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Pollachioli 1

Pollachioli
Agosta TR 12:30, UWRT 1101
2/15/2015
The Music in my Head
The endless enigma of human creation is the most monumental factor that makes humans
unique. Humans, unlike any other living organism known to the scientific world, have developed
the ability to create visions and formulate ideas that are not right before our eyes. The presence
of dopamine in the human brain gives way to a whole new dimension of perception,
responsiveness, and thought that is only tangible to the basic standards of any other organism.
Our imaginations, our ability to lie, the concept of multiple minds in this world as identified by
Sigmund Freud, our ability to tell stories whether they were true or not, and the infinite
dimension of artistic creation is an endless and upwardly growing power that has given way to
the very beginning of our definition of intelligent life. This creation factor, which makes us so
unique, is the reason we have obtained the ability as a species to progress ourselves into more
and more forms of intelligence over the ages. In fact, the only factor of inward creation actually
present in any other being besides the human in the animal kingdom is the communication factor.
Besides an animals ability to communicate to others based on what is real, apparent, and
right in front of them (warning others of predators, tricking another species with a call as a
decoy for obtaining food) other animals do not have the ability to imagine and create stories.
What makes this human talent so amazing is that the ability itself has an infinite expansion. You
may have heard that the creation of the human mind is endless. Just dont try to imagine a new
color.

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Writing, music, theatre, dance, and any other form of art is the peak example of what our
abilities have come to. As a very intensive advocate of the arts, it is understandable as to why I
speak so highly of the upcoming of such human behavior over the stages of our race. Art has
changed my life in ways I could not explain without putting you to sleep, hurting your own
feelings, sending chills through your spine, and making you cry, and blowing your mind far
beyond concrete writing. Music in particular has shaped me more than anything else. Ever since
I have been a heavily-focused fan of music, about the 4th grade, I have seemingly wasted much of
my time doing nothing but pondering just how sounds could be put together to have such an
effect on our emotions. For the longest time, I had always thought that it was just something that
happened with no rhyme or reason; there was no science to it.
Besides my curiosity towards the mechanic of sound itself, I would always find myself
trying to understand why songwriters would write lyrics in their songs. What were they feeling?
What was the Stairway to Heaven? Who were The Trees in the song The Trees by Rush? 4th
grade Phillip simply could not ignore what actually drove musicians to write what they wrote,
which would explain my hate for love songs. What grew this curiosity of background, poetic
meanings was when I actually I obtained the satisfaction of correctly figuring out what a writers
poetry meant.
In the 6th grade, I remember a couple of my friends talking about how random and stupid
the words to the song Handlebars by Flobots. Coincidentally, I had just learned in social
studies about the Cold War and the effects of communism, as well as reading the book The

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Giver in Language Arts. It had come to me, after reconsidering the lyrics and taking into
consideration all of the things I had recently learned in school, that the song was about
communist control. I tried to explain this to my friends, and they all laughed. To them, there was
simply no reasonable connection. Before I became discouraged, I suggested that we all looked it
up. Countless web pages had eerily similar meanings I was right! This blew my mind in ways
I cannot explain. I couldnt stop there. I had, on my own, deciphered one of the most
metaphorical meanings of a song that I ever had in my entire years of interest.
This first step was what began a very long phase of my urge to understand the symbolism
within another persons writing. From my 6th grade to about senior year was a time in which my
poetic/literary understanding flourished. I remember the satisfaction of impressing the class
when I was able to identify symbolic devices in literature, and classmates amusement with my
intuitiveness. Though, during this time, my curiosity still irked over the creation of harmonies
and the connection of sound, I had not made much progress regarding the actual mechanics of
music.

I picked up guitar for the first time in the 8th grade, after Holly Ridge Middle had opened
up a guitar class. Sadly, this class was simply another way of trying to teach kids how to read
music, and for some reason, I could not grasp it. It bored me so much that I stopped playing
guitar after the class, learning nothing but Ode to Joy and a few easy classic rock songs on my
own time on the electric guitar. I didnt pay attention to actually playing music again until early

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sophomore year in high school, where I became more interested in playing the acoustic guitar
than anything.
Learning acoustic came so much easier to me. After learning the basic, relevant chords, I
found myself being able to play more and more songs. They sounded correct, and I realized that
notes started to correlate with the chords, landing on top of each other, and harmonizing at the tip
of my fingers. I had never seen chord progressions as a foundation for the notes being played. I
always assumed that the geniuses that could write music just wrote two separate pieces of music
that could exist together with no rhyme or reason. I also began to notice that certain chords
tended to exist with one another, and that certain chords would make an ugly sound when I tried
to fit into the mix. Still, I could not understand why it just didnt sound good to play a B major
with C major, G major, D major, and E minor, or even why those chords did fit together. I knew
what keys were, I just didnt know how they worked.
But whatever a key was, I began to notice that my lousy singing had gotten better when I
started to use the same patterns, jumps, and runs to familiar songs. I became pretty fluent at
hitting the same notes of your average run-of-the-mill pop/buzz rock song. During this
development, I had realized that those notes, fit on top of those same common chords (if youve
ever heard of the four chord phenomenon), G, C, D, and E minor. My singing only got better
from there, and it wasnt too long after that when I finally began to be able to sing and play
guitar at the same time. My family and neighbors started asking me to play for them more, and
my passion for creating music had gone further.

