The Power of a Perfomance - This I Believe

Crumpled from good, vigorous use and practicing, I took out the sheet music for my audition. It read “God Bless America”. All I could think at that overwhelmingly twitchy point in my life was “God...help me”. I may have nervously choked and cracked in front of the director in that freezing room, start my song over, and two weeks later find my name posted on the results list for the new group for ShowTime 2007-2008, but I will always believe in the power of music and its presence in my life.

I never fully understood the power of what music could do until I joined ShowTime. I had an iPod that could store more songs than I would listen to in a given week. I took piano lessons; at times I took them unwillingly, and other times I aggressively embraced the challenge until my fingers turned cold and numb. Still, music was just another hobby...just another thing to do when I was bored. That’s just how it occurred to me.

It was not until our Christmas show of 2008 where I had a knowledge of what it was like to be recognized and perform alongside twenty-eight other members. We had done a few shows before this one, but to us this performance carried some weight. This performance was for the school...our peers. As if they cheesy dance moves and songs were not enough for a humbly sold-out concert at the civic center a week before, now we had to perform for our peers. With this corny show, I assumed a red tomato would mercilessly fly at us from the uninterested audience in the stands. As unwilling as I was to perform this show, I knew that if I was going to perform I wasn’t going to put in half the effort I normally would. That day, I sang and danced with a smile the best I could.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t a bad start. And I’m not sure how, but somehow....it turned into an amazing finish. Maybe it was the rap rendition of “Christmas Chopsticks” by Calvin Dunn that had the whole varsity football team stand up, roar like lions for their rapping teammate, and turn the gym into a cheering frenzy. Maybe it was our solemn, but driving finale that had most of the girls cheering and swooning during Alex Cervantes’ soulful solo. Maybe the stereotypes, labels and typecasts just faded when all us ShowTime kids did was do our best and give back what we could to the home of the Monsoons. Maybe the audience actually enjoyed it.

Whatever it was, I believe that I was proven wrong and made humble by the crowd’s response that day, and more importantly--despite how cheesy, bad, or corny..I was made humble by what music in a performance or even simply music in general, can do. Through these experiences, I have learned much about myself and what I come to believe about music.