forced my shaking legs to support me as I stood up. I felt every eye in the auditorium move to me as I stepped down from the riser and made my way to the front. The cue for the solo was coming soon and though I had prepared for hours in practice rooms and in rehearsals, I suddenly felt completely inept. I glanced to the audience one last time as I took my place, listening to the rhythm section, waiting for the key change that signaled the beginning of my solo. I raised my horns, closed my eyes visualizing the introductory phrase I had written hundreds of time, and when I heard the change began to play. My obsession with jazz music started at a young age. My father and I would often drive around my small rural hometown in his F-250 listening to jazz gods like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and J.J. Johnson. The artists seemed to sing through the instruments; I could feel the passion, the love, the anger. I dreamed at night of performing at famous jazz venues like The Village Vanguard in New York and Blues Alley in D.C. I began my education in music at the age of 11, while I hoped to play the saxophone like my idol Coltrane; my band director decided the trombone fit my natural facial structure and embouchure better. For three and a half years I practiced the basics in a classical music setting; proper embouchure, tone, the proper placement of my tongue for articulation, and learning to read music all in hopes of one day being selected to the high school jazz ensemble. The second semester of my freshman year in high school the hard work paid off and I was selected to join the high school jazz ensemble. I quickly learned that playing jazz was much different from classical music. Articulations were different, the expected tone was different, but the most noticeable difference was the solos I had fallen in love with as a child in my father’s truck were not written on a page, but in the creative minds of the artists. The artists I fell in love with had a skill any successful jazz musician must learn, the ability to improv. My first year in the ensemble, I made it my mission to learn this crucial skill. I spent hours in my band director’s office learning dorian scales, mixolydian scales, discussing and listening to the practices of the greats. I organized rehearsals with the rhythm section training my ear to hear the key changes. My studying did not end at school as I would often bring home any jazz improvisation book I could find in our small public library. I have fond memories of myself pouring over the pages reading about Charlie Parker’s phrasing technique, the Flat 9 Theory, and common chord progressions. These hours studying would have been for naught, if I lacked one more crucial element. Confidence. If I lost my composure for a second, I could lose a measure which could result in me missing a key change or ruining a preplanned phrase. Additionally, if I carried myself with bad posture or became suddenly tense I would not be able to produce the natural tone due to air flow. The dedication and confidence paid off as my last three years I was a featured soloist multiple times in my last three years. While I was an impressive jazz musician in my small rural town of 10,000 people, I unfortunately did not have the talent to make it to The Village Vanguard or Blues Alley as a performer, but I quickly found the same passion in a new field of study, politics. The lessons I learned to succeed in improv allowed me to excel as I pursued a degree in Political Science. Eventually, I was given the opportunity to tread into the real world as a congressional intern on Capitol Hill. Here, my interest in law was birthed while working closely with our grants coordinator. I quickly saw that working on behalf of the constituents in our district by navigating through strict legal regulations and writing persuasive letters to multiple government organizations paralleled law. Each request was different, but all the same, the people were seeking help, help they could not get on their own, but rather needed me as a conduit to achieve. Each victory fueled my new passion, but I knew I needed further education to touch people the way I wanted to. It has been almost four years since I have performed on a stage, but the lessons I learned through jazz improvisation continue to play a role in my life. Passion, confidence, creativity, and dedication have tremendously helped me in all aspects of my life. I know these traits, learned in practice rooms and on various stages, will allow me to succeed at Blank School of Law.