Music: How I Process the World

by Rebecca Mize

Music is everything to me. It's very much how I process the world. I play the cello with the Adult Orchestra, and I take composition lessons with Stephan Haluska. I started playing the cello in the fifth grade, and shortly after, I began writing my own music. Ever since, I wanted to to be a professional musician.

I have always been a "quiet" person (to this day I'm living with undiagnosed autism), and I always turned to art and writing to express myself. When I discovered music, it was like truly discovering my inner voice for the first time. Even when I started high school, the school councilor was telling me to let music be my voice, but then shortly after, they had me quit music entirely to "focus on academics." I kept trying to get back to music, but throughout high school I was told "don't waste this opportunity" (because I went to a high school on a college campus), "you need to focus on maths and sciences, not the arts," and eventually in senior year, I was straight up told to "wake up" when I told the Dean I wanted to be an author. They kept saying that I'd be better off being a doctor or an engineer. Completely disregarding what I went to the school for in the first place.

My backstory is quite long and dark, but no matter how bad things got, I always held onto the hope and dream of finding my way back to music. It took a long time.

Now, after a twelve-year hiatus from music, I'm trying everything in my power to handcraft my own career without traditional school. And that's where The Music Settlement comes in for me.

It is because of The Music Settlement that I am able to finally formally study music composition. I may have started composing music in fifth or sixth grade, but I never actually got to learn the skill — how to complete a piece or complete musical ideas. I get to play my cello with an orchestra again. Without The Music Settlement, I really wouldn't have a chance to pursue music as a career.