Simon's essay

Music Pro Bono?

Performing arts is something that occurs in every state in every country in the whole world, it appears in many different ways, acting, music, art, they are all different types of performing arts. Every culture and every country has their own way of using performing arts, most cultures even have a way of expressing each and every category of performing arts.

In Africa there are hundreds of tribes that have ceremonies where groups perform as a sacrifice to god, and they play percussion and tone instruments that they themselves have created and built. That is an example of the more primitive way of performing arts. In Boston, with my group, we saw four types of performing arts. Music (street performances) in which we participated, Plays (theaters and concert halls), the Movies, and art. Each of these things has a lot behind them.

Every day we passed at least 10 street performers. I myself had the opportunity to perform with one of these street performers. There was a man on the side of the subway, next to the track with a cheap guitar and a twenty dollar amplifier. He was playing stairway to heaven and he couldn’t sing the high part at the end of the song and asked me to do it for him when he heard me singing along. I did and I enjoyed it more than performing in front of a crowd of my peers or fans. Then on the following day, we got a permit to go and perform in Boston Commons. We stood inside a gazebo and played with 3 drumsticks, a garbage can, glass bottles, and dancers with tap shoes. We made ten dollars and we spent it on ourselves but it could have gone to better use.

Doing this gave me an understanding about how music really is. It showed me that by simply doing that or performing with almost nothing and making enough money to give to somebody who really needs it makes music and performing in public more meaningful than anything else I do. Music is my favorite thing in the world, it gives me and opportunity to express myself and my true feelings without the fear of being judged. Combining music and pro bono work, makes me feel as though I can play and write music for more than just money, for the good of other people who suffer and need help. If you want to help there are a whole bunch of things going on for instance, the Rock for Darfur, run by MySpace was extremely successful and helped the political crisis in Sudan.