The following is a personal essay which shows how Sara Hillis arrived at her choice to pursue a career in the music business, and was composed in 2002.
"Two roads diverged in a wood and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
(Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken)
I have been a musician all my life, though it took me most of that life to admit it. My first formal lessons in music began, as they do for many children, with the piano. I spent many years--thirteen, to be precise--learning to play this instrument in the classical genre, and I made some headway. However, I fought music for a long time. I tried to quit playing piano almost every one of those thirteen years, but something, primarily my mother's advice, made me keep going. My mother always said that I should keep my options open, and never was a truer word spoken.
I battled with Bach, muscled through Mozart and slaved over Chopin. However, as time went on, I realized that this music was some of the greatest ever written. It was with me during my most joyous and my most tragic times, and I will never regret the years spent in its company.
Why then did I abandon this high and sublime music? The reason is quite simple. I found a music which was to me even higher and more sublime than the most lofty symphony or sonata of the master composers: the music of the celtic lands--the music of my ancestors. It was at the age of sixteen when I first found this wondrous music. One person's artistry was responsible for my discovery. It is to Loreena McKennitt and her unique and eclectic mosaics of word and song that I owe my subsequent fascination with the music of Ireland and other celtic places.
From the time I first became interested in this music, I decided to learn to sing it. For the next few years, I practiced playing and singing all the folk songs I could get my hands on, and one day in 1996, having it in mind to try my hand at a really long song, I sat down and tried to find a tune for "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. This was the first celticly-styled song I wrote and it was the basis for all my subsequent efforts in this genre.
My love of poetry such as "The Highwayman" was one of the things which led me to take a degree in Honours English Language And Literature at university. In retrospect, I might say that I took this degree to find fuel for my music, for truly, it was from my studies which many of the ideas for songs came. I had gone to university with the aim of becoming a teacher, but music kept rearing its many-coloured and beautiful head.
There were many chances to perform at university, and with the adition of my small celtic harp which I got in my second year, the music took real hold of my spirit. By the middle of fourth year, I had made up my mind not to apply to any post-graduate programs, but to devote myself to recording an album and to starting my own independent record label.
This is in the works now. The album is being recorded, and is but the first of what I hope will be many more. I do not regret a single thing in my life, and least of all this new and exciting direction!
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