I have been musical all my life, but it really became a passion when I got to high school. I joined the choir m sophomore year, and I haven’t looked back since.
I was in several choirs throughout high school, and when I came to college, it was no different. For the first couple years of school, I participated in several different groups at KU. When 2003 rolled around, I took things to the next level. That was the year that I, along with my friends Matt and Nick, started the group Genuine Imitation. GI was an opportunity for us to perform a totally different type of music than we were used to in other choirs. It was a contemporary a cappella group, meaning that we performed any and all kinds of music. In our first year, we performed everything from Eric Clapton to Tonic to Stevie Wonder.
It was during this time that I started learning to beatbox. Beatboxing (aka vocal percussion) is the art of emulating drum sounds with the human voice. When Genuine Imitation first started, we didn’t really have anyone who could beatbox, so I and one other member stepped in to fill that role. Over that first year, I learned quite a bit about making different drum sounds, and I have been beatboxing ever since.
This year, I rejoined Genuine Imitation. Because it is a student group, I had to leave when I dropped out of school. But now that I am back to being a full-time student, I am once again eligible to join. Earlier this spring, two friends asked me to help them prepare for auditions for the group, and in the process, I rediscovered my love for a cappella. I decided to audition as well, and I was lucky enough to get in.
I certainly hope that music will remain a passion for me throughout my life. It has long been a way for me to explore my feelings and express emotions that cannot otherwise be put into words.
As I wrote in a poem once upon a time, “Music is all eternity lived in a single second.”