August Rush

Oh my God.

For those of you who have seen the movie August Rush, you surely will understand this post if you know me well enough. For those of you who haven't, I urge you to go buy it. Not rent--buy. I got it at Walmart for $5.00 last night and I'm pretty sure it's the best five dollars I've ever spent.

As aforementioned, I'm a Music Major at UCA--that's about to change. I realized that being a music major is not what I need in life to do what I want to do. I've decided to change my major to Theater. There's just something about theater (Stagecraft/Tech in particular) that keeps pulling me back in, when at the moment I'm feeling like instead of Music being my escape, I've been trying to escape from it. Lessons, and Ear Training are hell. I can't stand it much longer. I've just got to stick out this semester as a Major. I'm not quitting/giving up on Music by any means...you'll see my point in more depth in a moment.

Back to August Rush. This movie is a beautiful creation on film. It is inspiring, and for me, it was absolutely heart-breaking. I had no doubts about changing my major before I saw it.

The main character is an orphan boy who is a musical prodigy (Evan/August)--he hears music everywhere. The way the film demonstrated this through picking out more particular sounds in the city (or wherever he was) and setting them to music, essentially. I hear like this all the time. I knew this film would be very touching just from the opening monologue:

"Listen. Can you hear it? The music. I can hear it everywhere. In the wind... in the air... in the light. It's all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up. All you have to do... is listen."

The thing about August is that he didn't know how to create the music he heard--and there is a scene where he gets his hands on a guitar for the first time. This scene isn't very far into the movie at all, but it was what got me started. I sobbed. The wonder in his eyes (even though he's an actor) was absolutely magical. The kind of magic I've always wanted to help kids discover.

I basically cried for the rest of the movie. It was very very personal to me. I can't explain it very eloquently.

After the movie ended, I needed to talk to someone, so I had my two friends named Josh call me :) There's Josh G--the music major, and Josh A--the theater major. The evil twins :P

Josh G and I decided to have lunch on Tuesday and talk about this in more detail, and Josh A decided to talk to me for probably two hours on the phone.

Josh A made me realize something.

"I'm not going to tell you to pick either one, or try to sway you towards the theater...but something you need to realize is that with Theater, you will never lose your music. You have so much passion for both of them, and as a Music major, you might lose Theater. Your musicianship would be perfect in the Theater. You don't have to give it up."

I'm not nearly as freaked out about changing my major anymore. He made a lot of sense to me. I will never lose my music, or my theater. Never.

When I'm older, I'm going to name my son August