Literacy Narrative By Brady Mullis We were driving home in our light purple Toyota Camry; I had just gotten

out of school on the first day of kindergarten. The radio was somewhat loud in the backseat, but I could hear it clearly enough to follow along. My brother Ryan, who was one year old at the time, was in his car seat to the right of me. He would follow along and dance to whatever music came on to the radio in a sloppy rhythm, but it was impressive for a one year old. These were my favorite times of the day, when we would sit in the car and listen to music on the radio, old and new, to and from anywhere we went. My mother was never one to drive without music blaring, even if she had someone in the car to talk to. She was a vocal major in college, she sang in my churchs choir, she tried to play piano, and she eventually went on to teach music for a while. She would always sing no matter what she was doing; but I never minded. To me, she had the voice of an angel, and I loved her singing. When she went to practice music in private, I would creep at the door of her room and crack it open to listen to her sing. She would notice me sometimes, and would invite me in to sit on her bed as she tried to figure out how to correctly sing the piece of music she possessed in her hand. To me, she was an idol. We continued listening to the music in the car, just having fun traveling to whatever destination lied before us. I remember a song was playing on the radio by the Foo Fighters, Everlong; I knew that this was one of my fathers favorite current songs. I

remembered what it was because he would listen to the Foo Fighters and Dave Grohls preceding band Nirvana all of the time. My father taught me about so many different bands throughout the history of Rock. He was almost obsessed with the bands, in a good way. It just amazed me with the knowledge he had of Rock n Roll. He would talk about his favorite bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, Metallica, Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, and many others. He told me how as a young child, through the help of his father and my grandfather, he formed a great musical love towards the King of Rock himself, Elvis Presley. My grandfather owned almost all of Elvis music on vinyl, and would play his soothing gospel every night to put my father to sleep, almost as a lullaby. My father learned his music in and out in the first seven years of his life. When the King died in 1977, it devastated my father, who had recently turned seven. He remembers watching memorial services and candle-lit gatherings in his honor for the next few days on his television set; he remembers that they were hauntingly beautiful. Though he had so much love for the man that redefined music, he had an unconditional love, a love which no musician or band could match, for the band that revolutionized the genre of Rock and influenced so many other musicians later on in music: The Beatles. The Beatles were by far his favorite, and he cherished their music. He has said this was the first band that his father did not mutually like with him, as he did not share the same affection for them as my father did. But my father loved them; he learned every song they had ever made, he knew about every band member, and he even sobbed uncontrollably when he learned that John Lennon had been shot to death in December of 1980. He still has many of their albums on vinyl sitting in our attic at home

and has multiple childhood posters sitting right next to them, always to be kept in his possession. My father passed his love for the greatest band of all time, in my opinion, down to me. He taught me everything I possibly needed to know about this amazing band; now at 18, I can gladly say that they are still my favorite band of all time and their music has greatly influenced most of my work today. I cherished the existence of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and still do. What they did in the music industry and for music in general is amazing. They cultivated the genre of Rock that Elvis had basically created; they were brilliant with the music they created. So when one of the Beatles songs appeared on the radio during that ride home, I became increasingly excited. The song was Ticket to Ride, one of the more famous and catchy Beatles songs out there. It was also one of my all-time favorites. I would listen to the Beatles music all of the time, songs like She Loves You, Twist and Shout, etc. But this one stood out among others to me though. For what reason, I have no idea. From an early age I had fallen in love with this song; I would listen to the song all the time, so much that my parents became increasingly annoyed by the simple tune of the song. I loved listening to that song constantly. But that day I realized something: out of all the times I listened to the songs, I had never actually learned the words to the song. My mom sat there knowing every single word, keeping in rhythm of the music perfectly. I was almost embarrassed sitting in the backseat just mouthing what I thought were the words to my favorite song, trying to make it look like I knew what they were. I looked in the window and I could see that the skin color on my face had changed to

