Music personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

The moment that fixed my interest in studying Music was rehearsing Holst's Second Suite in F with my county wind band. I had played the clarinet part for weeks without hearing how the folk tunes were stitched together, until our conductor asked the lower brass to play their line alone and then added the woodwind countermelody on top. Suddenly the piece was not a wall of sound but a set of decisions somebody had made. I wanted to understand the reasoning behind those decisions, and I wanted the vocabulary to describe them.

Since then my curiosity has widened beyond the wind band repertoire. In A-level Music I have worked on Baroque harmony and on popular song, and I have been struck by how often the same problems recur in different clothing: how to create expectation, how to delay resolution, how much repetition an audience will tolerate before it becomes tedious. Analysing the bass line of a Purcell ground alongside a loop-based track I like made me realise that harmonic pattern is not a historical curiosity but a working tool. I read Nicholas Cook's Music: A Very Short Introduction, which pushed me to think about music as something people do in particular places rather than only as notated objects, and that idea has shaped how I listen to the choir I sing in as much as to recordings.

A degree appeals to me because it would let me keep performance, composition and academic study in the same week rather than choosing between them. I want to write for ensembles and then sit in rehearsals discovering what I got wrong about balance; I want to study music from traditions I know little about, including the Afghan music my grandfather listened to, which I can recognise but cannot yet analyse. Longer term I am drawn towards teaching and community work, and I think both depend on understanding music properly rather than simply enjoying it.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

My A-levels in Music, Maths and English Literature have proved unexpectedly complementary. Music has given me the technical core: four-part harmony, set works from Bach to film scores, and the discipline of writing about pieces with evidence from the score rather than impressions. My harmony exercises improved sharply once I stopped guessing chords and started checking voice leading bar by bar, a habit of methodical checking that came straight from Maths.

Maths has been more useful than I expected. Working with sequences and functions made rhythmic augmentation and diminution feel intuitive, and proof-writing trained me to build an argument in order, which is exactly what an analytical essay requires. English Literature has been the strongest influence on my writing. Studying poetry closely, especially how metre and line endings control pace, taught me to attend to small structural choices and to justify readings without overstating them. I now approach an unfamiliar score somewhat as I approach an unseen poem: identify the shape first, then ask what the details are doing within it.

For my A-level composition I wrote a piece for clarinet, cello and piano based on a repeated five-note figure. Drafting it taught me the difference between an idea and a piece: my first version stated the figure eleven times with no development, and my teacher's questions about contrast forced me to build a middle section in a distant key. I also took on the optional extra of learning basic notation software properly, which meant I could give my players clean parts.

Beyond the syllabus I have taught myself piano to around Grade 5 standard, mainly to support my harmony work, and I attend a weekly aural group at college. I keep a notebook of listening, with a short paragraph on each new piece, which has made me more confident discussing repertoire I have not performed.

What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

Music outside the classroom has taken up most of my week for several years. I play second clarinet in a county wind band, which has meant weekly rehearsals, two residential courses and the experience of blending rather than leading. I also sing alto in a community choir with members from their teens to their seventies, where I am often the youngest in the section and have had to learn my part reliably because the tenors rely on us for pitch.

Last summer I spent a week work-shadowing a community music leader who runs sessions for a local arts organisation. My role was practical and supervised: I carried and set out percussion, checked which instruments were clean and usable, handed out song sheets and sat in on sessions taking notes on what she asked me to watch. In a care home I watched her choose songs from the 1950s and 60s and then simplify her own accompaniment when several residents wanted to sing without a fixed tempo. In a primary school session I helped a group of Year 2 children keep a clapped pattern going while she worked with another group. Afterwards she talked me through why she had changed her plan halfway through, and I wrote up what I had learnt about pacing and about giving instructions in as few words as possible. I was there to observe and assist, but that week changed how I think about the purpose of musical skill.

I have a Saturday job in a bakery, serving customers and closing down the shop floor. It is unglamorous but it has taught me to stay pleasant when it is busy, to handle money accurately and to work in a small team where jobs get shared without being asked. At home I help my younger brother with his maths homework twice a week while our parents are at work.

For relaxation I run a modest amount, usually three times a week, and I have recently started learning to bake bread properly at home, which is slower and more interesting than I expected. Both give me a break from practice without making me feel I have stopped working.

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