Life On My Term

Life on My Terms 1By Aaron Smelley

Life on My Terms Written By Aaron Smelley Smelley Reads Publishing Inc. Huntsville, Arkansas 72740 May 10, 2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Dedication page 2. Biographical sketch 3. The echo of music 4. The metal brush 5. Pro-procrastination 6. Subway showoff 7. Fun work 8. Experience 9. Journey to disaster 10. I don’t know 11. Work, work, work no more 12. Nightmares with a ninny 13. We WERE the same 14. Embrace 15. Freedom’s rules rule freedom 16. Expectations 17. Problems problem solving?

18. The ups and downs of growing up 19. Driven toward your goal

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DEDICATIONS I’d first like to thank Mr. Bowlin for helping me along with my music. Without that many of these works would never have been inspired.

I would also like to thank my mother for instilling in me the love of reading, for without readers writers have no purpose.

I would also like to thank everyone else who made smaller contributions.

Thank you all.

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ENJOY The chosen passages in Part one represent a huge part of what inspired me to write, music. The next five stories have to do with many aspects of music in my life. Through the good and the bad these words follow, not just through real life, but through dreams as well. Read along as you experience my music second-hand.

Enjoy part one.

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THE ECHO OF MUSIC I take out my trumpet and put it to my lips.

Lips buzzing I began to warm up the horn.

Horn vibrating, fingers moving and tongue darting I finish the pieces, Pieces perfected through peerless hours of perfect practice.

I put away the papers and I began to play scales, up and down, Down and back up as a new scale is selected.

Selected from memory which holds a testament to my skills, Skills gained from repeating what I had just done, day after day.

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THE METAL BRUSH The trumpet to a band is like an artist’s paintbrush, without it they could do very little.

The trumpet is the very essence of creativity, being one of the most versatile instruments ever created. But this versatility doesn’t come without a price, it takes countless hours of exercising your lips, which sounds grueling, but can sometimes be fun. And after all is said and done, the show, the performance is what musicians such as myself live for. And can you guess what you do the day after the performance? Practice, Practice, Practice.

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PRO-PROCRASTION I had thirty-two assignments that I was supposed to work on throughout this week, it was Thursday and I hadn’t done any of them. I divided the assignments up: six on Thursday, six on Friday, five on Saturday, five on Sunday, and five on Monday. I took our my trumpet and began to play the first six songs, a combined 1000-and-something measures. By the end of the practice the six songs were as good as gone. I continued to dominate all of the music, just as I had on Thursday, and somehow managed to learn it all in the nick of time. Not only was Mr. Bright happy with my progress, but I was able to pull of my first Arkansas Winds concert.

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SUBWAY SHOWOFF I don’t know exactly where the train was going. After paying my fee I simply stood on the platform waiting for it to whisk me away to somewhere, anywhere but here. And that’s when it happened, inspiration. I pulled out my battered trumpet, my lone possession, and began to play the blues that jived through my mind. Soaring crescendos, wavering diminuendos, and shaky high notes that captivated not only everyone on the platform, but also the train operator and all pedestrians within earshot. The train should have left by now, but the driver was like a small child, content to stare and listen for hours. I continued to play and as I noticed that I had a captivated audience, I grew very proud, and with it my music grew proud with it. The blues turned into the growling runs and turns that made up a work song. The audience had sat down now, mothers were given the benches, hobos sat on boxes, and men sat on the floor or stood. They all sat and listened to a kind of music that they hadn’t heard before, but all wanted to hear now.

Suddenly a clarinet burst from the crowd, jumping all over the music, swinging every note, and I refused to be outdone. Just as the clarinet had I followed suit. After a short time we joined, thinking in sync, speaking the competition through our horns. The unseen clarinet player walked out of the crowd, revealing a tall man in a pork pie hat with a smile.

“Son, where ya headed?” He asked with a tilted head.

“Anywhere but here, Mister,” I replied.

“Well how about traveling with me to New Orleans? I sure could use a boy with your talent to back me up when I solo.” He spoke with a heavy southern accent, not a drawl, but definitely a man with Southern affiliations.

I grinned, “Where’s my ticket at?”