bright red from the embarrassment I was now feeling in my body. I just didnt want my mom to notice that I had no idea what they were; that would be the end of me. I then started thinking to myself: how could I listen to that song so much and not even no but a few words to it? How could I have not memorized that song by this point? Something had to be done about the problem I was having. That car ride was the moment I realized that I was nowhere near a learner by ear, but I was a visual learner. I didnt define it by those terms specifically when I was a five year old, as I didnt know what it meant to be a visual or by ear learner; but I got the gist of what that meant. I understood that I learned a specific way though. So I put that visual style of learning to work as quickly as I could. Luckily my parents had the sheet music to the Beatles music; so I took it and began to examine lyrics and the strange symbols that were above them. I started memorizing the lyrics on the sheet to each Beatles song, starting with Ticket to Ride. I memorized and then matched them to the tunes of the corresponding song while playing them on our big living room stereo. Sometimes I would play the music too loudly in the common area of our three bedroom apartment, and my parents would get extremely agitated, especially when I would try to match how loudly they were singing. I was successfully able to memorize the lyrics to every Beatles song that we owned and had sheet music to in about a month. I had accomplished that at five, and at the time, I was so proud of myself. But even after learning all of those lyrics and finally being able to sing along to their songs, I had a new frustration I had to deal with and solve. I noticed a trend on every sheet of music: the strange symbols appeared over every lyric. I had no idea what they were or meant; they were these little dots with tails attached

to them either going up or down, or they were circles with the tails attached, or they were dots without any tails at all! What were these things? To say the least, they sparked my attention immediately. Like the lyrics of those songs, I had to know what they meant. Then I remembered that my mother studied music in college; she never told me this when I was a child, I had just overheard her talking to a friend of hers one da y about it. She could explain it to me, there is my solution! So I asked her about the symbols at lunch one day, and she told me everything my five year old brain could handle learning about them. I at one point got a little mad at her when she began talking to me like I was a baby; I know I was five, but I felt that at the time I was pretty mature for my age. I didnt need be talked to as a toddler, even though I had just left that stage of childhood. But besides the baby talk towards me, she explained to me exactly what I needed to know about the symbols. She explained that the symbols I had been looking at were the notes to the songs I was listening to. She told me that these notes on the page were the things that made the music, the sounds that each instrument played; these were what created and dictated music. This was somewhat mind blowing to me; I had no idea these little things on the lines above the lyrics were what created the sound I heard in every song I listened to. Now with this knowledge that was given to me, that these symbols actually meant something, I went into further research on my own. I started reading about them in childrens, and sometimes adults music-learning books. I discovered and decoded the meaning of each note, now understanding that this note was E and that this note was A. I was able to take that and follow along to the corresponding song and discover the notes in each song. My mother helped me to train myself to read the notes and follow them as if

they were a stair case, and match my voice to the way the flowed up and down on the sheet. I taught myself to sing along with the music following the stair case of notes, and I even taught myself how to find the pitch I had to be singing in; though at this point in my life, I had no idea what pitch was and that I had taught myself how to find it. Overall, it took me about six months to effectively know how to read sheet music. Though I did this very easily, I for some reason kept it to myself that I had taught myself how to read it; I dont know why I didnt tell anyone, I just didnt. My mother would have been so proud that a child my age, her child at that, had taught themself how to read sheet music. Though I honestly dont see it as that odd though; I taught myself how to read at the age of two, so this was just an advancement in my knowledge of literature. But to me this was very special. I had basically done this on my own, with some help from my mother. This was something extremely grown up that I had just solved on my own, and it made me feel more mature than I had ever felt before in my life. To me it was as impressive as becoming fluent in another language because it basically was another language. So I can say now that becoming so interested and having the perseverance to learn that second language fluently created a greater aptitude for expanding my literacy skills. It wasnt until much later in my life that I realized how much of an impact music in general had on my advancement in literacy. So I guess wanting to know the lyrics to Ticket to Ride and being embarrassed about not knowing them worked out greatly in the long run.