My Clarinet- My freedom from day to day problems and worry. It’s my vicarious voice. I love my flute as well. I used it as an escape from clarinet to make sure that I NEVER tire of playing clarinet like I did when I was younger (and obviously less mature). I believe that escape is the key to appreciating one’s life. The same way music allows an escape from politics (and most often money), my love of flute reminds me that I’m not bound to any one thing. Never will I be limited for life because of a single decision. But as much as I like playing the flute, I love my clarinet ten-fold more. I love the dark yet brilliant quality of sound and how it’s so possible to combine such traits.
My Periodic Table of the Elements- Just like musical scales it’s so fascinating to observe how certain elements are more stable than others (like notes in a scale) and work well with others. Molecules are like chords. Periods work in the same way scales do with octets. Each group or family is like a specific pitch class. It’s so amazing how the number 8 has such a huge role in valency and musical pitch.
My book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”- My favorite book by the author Jonathan Safran Foer. The story is about a child who is on search to find out what a mysterious key left by his late father from 9-11 is all about. I really enjoy reading books about children because their lives tend to be so much more colorful and imaginative than adults’ lives. I realized this trend in a memoir by Oliver Sacks (“Uncle Tungsten”).
My Mollard “Lancio” Conducting Baton- My gold-anodized-handled ( I recently learned about the plating process, and it’s so cool how it works) wooden stick of musical POWER. I conducted and taught a piece of three movements (we only worked on the first and third) to a band at my high school and I knew at this time that I wanted to be a renowned conductor at some point in my life. Things may have changed but I know that the baton is about as magical as a magician’s wand. A good conductor has the ability to almost telepathically convey a world of emotions to an ensemble and almost create a set of “musical emotions” that one doesn’t normally feel on a normal day.
I love my books on sciences and philosophy (especially the ones that encorporate music), I love my friends (*winkwink* Ariel Wheelock!) my cat, my laptop no matter how much it messes up sometimes, my clothes, my sunglasses collection, my education especially. I love being at VCU in the department of music and the school of humanities and sciences. I like my pill book and my other reference books on physics and chemistry. I like observing the sabbath. I love my cell phone (HTC Hero). I like the movie “Up”… It’s so charming. In fact, I like everything Pixar puts out… (unfinished list). I love language (English, French, Arabic, proper Ebonics lol). I like my hair, even when I’m not happy with it. I just like having it and being able to do stuff with it. I like fried tofu with peanut sauce. I love DNA and RNA synthesis; I think it’s fascinating.
