Music and Me

 

Hello! I'm Mary Ashton Garrett and I am a senior at Converse. I am majoring in Music Education with a performance certificate in voice and a concentration in Music Theory. My primary instrument is voice and I dabble in piano. I've been doing music things for most of my life. I started singing at the age of three and began taking piano lessons when I was five. I've always loved music and it has always been a huge part of my life. When I began my college journey at Converse I honestly wasn't too set on majoring in music, to be honest, but I ended up really falling in love with music after taking all the different music classes and studying with Dr. MacPhail and I now know that performing and teaching music is what I want to do for the rest of my life. 

Here are a few more of my fav pics: 

  ^Me and my kitty Ruth 

^Here is a pic from my Junior recital last year featuring the legend Lance Bastian

^This is a pic of me holding a pig. It made me very happy. 

Here is a little info about the music that I know and like! 

1. Something I like right now: 

One of my favorite artists over the last year or so has been Laufey. She is an Icelandic-Chinese singer and instrumentalist who was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1999. I found her music this time last year while listening to a "Discovery Playlist" and have been vibing with it ever since. I would categorize her style as being jazzy with a few traditional pop aspects. She has a very warm and unique tone that has a very comforting and soothing feeling to it. She is a Berklee graduate and plays many instruments, including Cello, Piano, and Bass. Laufey has done an amazing job of introducing this generation to the jazz style and has become very popular over the last year. Her music is addicting and I look forward to every song that she releases because I know it will be good. 

In this video, Laufey is performing the song "Beautiful Stranger" with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. This concert with the Iceland Symphony was recorded and she released the album A Night At The Symphony last September. The album includes a lot of her songs from her album Everything I Know About Love and some bonus songs including one of my all-time favs, "Every Time We Say Goodbye".  This song, "Beautiful Stranger" is one of the first songs of Laufey's that I heard. It is just so dreamy and I love how it sounds with the orchestra. 

This song is from Laufey's new album Bewitched, which that released in September of last year. It is one of her most popular songs, if not the most popular song. It has a Bossa Nova type style that I adore.

2. An example of music that is important to me: 

Since I was little my dad and I have always bonded over music, and he is one of the reasons that I know as much music as I do today. When I was growing up, he and I would always have sing-alongs to different songs and styles ranging from Disney to 80's hits. Even to this day he and I will sit in the living room and will share different songs that we think each of us would like. The song that I picked is one that my Dad introduced to me when I was a child. It is a cover of The Smith's song "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" by the Dream Academy. I absolutely LOVE this song. I just think it is really beautiful. I think it has a really nostalgic feel and whenever I listen to it memories of my dad and I bonding over music come to mind. Also, the instrumental version of this cover is in my all-time FAVORITE movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off which my dad also introduced me to. 

3. An artist that I do not really connect with: 

An artist that I do not connect with is Meghan Trainor. I am not a fan of the cookie-cutter pop genre and I feel that is what genre her music fits into. I think that all of her songs sound the same which can be quite boring when listening to them. I also think that she releases music to go along with trends and I just do not connect to music like that. I understand that some people may like her pop style, but I personally do not.