Grace's Dream

Hi, I’m Grace Card, I am a freshman in highschool, and playing flute is my passion. I’ve been surrounded by and have played music all my life, and I very much enjoyed the activities my parents put me into, but I hadn’t felt passionate enough about it to start pursuing music until 6th grade. When starting 6th grade, I got to choose if I wanted to be a member of the Woodland Wildcat Middle School Band or not, and I whimsically chose yes. With the aid of Mrs. Gaspardo, the band director at the school, I tried a few instruments. I already knew going into that room that I wanted to play flute, no matter what she said to me. I tried trumpet, clarinet, oboe, and flute. I made a sound out of all of them quite easily, except for flute. Mrs. Gaspardo insisted I played trumpet, but I wanted to play flute, so I chose flute. As soon as I got my very own flute, I was so happy and excited to start playing my instrument. It was rough at first, but since I already knew how to read music it got easier. At the beginning of 7th grade year, I got my audition music for district honor band. District honor band is a group of musicians who auditioned to learn music together for a weekend and perform as a group. After a bunch of hard work, and a confident audition, I got in. Not only that, but I got recommended for All-state tryouts. As a 7th grader, I knew my chances were very slim of getting into All-state, but I would try my hardest anyway. I did not get into all-state, but I was happy with the work I put into it. I got better for trying. District band was so much fun and challenging, I was surrounded with people who had the same passion as me and worked hard to get here. Around Easter, I joined my church’s orchestra. It is a group of musicians who play for the service’s Sunday mornings. There weren’t many members; 3 trumpets and 1 saxophone, but I thought it would be fun anyway. For church orchestra, music comes in and out very quickly, you learn multiple songs Wednesday and then perform that Sunday. Playing in church orchestra extremely developed my sight-reading skills. At the beginning of 8th grade, I again got my audition excerpts. I practiced really hard that year, extremely hard. When audition results came out, I got first chair. First chair is like getting first place in a race. I again got recommended to try out for All-State. I thought I had a better chance this year, a strong audition. I didn’t make All-State that year. I was sad a first, but there was nothing I could do about it but practice harder. Around the end of 8th grade year I noticed my screws liked to unscrew themselves. I had to screw them back at least once every 3 days. I didn’t think much of it at first, I thought it was normal. Starting band camp for high school, that’s when it started to become a problem. I had to keep a screwdriver in my pocket on the field in case my flute broke on me. At first I thought it was me, but my tonality has always been a weaker point for me. When I played it sounded a little airier than it should be, and me and my conservatory teacher tried a multitude of things to help it, but nothing seemed to work. My low notes would come out airy and my high notes would come out unclear. About a week later I asked her about what kind of flute I should look into. I knew my family couldn’t afford it, but I asked anyway. She said that she was selling a flute and she could bring it in the next week for me to try. The next week, she brought her flute. When I played on it I was extremely delighted. All my notes came out clearer and more resonant. It wasn’t perfect, but you could tell it was phenomenally better than my tone on my original flute. I played both instruments back to back and was astonished to how different they both sounded and felt. When I play every day, I am happy, but when I played on that flute, I was excited. I sounded, better. After practicing, she gave me a paper that I had been dreading, it showed the price of the flute. The flute was $3,700. I took the sheet and put it in my folder, I was going to show my parents anyway. When I showed my parents, they were sad for me, we can’t afford this flute. It’s my dream to sound magical on this instrument and inspire others to pursue music too. Every dollar counts, and I am asking you to donate to my dream.