Elijah Brown
Exam 1
The Life Changer
It all started after listening to hours of Miles Davis, The Brubeck Brothers, John Coltrane, and well everybody jazz cat that was known to man! I was only 12 years old and didn’t know anything about music but something about jazz intrigue me. Even though I was young it felt like I was connected to the music as if they were playing directly to me. Many people thought it was weird for someone as young as me was listening to jazz all the time, but I always wanted to be a jazz pianist. I love jazz and blues because of its freeform style and you never know what is going to happen next. I knew it would take a lot of work to be able to learn how to play piano but I was willing to put forth every effort I had. But first I just needed to get a piano.
On my 15th birthday I woke up to a Yamaha Portable Grand Piano in my room! I was ecstatic and eager to learn how to play it. But, sadly I never was able to take any piano lessons, so I self-taught myself the basics of playing jazz piano—with the help of YouTube of course— I was getting closer to my dream. After years of self-teaching I finally got my first job playing piano for a church. It was the best experience I ever had because I was able to learn a lot of other musicians. While playing in the church I was asked by a professional drummer if I wanted to with him at a jazz concert, I couldn’t turn down the experience.
At one of the rehearsals I was asked to do solo at first I was a little nervous but when it came down to it I belted out the best solo I’ve ever done in my life. The band was constantly complimenting me, saying that was the best solo they have ever heard in their career. But the band warned me ahead of time that when it actually comes down to performing in front of an audience it’s not as easy as it is at rehearsal. I was a little cocky and told them that I wouldn’t be nervous. On the day of the performance, in the warm up room, I took a peak at the...