Joseph Robert Dixon
2013 Graduation Class of Orchard View High School
Muskegon, Michigan
my grandson

Joe playing  with the Orchard View High School  jazz band  in Hastings Michigan
2012

2012 Joe singing with me at
Cowboy Jim’s

Essay

When I think of culture, I think of music.  Growing up, I realized that music had a unique part in my life.  Both of my uncles from my mother’s side are in a Christian rock band and my grandmother can play any instrument with strings.  On my father’s side, music is a little different.  It is classic rock all the time.

 

"You could sing before you could speak," is what my mother told me.  I think this is a great example of how much music affected me before I even realized it.  I never really listened to the same kind of music as everyone else my age.  When other kids were listening to music and hip hop and rap, I listened to bluegrass and country.

 

I dreamt of many different careers; musician, scientist, musician, actor, journalist, musician. No matter how exciting a new aspiration was, I always went back to musician.  Music is also the one career choice that I have always known my family supports.

 

I have always enjoyed performing.  When I was little I begged my parents to take me to karaoke.  I decided to learn how to play an instrument in middle school and found there were other people like me; other people who loved and understood music.  By my freshman year, only a few people remained, and I realized that these people were my closest friends.  We could always tell how each other felt based on how we played, we had our own language, we were understood.

 

For me, culture is equivalent to music.  I don't listen to the same music as everyone else.  I have never truly wanted to be anything except a musician, and I use music as a means of communication.  I was born into a legacy of music and I embraced it!

 

Joseph Robert Dixon