Music And Me

 Hello :) I'm Logan. I'm a sophomore residential student at Converse studying Music Performance on French Horn with a minor in Arts Administration. I started piano lessons at age 11 with my best friend's (Sam's) mom, and cello was actually my primary instrument before horn. I made the switch around 10th grade to focus more on horn. 

Before I moved to Spartanburg for school I lived in Seneca. I'm trying to move here move here, like in an apartment as soon as possible. For now, though, I have a 13 year old sister, Maddie, that I really enjoy hanging out with. I also have a gray cat named Athena that sleeps with me every night I'm home. I love her she's like my best friend in the world. 

1. My go to music: 

This actually tends to catch people by surprise for some reason, but my top artist on Spotify since I got it has been Lil Darkie. I'm in the top 0.1% of his listeners. In his music he talks about his battles with substance abuse, mental disorders, as well as societal issues like income inequality and racism. He's been very controversial in some cases because he commonly says things such as "f*** your culture" and people tend to misinterpret that. To him, that means that we're all human and shouldn't be separated by things such as skin tone or cultural differences. 

Most importantly though, this is my go to gym music because a lot of his stuff has no meaning other than it's just fun. Here's my favorite song to run to, and there's a music video with it (yay): 

 Here's another one that fits into his more heavy-themed music with actual meaning behind it, some may have seen it on TikTok, it was one of his popular ones. He also makes all of his music videos himself and has been getting into claymation recently, so this ones a really cool music video. 

2. Music that's meaningful/ June Henry: 

I've been listening to this especially recently, because put simply, it's January, and I'm cold and sad and lonely all the time during this month. June Henry is also a trans (nonbinary?) person and focuses on those types of themes in their music a lot. There's a song, Void Adjacent, that talks about especially the frustrations of the dating world as a transgender individual, which I can relate to and find comfort in music about this issue that not many people understand. 

This song, not abt, also stands out for this reason. A lot of the lyrics stand out like "I live my life like it's a movie someone's watching". . . "I'm the only one watching the movie." or "When my body was so distant, belonged to me like an instrument. Not something that I was, but what I played." I'm not sure if those are common things to resonate with, but with the lyrics coming from another trans person it makes me feel very connected to the part of me that I try to hide for safety purposes so often. Especially recently so since I've been in my hometown so much. 

3. Music that I don't like: 

This one was tricky to find, but I remember absolutely hating playing this one violin concerto with the wind ensemble and just searched everywhere and finally found it. I really just can't get around contemporary music like this that's not meant to go with anything. Like had this been in the background of a film or something, sure, great, whatever it sets a theme. The fact that we really just sat there and played this though? I don't think I remember a single person having a positive experience with this piece. 

4. Bonus, David Vandelay!

I wanted to add this in, but this guy actually graduated from the Governor's School in 2023. Although I never actually got to go to Govie, I was very close with a lot of the instrumental students that graduated with him, so we have a lot of common friends. Currently, I think he's living in Spain studying music, and he still releases songs when he has the time to. It's good music too :).