Catching Up with Music Theory by Taylin

Catching Up with Music Theory by Taylin - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

When I got to PBA, I decided to bump myself down from Music Theory 1 to Intro to Music Theory because I personally knew that I did not have all my theory bases covered. While I was glad I took the intro class, it caused me to have to go a whole year without taking theory and aural skills since the classes I needed were not being offered those two semesters. When I was able to take theory and aural skills again, it was with a different teacher since my original teacher had left. I was the only junior in that class with everyone else being sophomores. I felt very lonely and awkward. Not only that, but they had left off on content my original theory class never went over. Therefore, I had to catch up on a lot of new things and continue to learn other new things at the same time. At one point my grade slowly started dropping because while I did well with homework, my exam grades did not reflect that. I overcame this by doing three things: Prayer, studying, and communication.

My faith plays an important part in my academics. Praying actually brings me a lot of peace and comfort, so I would pray before each exam. I also had to separate time to study a little more extra for theory class. So I would pray before each study session and homework session. Eventually, I had to communicate with my new teacher about my struggle. He was kind enough to offer me extra help and in class he would make sure to stop and ask if I was okay with what was being taught. It was very considerate of him and I knew it was also helping out my classmates as well. I eventually finished those classes with an A.