Note: My senior-year English teacher in high school was dedicated and hard working. She cared about her students and was passionate about making us better writers. And at the time, I couldn’t stand her. She put great emphasis on helping us find our voice, and in the process (I felt) stifled our voices–or mine at least. After much frustration with negative feedback on my writing (this piece, for example, written at almost exactly the same time), I wrote a piece designed purely to make her happy. It was shorter than other things I had written, and I put very little effort into it, other than to parrot the style I felt she wanted–short sentences that communicated ‘feeling.’ My only goal was to make her happy, and I succeeded. This piece got an A and positive comments, and I’ve always hated it. (DL, Sept. 19, 2021)

I love playing the bass. When I play the bass, whether alone, but especially in a group, I experience a unique sense of rhythm and control. The bass is the root and bone of the music. Every chord is built upon the foundational note that the bass lays, and it is the bass rhythm that shares the responsibility of driving the music.