Joseph

"My hands were put on the piano on the second day of my life."

By Students of NYC

May 31^st, 2024

"My dad taught me the bass when I was four years old. My earliest memory is sitting in my room with him, I'm holding the four-string and he's holding the five-string and he's showing me how to play "The Final Countdown." I used to dream even then of being a big rock star; I could picture myself with the bass onstage. I've been playing ever since, and I'm in the Murrow High School jazz band now.

I've met most of my friends through music. Being a good friend is similar to being a good musician. You have to listen. When someone is laying their problems on you, you just have to sort of be there and support. It's sort of like if someone's soloing in jazz, if I'm the bass player, I'm not going to try to do something fancy with my bass line supporting them. I would keep it simple so they can have all the freedom and expression.

I play the piano, too. Not like Beethoven, but you know. I like to improvise, just do whatever my fingers want. I’ll find a chord progression that I like and play the bass notes on the left and solo on the right. I lean toward minor key stuff. I think subconsciously I'm kind of thinking about sad stuff that happened to me, and I'm kind of just playing it away, I guess, so that I can be happy. It gives me a sense of clarity. With music, we're not really that divided. It's not like language where people all speak differently. It's easy to express yourself because it's one universal thing.

In the future, I either want to be a famous musician or a teacher. Every music teacher I’ve had — from elementary school, through middle school, to high school — has had an impact on me in a positive way. So, for my future, I want to be like all of them. I mean, being a famous musician would be really cool. It’s what I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid. But as a music teacher, I could make that rock star. And that? That's pretty cool."