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Songwriting was something that puzzled me from the moment I had learned how to write.
Through my younger years I was always pretty fluent with poetry, but correctly expressing my
inner thoughts in the reverence of how classic rock artist idols had always portrayed their own
thoughts was seemingly impossible. Even if I managed to get some restricted, limited form of
my thoughts onto paper, I could never match music with it. I couldnt write music.
I remember my uncle Joel attempting to help me out at my grandparents beach house in
Oak Island, North Carolina. Seeing that he is a respected folk singer in the Louisville area, I
thought I could use is guidance. Whats something thats worth writing about? (we both agreed
to skip love songs as a whole). I finally decided that I should be able to write a song about my
appreciation for my home (North Carolina), as I recalled the feeling I got after landing back in
Raleigh after being away for a month and a half in South Florida. His next step is where I was
stumped; Okay, how does it make you feel? This is probably from a personal tick, but I have
always been picky with poetry growing up. I simply couldnt find the words. I kept worrying
about how it would sound, and how I would create the sound. Nothing came to my mind, and the
project came to a halt with another unwritten attempt at creation. I became discouraged with the
fact that I was incapable of songwriting.
I just didnt get it. How could I interpret, relate, and decipher the deepest of someones
emotions of a songwriter that I had never met in my entire life, and somehow not be able to
channel mine in the same respect? Was I raising my expectations? Was I starting to fast?
I was comforted, though I could not produce what my mind had an endless myriad of
onto paper, with the fact that I had at least gotten substantially talented at not just playing, but
performing music for others. I received a job at a local deli in Holly Springs, North Carolina,
named DAndreas, owned by my friend Giovanna DAndreas family from New York. The job

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was a Friday night entertainer. I couldnt believe that I was actually hired to sing and play guitar
for people. During this period, I became better and more consistent with my singing, and
understanding the difference between the art that I appreciate, and what the general public
actually wants to hear. I played popular covers that satisfied different demographic groups of
customers for about 4 months. However, it had gone over my head, every customers head, and
even the staff, that I wasnt legally allowed to play other peoples music. I had to play my own
music in order to keep the job.
My senior year is when this complex became even more unfair and confusing. I noticed
that I was excelling in literature, understanding symbolism, and deciphering deeper meanings
that would previously of gone over my head. I could credit some of this growing ability to my
first two weeks of the first semester, before I switched out of the class, in AP Literature. The first
two weeks of this class was enough for me to grasp the concept of correlating story lines,
common themes in historical literature, and how they all relate to each other (Im sure youve
heard of the phrase there is only one story).
It became too easy. In the class that I dropped AP Literature to switch into, Honors
English IV, we were assigned to read two books at once, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and
Frankenstein. Our teacher, Mrs. Eagle, told us beforehand that we will not be tested, but
instead have a seminar after both books have been read. We had daily discussions based on the
chapters we were supposed to read, and I had paid close attention to each lecture. By the time the
seminar was at hand, Mrs. Eagle announced that anyone could receive a 100% if they could
prove that they read and understood the books completely. However, one person from each class
would receive a score of 110% for being recognized as the King or Queen of the seminar.

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I won this title. What nobody (besides my friends) knew; I had not read a single page of
either book. Just through class discussions about the chapters, I was able to identify and prove
that the monsters in Frankenstein, as well as Mr. Hyde, were symbolic representations of the ageold hostility of inevitable corruptness in all man. When I compared the evil side of Dr. Jekyll
to the evil of the apple of the Garden of Eden, Mrs. Eagle jumped out of her seat, and began to
clap. I was surprised to have been so accurate in what you could consider as winging it I
didnt even read the book. I always found reading boring