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BEGINNING OF A GOOD START I was all alone in my mother’s office, my phone read 11:57 PM. I had been practicing for the last four hours and my lips were on the verge of giving out. I had repeated the same four hour rehearsal for the past six days and tomorrow would be the day that all that practice would pay off.

As I walked off the school bus the next day, I was followed by Katherine, The Twins, Brandy, Emily, and Kevin. I listened to Mr. Bowlin as he gave explicit instructions on what to do while waiting for your audition, and at the end of his speech the group had traveled inside the school and reached the cafatorium. I set my stuff down and went to go look for my audition room. Soon I found it, they handed me my timecard, and I walked away disappointed. I was the third from last to audition. Number seventy-one had a while to wait.

While I waited I kept myself warmed up, and when the time drew near I walked up into my audition room.

I wasn't nervous, so I don’t know why it happened, but as I sat down in the wheeled chair it shot out from under me, hit the man monitoring me, and knocked the music off of the stand. Shakily I picked up everything and played the music better than I had ever played it in any of my practices.

Three months later I had gotten tired of the Huntsville band, it wasn’t challenging me enough. I had come up to Mr.Bowlin with my problem, and he agreed to talk to the director of the Arkansas Winds for me. Because of my playing and my fifth place placement in All-Region the director allowed me into the band as the youngest person to ever join.

The first day I showed up I was handed six pieces of music, each at least 150 measures long. The last piece of music I got read Profanation, a monster four page long song that took up lots of time. I struggled to finish homework at around 11:30 at night, my chores were hastily done, and I played close to nothing else. But I finally got the song perfectly, on the night of the performance.

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EXPERIENCE These next few passages are a miscellaneous collection of stories that encompass different parts of my life. I wrote about what I knew and what I do best. Small glimpses of my day-to-day life can be seen through the words of these stories.

Experience part two.

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JOURNEY TO DISASTER It was a long way to the caverns and, it was just my dog and I. The reason I take my 135 lb. dog is because I have no choice, he will not simply stay put while I go off on a grand adventure to a cave. So I set off walking the three miles through the rain to the river. I carried with me just a small raft and paddle. And as I trudged through the mud dragging the raft, we both got painted a few shades of brown. As I approached the river I got started rafting while Kody swam behind me, and that’s when I saw it

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PLANNING I find that I don’t know as much as I want to about music. I am unable to excel and greater my musical prowess due to the hindrance of my finite knowledge of the technical aspects of music. As a result I have begun to teach myself the guitar. I plan on learning all the sections in the book that I bought by the end of the school year.

In the past few semesters I have done fine in all of the academic aspects of school, so as a results I will fix my habits to raise my grades. I would like to challenge myself to stop procrastination and get my work done sooner. I believe if my goal is achieved I will be rewarded with somewhat higher grades I believe that I should follow others better. Possible I should even let others be in charge of things more often. If I am quiet I think I will achieve this by the end of the year.

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WORK, WORK, WORK NO MORE Personally I needed a break from three things, certain classes, work, and expectations.

There are just certain classes that every student dreads going to, whether it be the teacher, the subject, or the peers that are daunting, the class itself just isn’t pleasant.

The second thing I needed a break from was work. I prefer to be at school because I know that as soon as I get home I have things to do. I usually stay busy from Dusk ‘till Dawn on the weekends, and especially in the winter. Such as the other day, I spent four hours grinding pork into sausage, finishing up at around midnight.

The last thing that I was glad to be away from for a little while was expectations, but not the kind other people set for you, those are easy to achieve. It’s the goals and expectations that I set for myself that are the most strenuous. I’m determined to be one the very best trumpet players ever, and although I am on my way, already playing with the Arkansas Winds at the age of thirteen, that isn’t good enough for me. I want to outplay everyone I come across, no matter who they are or how much experience they have. I spend quite a long time everyday practicing, learning and perfecting. Musically I’ve been busy with Jazz history and extending my knowledge of Ethnomusicology, and even a little improvising. But no matter how fast I learn it there will always be more. So even though I love playing my trumpet, it’s nice to take a break once in a while.

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NIGHTMARES WITH A NINNY I woke up. There was a strange haze covering the sky with a yellowish glaze. As I stood up off the thin air I had woken up on I looked around to see a sidewalk, which naturally I walked on. As I looked down I saw the same strange haze was covering where the ground should’ve been. The only difference was that strange beasts lurked and prowled through the haze. All had wings, but none were recognizable, and the longer I looked at them the more powerful my urge to look away became. I looked away.

