“It’s like listening to everything from underwater and seeing all the colors and all the life.”

So this is the first time that my mom had come with us. Cuz I’ve gone twice before and on the last time my brother came with me, but today it was all three of us. And there was a flute, a viola, and a harp trio. And it was really fun. Like, in these concerts, they usually play a mix of, um, classical music and modern music. Like, stuff by contemporary, alive composers. So the big piece, the piece that I really like, was called Submerged. Um, it was by this — Let’s see. I have the, I have the flyer here. So it’s called Submerged by Miguel del Ag- — Miguel del Aguila. I should know how to pronounce that. I don’t know why —

Anyway, so it starts off like this dance music. And then there’s this chord change. And it’s li- — the way that the musicians introduced it is that it’s like falling into a body of water. And then from there the harp takes on a solo, and so it’s like listening to everything from underwater and seeing all the colors and all the life. And then the flute and the viola players walked off the stage. And I thought they were just leaving space for the harp player to do her solo, but later on, we hear the flute playing and it turns out that they walked in from the back, and so they’re standing at the back playing, like, little chirps and trills. And so combined with the harp, it’s like being underwater, but you can still hear the noise on the surface. 

And that was really interesting to me, and it made me think that this is one area — one thing you can do with live music that you can’t do with recorded music. That physical change. Where the musicians go, and how that affects the sounds that you hear. So I’m really happy that MSU has programs that teach people how to play music, and I’m glad that we have a symphony orchestra. And I’m really happy to be part of a community that has those things.