User:Maestromwb
This is the page of Berklee College of Music Student Michael Bradley
My Musical Background[edit]
I consider my journey with music to be like a love story. This love story all started when I was three years old at Galilee Baptist Church in the adult choir. Since I was too much of a mama’s boy to leave my mother’s side, I found myself sitting in the choir loft with her and thus I started my love for singing that would develop into what I hoped would be a promising career of singing. From that time came a series of events that pushed me into one of the best relationships I’ve ever had, my Lady music.
From local music competitions to a Middle school for the performing arts our love grew fonder but I soon found another love in my life, Lady Justice. Though I loved music, at that point in my life I wanted to make lots of money and the best way I saw at the time was to be a lawyer. But a weekend with a South Carolina honor choir made me break my affair with Lady Justice and focus my attentions back where they belonged. From that point to high school I went from aspirations about law school to wanting to be a high school choral music director. While I was reaffirming my love to music, I also began writing my own musical composition. Me, as a composer, started by accident or because of bad behavior. While I was doing a two-day stint in in-school suspension, one of my assignments was to write two vocal warm-ups and with the success of those warm-ups spurred the middle school portfolio of three choral compositions, a trio for my second instrument, clarinet and a piece for handbells. Composing soon became the outlet for me when I was depressed and when it was time to celebrate.
My high school years served to only deepen my love for music and widened my composition portfolio to include woodwind choirs and more choral compositions. Those compositions include an arrangement of my high school alma mater. Music as stated earlier has caused a paradigm shift in my life. I am definitely a completely different person because of that day when I was 3 years old at Galilee Baptist Church in the adult choir.
My Music[edit]
Since music represents the very essence of who I am, than that is how I would characterize my sound.
My music represents my religion since this is how I express my love for God. My music represents my culture. Since I try to make every song that I sing and write relatable to my peers with music that fits in to today’s pop culture but also have portion of my music that are tangible to the other generations both younger and older. This is often times forgotten because people want to be famous for the moment but if one is to be a lifetime memory then you must learn to reach the masses, which is what I attempt to do everyday. My music is the sound of my heritage. Since I am an aspiring gospel artist, I understand that the music I sing is very close to the people that I come from. It represents the struggle and the triumphant victories won by the African American people. The gospel genre is one that cannot be sung with out luster and with no feeling. It is a type of music where passion and heart are not only required but must be felt through every verse, chorus and driving chord progression. If I were to go a step further I would suggest that the music I represent is a sum of culture, faith, and heritage. My music is my music because it clearly defines who I am not and more importantly it makes me who I am.