I began to walk down the sidewalk, which got progressively narrower as it wound into the haze. I came to where the sidewalk disappeared completely which seemed a mere few feet from where I had started. I remembered the strange solid air I had woken up on and I began to test the air in front of the sidewalk to see if it was solid only to discover that it was. As I walked further I ran into an invisible wall, that I could not climb or pass . Behind the wall I saw Jared smiling like a madman.

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WE WERE THE SAME I have been to about thirty of the states, and from my travels I have learned a few things. People were once all the same, basically. It doesn’t matter if it’s Mexico, Las Vegas, or Washington D.C. the people are similar.

The things that make these people who they are ,are as follows: Environment, Exposure, and Experience. The environment would change a human’s language, physical appearance, and possibly religion.

Exposure deals more with what is in the area such as the Jazz in New Orleans, or the tourists in Cozumel, this too influences a person, but more subliminally. Surroundings shape the thinking and potential moral lessons.

I believe Experience to be the most influential thing that is involved in shaping a person. This is kind of like the whole Nature versus Nurture debate, what happens to a person is the thing that they will remember and learn from the most.

If you took these things from everyone, they would all be the same unmolded human beings.

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EMBRACE The final part of this anthology is representative of some of the many life lessons I’ve learned. Just like any author, I like to write about what I know. The following collection can be used to gain a deeper understanding of me as a person.

Embrace part three

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FREEDOM’S RULES RULE FREEDOM I believe life without rules would be similar to living in or around a warzone. There would be a constant fear of those who are more powerful than you taking and doing as they pleased. There would be a constant battle of consciences, because there would be no rules to provide structured, ethical and moral thinking among citizens. There would be no “World Economy,” The largest and strongest countries would contain all of the goods. Nobody would have any use for money because there would be nothing to buy. As far as the landscape, I think the word “apocalypse” would be a better description of the condition of things over time.

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EXPECTATION Expectations are a necessary part of someone’s life, without expectations nothing would get accomplished. There was once a study where two kindergarten classes were separated into groups randomly, the advanced group and the normal group. Every year in the future the advanced class kept excelling while the normal class was lax and uncooperative. Everyone in the advanced group went through the tougher classes and everyone was able to tackle them, while the normal class had trouble with their normal work. Why is it that the equal classes of kindergartners could produce two shockingly different sets of results?

The answer is simple, more was expected of the advanced class and because of it they rose to meet those expectations; however the normal class was fine with just being satisfactory because no expectations had been set for them. This just goes to show that expectations can do a great deal in someone’s life.

But what negative effects can expectations have? Expectations can have negative effects such as stress, failure and many other undesirables. I would say that these only occur when expectations set are unachievable. So even though expectations are great you should try and be reasonable with your goals. Remember just because its plausible doesn’t mean it’s possible.

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PROBLEMS PROBLEMSOLVING? I believe that to solve a problem you need to first consider the problem using emotional thought. Use the emotional points of view to identify the problem and see it from all angles, even if you don’t like some of the perspectives you have to see from. Next use the logical thought to solve the most amounts of problems that can be solved. Next switch back to the emotional mode and look at the proposed solution from everyone’s new perspective. If you have the most efficient problem to the solution, then you have reached the proper solution, if not then start over with a new solution.

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DRIVEN TOWARD YOUR GOAL No one would get anywhere without having a destination, the same goes for goals. Just like a car goals require fuel. Such as determination, work, and persistence, without those things it takes a long time to get to where you are going.

Not only is the destination important, but also is the journey. On a map there are intersections, toll roads, and back roads. On your way to your goals there will be choices, wrong decisions, and shortcuts. Sometimes you get lost. The longer the journey, the more gas the car will take. Some cars take less fuel than others, and some get there faster. But to a certain degree the destination is more important than the journey.

But that’s not to say the journey isn’t important, along the way there are paths you will learn. These paths can be used later, these metaphorical paths represent the things that we experience along the way.

So ladies and gentlemen, drive your cars to wherever it is you’re going and remember to stay on the road.

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