After my first couple of weeks in my first semester in college, I found myself urging once
again to get a grasp on the art of songwriting. When I moved from Raleigh to Charlotte, I had
separated from a girl who I cared very much about. Although I was tough and confident about
the break-up for the first couple weeks, I finally had an emotional breakdown. I was just casually
drinking with of my two roommates, and couldnt seem to get her out of my head. I started
crying, and sat in my room in silence.
Music began playing in my head. No words. It had rather bluesy, sad sound to it. It kind
of sounded like The Ballad of Curtis Lowe by Lynynrd Skynyrd. This music that I created in
my head, I realized, was a direct response to my emotions. Better yet, I knew what basic chords
were playing to create the foundation of the music in my head. I picked up my guitar, and played
those chords over a loop and recorded it on my phone. After that, I had realized that I could hear
myself singing to it, as if there was supposed to be lyrics there already. I brought out my
notebook

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Red eyes, still Im prepared for more
It aint the way that youre speaking to me, but the way we spoke before
I wont lie, I dont always got an open door
But before the liquor Id say I dont love ya, after Im not so sure

Guess its true youre a little too hard to hate


Funny how I think about you whenever I cant think straight

Go ahead and feel the burn


It only numbs me til you cross my mind
May be a mess, its none of your concern
Strong enough to walk, but not in a straight line
So whyd the bottle have to act so kind?
Coming down, Ill probably crash and burn
Ill come back to you in a not so straight line

My words are slurred but my message is so clear, yeah


Id put down the bottle if only you were here

I had finally built enough familiarity with a combination of chords to actually sing to it
and create my own melodies. Somehow I did it drunk. Better yet, I did it out of sheer emotion.
What came off my fingers and onto tear-covered notebook paper was nothing but what how I
truly felt and though the endless enigma of my human mind could never be 100% satisfied by
concrete words, for the first time in my life, I wrote music. It sounded correct, everything
sounded in key. The music sounded as melancholy as I was. The satisfaction was indescribable.
And it doesnt end there what made this first-time occurrence so beautiful; it made me feel

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better. It didnt make me forget about my emotions, but instead made me relieved and
appreciative of them. It was like I got something off of my chest, but nobody was there to hear it.
It didnt matter. I was a real songwriter. And not one of those cheap ones that writes about the
same three topics because it rhymes and its what people want to hear, no. I was a real
songwriter, writing out and channeling my real emotions, into real art. And still, I did not
understand how it worked. There was still more music in my head besides the chords that I could
not figure out how to play on the guitar. However, I was happy, happy from sadness.
About half-way through the semester, I met my current roommate (I moved from Martin
Hall to Sanford Hall), Jesse. I began to leave one of my guitars at his dorm, and jamming with
him became a regular basis event. Though our jam sessions were very simple covers at first (it
takes more musical knowledge to just play with another and not create dissonance), we soon
became more coherent of each other. Jesse began to teach me scales and keys, and how you can
play any scale that fits into a key. As he started to show me how to solo off of a key, I noticed
that he was playing in the key of E, or also known as C# Minor. What struck me was that it was
the same key as my song Straight Lines. I learned both the E and C#m scales, and messed
around for only short minute before discovering the sad, whiney riff that I had heard in my head
all along. It was like finding the right words. But better. It was the right sound. The correct,
accurate, unexplainable phenomenon in my head was at the tips of my fingers.
I had finally gained the ability to understand how music works. What scale makes
something sound so sad, and what scale could make the same song sound happy. This is the same
exact form of literacy that has irked my curiosity since the fourth grade. For the first time in my
life, I had a grasp on the product of my own artistic imagination I could outwardly channel
what was created by my emotions.

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Dear Rebecca Agosta,
At first I was skeptical over just about everything I wrote and how much I wrote of it, but
I feel this is a good place for my paper to be at. Yes, this may say page 10 at the top (though this
is the cover letter), but dont let that discourage you. All that happened was that somebody gave
me something to write about. Sometimes its going to take you until page 9 to feel satisfied.
Sometimes youll delete three of those pages after you run over it again. But for what its worth,
just get it onto paper. Remember what Richard Manus said:
It may be lousy stuff. But it is there, and I can make it better tomorrow. I
have done something worthwhile with my day.

During this process, Ive been learning how to channel my thoughts, organize my points,
and accustom my writing to the readers interest more efficiently with every time I run over the
writing. You may have an extra four pages worth of writing, but as long as you learn how to
make each thought count and contribute to your writing, it is not wasted. I am still working, but
improving, making sure each thought is a vital contribution to my writing, even though its tough
with the amount of material I still left out. This will help me when Im genuinely trying to keep
everything I wrote about. Find the stories of least importance to shorten, and take out the fluff of
my blown up passages, such as the ending. Of course, I only see these stories as vital importance
as the writer. I would like to understand more about what needs to stay and what needs to go in
my writing. I am still not 100% sure if my writing if too fluffed, or if I genuinely gave myself a
lot to write about, keeping in mind that I was writing about two literacies at once.
Sincerely,
Phillip Pollachioli

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