Common App essay: writing about a creative work (music)

kirbyrock
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:29:33 +0000

I’m beginning the common app essay and looked at the prompt where you can write about a creative work that influenced you. In a nutshell, I want to write about the music of the band Phish. Phish is a jam band (characterized by the playing of long, extended pieces of largely improvised music in concert) and plays very diverse music. Much of their music has influences from all over the place like country, bluegrass, rock, jazz, metal, latin, etc.

What I want to write about in terms of how this influenced me is that listening to their music and seeing them in concert has taught me to be open-minded as possible–that knowledge is power. In interviews, the members have all stressed the importance of listening to as much music as possible and being able to draw influences from anywhere you can. Also, since their music is largely improvised, I have learned that you have to be open, attentive, and somewhat selfless to make something great. Their playing has influenced me to start playing in jam-type bands myself, and I have learned much about patience and communication through that as well.

This has all taught me to be open minded and listen to not only different music, but more importantly, other people in general and what they have to say. Much like how in music, there are elitists in some genres of music that claim that their type of music is the best and stereotype other genres, there are people in the world who believe that their opinions are the most valid. Seeing things clearly and getting the best out of anything is a matter of being open minded and getting past stereotypes.

Listening to the diversity of Phish’s music has taught me to be open minded, patient, and accepting when it comes to other people, and that there is something to learn everyone, no matter what position they are in their lives.

My basic idea is to relate musical lessons that I learned largely from Phish’s music to life. Is this a good idea? Since I am writing about a semi-contemporary band, I am a bit afraid of making the admissions officers think that I’m not taking the prompt seriously enough. Thoughts?