me: /mi/ pronoun 1. the objective case of I, used as a direct or indirect object. see also:
“What we play is life.” Great words, spoken by a great man: the legendary jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong. There are very few things in life that I am a hundred percent sure of, but this axiom resonates through every fiber of my being. The thing is, this phrase had two meanings both to the musicians Armstrong directed it towards and the musicians of today. First, our lives are the center and driving force of the music we play. Second, the music we play defines who we are because our lives are centered around music. Both interpretations of this maxim apply to my own life. Music has defined me ever since I picked up my saxophone for the first time, the summer before sixth grade. Deeper than that, I express my life through the medium of music, jazz and improvisation especially. Just listen to me play, and you'll hear my life force, the very core of my being.
American composer and pianist George Gershwin once said, “Life is a lot like Jazz...it's best when you improvise.” I have found this to be very true in my own life. Having a concrete, detailed plan that you are unwilling to change is one of the surest ways to guarantee the failure of that plan. Flexibility is one of the greatest abilities you can have. Changing your day's plans at a moment's notice, being able to drop everything and respond to a family emergency, deciding to eat dinner at a different restaurant; these are all ways we improvise in our everyday lives. It's all about problem solving. Throughout my life, I have built on my foundation of abilities to become adept at problem solving. This past spring I learned that I have ADHD, and the medication has helped me extraordinarily by increasing my ability to focus, which also enhances my memory. Before being diagnosed with this disorder, I still did well in school. I would cruise through my coursework with B's and B+'s, despite the fact that I would either forget to do assignments, or I would forget to turn in assignments that I had actually completed. It was the fact that I could get a very high score on the final exam that allowed me to pull off the occasional A-. I managed this by learning very early on how to take tests well. Even when I wasn't exactly sure of the answer, I could narrow it down and correctly guess the answer. Even now, after being on medication for my ADHD, I still have this set of skills to help me problem solve. In my everyday life, I've had situations where I've had to deal with both unexpected situations and unforeseen roadblocks in a plan. Being able to deal with sudden schedule changes while traveling with the band, finding rides when something comes up to detain my parents, managing my own schedule to fit in everything I want to do while still accomplishing everything I need to do, these are all ways I problem solve. I'm flexible. I roll with the punches. I improvise, and the skills needed to do so are invaluable to me.
Improvising and problem solving aren't the only life skills that pertain to jazz. Hard bop tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin was talking about overcoming hardships when he said, “Jazz is made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.” According to this adage, jazz and I were destined to come together. I have faced many hardships, and I have worked to overcome them. One such hardship came during the fifth grade, when I had my first encounter with death. Of course, I had seen dead people on television and in movies, but this was the first time death became personal. My grandmother passed away that year, after a long fight with breast cancer. At eleven years old, her death didn't really hit me. However, as I continued to grow, I wrestled with the questions we all face: Why? Why did she have to die? Why did she have to die now? Seven years later, I've come to terms with the fact that I won't be able to answer these questions until I face my Maker and ask Him myself. I overcame my grandma's death by accepting the fact that people do die, whether I approve or not. Other hardships, however, would be more difficult to overcome. The 2007-08 school year was not a good one. In June 2007, a close mentor and friend of mine from church, Janet Berkebile, passed away after outliving the normal timeline of pancreatic cancer. Her death hit many of us at church very hard, as pancreatic cancer is a very sudden and fast-acting disease. Our youth group started discussing life, death, and God's role in it all. The whole ordeal made me start questioning my faith and the beliefs I had grown up with and accepted as fact. Then in January 2008, my aunt, Pauline Rodriguez, died unexpectedly one night. She left behind her children Angela and Justin. The three of us have always been very close, being the oldest three cousins in our family. Justin and I are especially close: we're more like brothers than cousins. So, naturally, I took an active role in comforting the two of them and helping them through this extremely difficult part of their lives. No one is comforted by someone as broken as themselves however, so I put on my game face. I hid my heart behind a stone wall. I kept my emotions bottled up inside me for longer than is ever good. Those bottled emotions erupted in an incident in February 2008, an incident which I won't describe. The end result, however, was that I was diagnosed with ADHD. The combination of medication and finally releasing my emotions through counseling and confiding in several adults in my life was how I overcame the hardships that I had burdened myself with for so long. I showed further proof of my healing when I handled the untimely death of Kathy George, the mother of one of my close friends. Her death brought our church youth group closer together, as we all struggled out loud and together with the painful reality that those we love will die, and we have no control. This truism is one that everyone has to cope with. Those who can find life again and overcome the hardship are the ones who are happiest.
Problem solving and overcoming hardships are life skills that I use in my everyday life, but these are skills that can be learned or improved upon. My deeper, personal beliefs, however, are gained by experience rather than being taught; they are simply a part of who I am. The cornerstone jazz trumpeter Miles Davis said, “Do not fear mistakes, there are none.” He was referring to jazz improvising, but his statement runs parallel to one of my central beliefs: everything happens for a reason. This principle has gotten me through the hardships of my life: the aforementioned deaths of those close to me; the great moral debates I've had both with other people and my own self, over topics like abortion, the death penalty, and war; and the recent struggles of politics and our failing economy. Many of my beliefs are due to my upbringing in the Church of the Brethren, a Protestant, anabaptist denomination. We in the Church of the Brethren are pacifists, against war of all sorts, and supportive of conscientious objecting. I have been raised with these beliefs, and others that are widespread across Christianity. I think that the ideas you're raised with come easily and naturally a lot of the time. The belief that everything happens for a reason, however, did not come easily to me. Through my church, I was taught that God was the reason everything happens, that He knows everything that will happen in the world, down to each word I speak. I struggled a long time, and I still do, about the role played by God in my life. My youth group and I have discussed questions about His role in our lives, like the balance between the concept of free will and the idea that our lives are predestined. My view is this: we all have free will. We all make every choice that we're faced with, and we are entirely free to make each choice. I believe the idea of predestination fits in with that, maybe metaphorically, like God has a map with every choice we are faced with from birth, and each additional choice that those choices lead to. I believe that He sees it all, so He knows each of the infinite different paths our lives could take. We are free to make our choices, but it is God who laid out that map; it is God who presents us with each choice we face. This leads directly to my most central belief: the reason everything happens is God, who alone is perfect, and therefore there are no mistakes.
Problem solving, overcoming hardships, and the belief that nothing is a mistake; these key concepts and abilities of mine all connect back to music. Musicians improvise. They overcome. They do not fear mistakes. I, Tim Mastic, am a musician. Music is my life, and my life defines my music. Ornette Coleman, alto saxophonist and avant-garde innovator, once said, “It's the hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know. You feel this, you play this.” The things I feel and play are not only those that are hidden, but my abilities, my struggles, and my beliefs, along with my thoughts and feelings. I have been through a lot in my life, good and bad, and I look forward to experiencing more. My life has run a parallel route to that of my music, proving even more that what I play is my life. For as the phenomenal alto saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker said, “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.”
