<p>He stands on stage with power and ingenious musical intellect. His hair is long and dark and his guitar hangs below his waist empowering him, like a lion?s great roar. He plays a melody on his amazing Les Paul guitar and it is played through his speaker, as the beautiful tone fills the stadium through ocean of the crowd, as noted in his song, ?The Ocean.? There?s a band of three behind him, but he has the eternal spectrum of the spotlight shining upon him, as if granting him divine power. He is my guitar hero. He is Jimmy Page.
As I?ve grown up, I have found self-passion in many things such as playing hockey and playing baseball. However, none of my other interests have strengthened me as much as my intense love for playing and enjoying everything in the musical spectrum. The greatest influence in my musical life has been the man who I have heard play the guitar since I was five years old. He would sit in the basement, plug in his guitar, and play anything from jazz to classic rock. His name is Steven Koller, my father. I remember quite vividly listening to him play in the basement when I was a young boy. When he saw me sitting there listening, he invited me to play his guitar. Of course, seeing as I was too young, my fragile little hands could barely fit over the neck to play the notes, but I always wanted to play despite my temporary physical inability. It was until I was about ten years old when I decided to seek lessons; my hands could finally grasp the neck and I could finally play the notes clearly.<br>
As the years went by, my different passions shaped me and pushed me into different directions, but also distracted me from my underlying love for music. As I partook in different activities such as hockey, my ability to explore and play music feigned. However, whenever hockey season was over, I was truly able to formulate my taste in music and discover new sounds that I had never heard before. Whenever I had an extended amount of free time, I was able to grow through my own personal musical ?renaissance?.<br>
My first musical ?renaissance? occurred in ninth grade, when my true fervor for music began to take root. I began listening to artists like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and most importantly, Led Zeppelin. The band?s guitarist and musical leader, Jimmy Page, provided me with a plethora of blues-driven rock compositions to study and play on guitar. After watching a video of him on stage before thousands of people, playing his solo in ?Since I?ve Been Loving You?, I felt his agonizing pain and suffering while the hairs on my back stood up. Page amazed me; he had manifested his feeling of emotional despair through the notes he played on his guitar, showing me a whole new meaning to music.
My first period of extended musical exploration ended when hockey began again in the fall of my sophomore year. Soon, I was burdened with a great deal of stress; I tried desperately to maintain my academic standards, while my hockey schedule consumed my time through a strict daily routine of practices and workouts. My band, which I had formed just months ago, was unfortunately put on the backburner until I could somehow find more free time.
This happened every three months or so, during which time my main focus was primarily directed towards whichever activity I was involved with, whether it be hockey or baseball. As I grew older, however, the feeling of separation from my musical life became more and more apparent. My love for music grew almost constantly, as I?ve discovered many new meanings of and uses for music. It has provided me an eternal source of discovery, while baseball and hockey aren?t as complex; they?re merely competitive sports.
Eventually, my desires to play competitive baseball and top-tier hockey in college had faded. My love for these sports couldn?t parallel my zealous adoration for music. Before my senior year, I decided that I would stop playing hockey. I knew it would be a challenging endeavor. I was bound to face a bombardment of intolerant ridicule from many different people such as my teammates and even my little sister, but internally, I needed to seek music in a more focused manner.<br>
Though being ostracized for leaving the team was difficult for me at times, I fought through the pressure by escaping into my music. I listened to compositions by artists such as John Lennon, progressive keyboardist Jordan Rudess, and classical genius Ludwig Van Beethoven. Each style of music brought me to a different feeling, place, and time.<br>
Music is an extraordinary means of self-expression; I can share my feelings and soul with my audience, and most importantly, music allows me to be free. Playing sports with dedication gave me no such feeling and didn?t free me in any way, especially in a social sense. While I played on the high school teams I was not myself. I restricted myself to conformity, trying desperately to achieve social acceptance from my teammates. This is something a real musician would never do. To me, being a musician means being true to yourself and not caring what anybody thinks. In a sense, I was not only neglecting my musical side, I was also neglecting to be myself.
My deep passion for music has not only freed me from a narrow-minded train of thought, but it has also led me to another equally expressive interest in creative writing. Much like music, writing has opened my mind and empowered me, as I?m able to share emotion and to express a belief or thought. I don?t have a single interest in writing nor music; instead, I have a singular passion for self-expression and being true to myself. </p>
<p>whatya think? </p>
<p>plz no incoherent, unneeded, jerk-with-his-head-up-his-ass-condescending-type of comments </p>
<p>kthx</p>