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It's so beautiful in Hollywood today. The world is glittering with gold, and yellow streamers of sunlight wind through the tree boughs like God was throwing a party! And what makes today even more beautiful? It's my birthday! But there's more: I've decided to use the gifts that God gave me and produce an album of my original songs. It'll be a while before the record is complete, but I'd like to invite you into my world as everything comes together. For those of you who don't know me, let me paint you a little picture. For starters, I was home schooled as a kid, and I spent as much time reading Tolstoy and writing short stories as other kids did watching TV and going to regular school. I didn't have a TV in the house, so I wrote lots of plays and forced my sister and brother to act in them. I collected insects. I held High Tea parties. And I concocted get-rich schemes, like, ah, kidnapping neighborhood cats and collecting the reward money. Yup. But good old mom put a stop to that one before I could get things off the ground. :) I played the piano, too, of course, and man did I love that piano! From the first time I sat down to one, I was hooked. I played every day, for hours on end, and it was my love of music that got me where I am today. Well, that, and the fact that I had a crush on Beethoven. Yeah, I know that's kind of weird, having a crush on a dead German guy and all, but I thought maybe he could see me from heaven whenever I was sitting at the piano. I wasn't sure, of course, but at 12, it was good motivation to practice. Fortunately for me, my Beethoven strategy worked - well. I was soloing with my first US symphony at age 11, barely a year after sitting down to a piano for the first time ever and miraculously knowing how to play it. No one had to tell me I was good; I knew it; and knowing it gave me the kind of confidence very few kids, or adults, ever get to feel. I knew as early as my eleventh birthday that I was going to succeed as a musician. I just had to stay focused. Although I was confident as a child in my ability to play the piano, it took longer for me to get comfortable with my abilities as a singer, because I could tell my voice was different than everybody else's. Luckily, I found out that a distinctive voice is what makes certain artists truly stand out, and I came to embrace my uniqueness. But not everyone embraced it with me, especially when I was a teenager. When I was in high school, I would practice in the auditorium during lunch hour every day, and afterward a group of three or four girls would follow me out of the building to tell me how much I sucked. They pulled my hair, threw water bottles at me, and twice we even came to blows. I cried more than once because of how mean they were, but I didn't let anyone know. I just kept on singing, and I kept on playing, and I kept on writing songs, even though I was harassed because of it, and assaulted. I believed in myself because I had to. The mean girls would hit me, call me names, emotionally abuse me, whatever you want to call it. I didn't like it; in fact, it made me really angry. But the music only burned hotter in my soul because of it, and I could not turn my back. Of course, I eventually learned how to hit back, and later, how to hire a lawyer, but for years, I would throw myself into my music every time incidents like these occurred. I would practice my ass off until I got ridiculously good. The meaner people were, the harder I worked. The harder I worked, the better I got. I'm not in high school anymore, so I don't have to deal with that kind of juvenile adversity. But I did go through it, and I learned to use it to my advantage. It was hard being the subject of ridicule, but it gave me a thick skin and ultimately made me stronger. Aspiring artists, take note! Don't view criticism or cruelty as hurtful weapons that can weaken you; view them as obstacles you have to overcome on your journey towards your destiny. Mean people are like exercise equipment. If you know how to use them properly, they will sculpt you into the ultimate version of yourself. Now I have a huge challenge ahead of me as far as this demo is concerned. I've got to take a lifetime of piano playing, and an special but untrained voice, and make something out of it. So wish me luck, folks, and thank you for taking a step into my world. I am honored to share my music and my life with you. Musically Yours, Christine
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