Thomas 1 Raymond Thomas Rebecca Agosta Eng.

1101-019 11/18/13 A Universal Language

Every kid growing up has dreams. These dreams go as far as the moon. Some are easier to achieve than others. For me there was always the dream to be a racecar driver. After watching years of NASCAR races, I have come to the conclusion I realized it takes a lot more work than I thought in order to be successful. Another dream that I have developed just within the past four years was to be a famous musician. This, however, is still a dream and not necessarily a goal. My goals would be in an essay I wrote for my engineering class. Growing up for me, I was always surrounded by the beautiful sounds of the greatest genre in all of music, Rock and Roll. I would say that my love for Rock was strongly influenced by my mom. Her favorite artist since she was sixteen has been Rod Stewart, so lets just say I know every word to every Rod Stewart song. Whenever she would drive me to school in the morning, our cars radio was tuned to 104.3, the local New York City classic rock station. I grew up with Van Halen, Guns N Roses, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and so many more. While my friends were blasting their iPod Nanos to N Sync, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys, I was listening to Oasis, Green Day and the Foo Fighters.

Thomas 2 With this kind of love for the genre, I picked up playing the guitar. Growing up listening to guitarists like Slash, Jimmy Page, and Eddie Van Halen, I wanted to play like them. I took a guitar class in high school and I picked it up pretty quickly. My parents bought me my first guitar when I was 15. I taught myself from day 1 one with my cheap Squier Stratocaster. Learning easy songs like Wonderwall and Smoke On The Water was the first step. Eventually I learned enough songs to play for my family at parties and family get-togethers. I was playing in front of my friend Nick one day and he said, Dude your pretty good! You wanna start a band or something? So thats what I did. I knew a few guys who had musical talent and were able to play pretty well, so we all got together and we jammed at my friend Gregs house for the first time. There is a first time for everything and we kind of sucked. We were not really in sync. So we all thought it was just the first practice, well meet up again. From that point on I considered myself to be in a band. Of course we did get better together and we learned more songs and we eventually played at the first Battle Of The Bands. We placed third out of fifteen bands! The only problem was, we didnt have a name. This would really bug me. Knowing my group of friends, our name would be something very out of the ordinary. That is when I stepped in. In a discourse community such as a band, a leader has to take charge. If you have to leaders, your band will not last. Lets take Guns N Roses as an example. Formed in 1984, the two leaders of the band were the singer, Axl Rose, and the lead guitar player, Slash. The two had very conflicting ideas on the journey they were willing to take to become the biggest rock band ever. As many people saw coming,

Thomas 3 Slash split away from the band in 1996 after an on stage altercation with Rose. I didnt want my fellow band mates and I to have any bad blood so I suggested that since I started the group, that I should be the one that makes most of the decisions. The first thing was the name. It was pretty simple to choose a name. I just chose what sounded pretty cool and relaxed. The first thing that came to my head was Neptune. My band mates thought because it was the farthest planet from the sun, ergo the coolest planet. I just sounded cool in my head. Over the 3 years I had the band together, I have had people come up to me and ask if they could be in our band. We did have a written list of criteria for people wanting to become members. Yes, I am serious. We got bored very easily. Number 1: All band members must not despise you. 2. You have to know something about the instrument that you are playing. 3. You must pass an audition. We had at least 10 kids come up to us that say, Oh I learned how to play at School of Rock, the local music store downtown. I ask them one objective along the lines of, Tune the e string a half step flat only using only your in-ear intonation which any true musician can figure out in 5 seconds. Every kid just gave me the blankest look. A lesson here could be; know how to play music if you want to be in a band. Sometimes it is difficult to talk the talk as opposed to walk the walk. Musicians have a very different tongue than others, but all musicians speak it. A composer in France could easily communicate with a Japanese composer because there is only one way to write a piece of music, hence, one language. My guitar teacher told my class that music could be interpreted as a Universal Language. The music community even has its own dictionary; The New Grove Dictionary of

Thomas 4 Music and Musicians was printed in 1878 by Sir George Grove of England. The dictionary/encyclopedia traces back the steps of music to 1450 all the way to 1900. The set has been revised year after year and is now Internet based since the 50,000 articles took up way too much room on the bookshelves. Even though we have our own language in a way, we did not speak with such terminologies to each other. We still talked like normal, everyday 16 years-olds. I do realize that it happens to all bands in the future, but good old Neptune had to split up when we each went off to college. The first few months here at UNCC were a bit of a drag without playing without my friends, but luckily my roommate is a huge music buff and has been playing drums since he was 3. His father was in a band in the late 80s to mid-2000s. He was born into rock and roll. He is a bit of a talker so whenever we are cruising one late night to Cook-Out and a certain song comes on, he will tell me a memory this song has brought to him. With each of us loving and living the same kinds of music I wanted to get Neptune up and running again. So with that, within two weeks we got another to guys and we played at the homecoming football game of his old high school. It felt good. It felt like I was supposed to be back on stage. We were not bad for just one practice. During that practice is when I sat-in on my community. We chilled together for hours trying to decide who was to flat and how the drummer had to do a double kick instead of a double hit. Being a part of a discourse community is fun and I could say that when I interviewed my roommate about how music has shaped his life, some people were just made to do

Thomas 5 something. I asked him, what is your most memorable song and why? Remember how I said he is a talker. My most memorable songlets see. It would have to be Push by Matchbox 20. Im pretty sure I told you this story already but I was like 3 when it first came on the radio. I dont remember it but boy do my parents. We were coming home from my mamis house. I was chillin' in the back seat and Push comes on the radio. My Mom looks back and Im goin' all out! I was banging my head, shakin' my hands, really rockin' out! Flash ahead to move in day here at Charlotte, were driving up the road and as soon as we pull up to Moore, guess what song comes on! *Laughter* My mom starts crying, my dads trying to calm her down, but its funny because, you know, I only live a half hour down the road so its not like you, living 500 miles away. But yeah, Id say Push would be my most memorable song. There are so many others, but that would be the one I pick. A week before my interview we played homecoming at Forestview High School. On of the songs we did was Push by Matchbox 20. Instead of the entire band out playing, it was just Jason and I on stage. Jason, with microphone in hand, me with my guitar on my lap, he turns to the crowd and says, I didnt want to go all lovey-dovey on you guys but music has changed my life in so many ways. My parents have changed my life in so many ways. Thats why Im dedicating this song to my loving parents. I grew up listenin' to my dad and his buddies jam out in the garage and now Im lucky enough to be in your shoes. After I hit that first G chord, his mom didnt stop crying for a good 10 minutes. I have never seen a family so connected and moved by music. Showing how many bands, although made for fun,

Thomas 6 really prove that being together with your best friends is really all that is worth it in the end.