From the Mind of a Musician
I know what you're thinking. "Oh great, another blogger who thinks she's hilarious and somehow uniquely different than all the other hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed writers on the interwebz." But don't be fooled. You see, I don't blog for you. I blog for me.
When I think about the things I'm passionate about, a lot comes to mind. I'm passionate about music, business, cats, smashing the patriarchy, social justice, 90s cartoons, guava juice, Ferrero Rocher (seriously have you had that stuff? It's like crack for fully grown adults with too much disposable income) and so much more. You're probably wondering who the heck I am and what the heck I'm doing here. So let's start from, well, the start! My name is Aamina Ali, and I'm a lot of things, chief among them, a musician with a whole lot of opinions on music, the world, and the little things. When my mom was pregnant with me, she told me that when she turned on music, I would start kicking. I thought I was pretty special for that, until I met someone else who told me that all babies react to music that way. But I'm not so sure about that, so I'm just going to continue thinking that that makes me somehow uniquely different than all the other hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed musicians out there.
When I was 5 years old, I had this little toy keyboard, just 16 keys or so, nothing fancy, but enough of a keyboard to play simple tunes on. Of all the toys I had, that one was by far my favorite. I used to be able to pick up on melodies fairly quickly, and eventually when I got older, my mom bought me my first Casio keyboard, and then a few years later, my first Yamaha keyboard (Yamaha > Casio). Like any good musician will attest to, having musical influences is extremely important and shapes not only your taste in music, but also your playing styles, techniques, and expressions. Well I grew up on 90s music, so I think it's safe to say I was influenced by good music from an early age. I honestly feel bad for kids these days, because they will never understand the immense feeling of joy you get when you hear "TELL ME WHYYY AINT NOTHIN BUT A HEARTACHEEEE." (Backstreet Boys > Nsync)..seriously, I'm prepared to dedicate a blog post to this debate.
ANYWAY. I should warn you that I get side tracked easily. Which is interesting because my professional background is actually in business. Yup, that's right - a musician who is not a total right-brained hippie. In fact, when I was in college, I often felt like I had two identities. I had the business identity - which was professional, hard working, organized, ambitious, and confident. My classmates were always surprised when they learned I played piano, or that I was minoring in music. "Music AND business? Now that's an interesting combination!" Is it really though? Look at every single famous musician, ever. Didn't they make money? Didn't they market themselves, sell their records, and create brands for themselves? The idea that being musical and being business-minded are mutually exclusive just seemed ridiculous to me. Then there was my musician-identity, and that was an entirely different persona than the business identity. Musician-Aamina didn't care about rules, or practicality. Musician-Aamina would spend hours playing the piano at the student union, even though there was a big finance exam the next day that she knew she would probably fail if she didn't study for. Musician-Aamina was free-spirited, creative, open-minded, laid back, scatterbrained, passionate, emotional, real. Other musicians would be shocked to learn I had a degree in business - "Music AND business? Now that's an interesting combination!" But it's really not. In fact, music, in its elements, is highly complex, highly mathematical, highly calculated, and, to some extent, highly organized.
The business-Aamina worked hard, while the musician-Aamina played hard. To this day, nothing has changed. And that's exactly where Aambiance Music was born from. At the same time that I decided to launch a website, I had been contemplating starting a blog. Like I said, I have a lot of opinions, and I love writing, and that's all it really takes to be a blogger, right? Wrong. I think it takes a lot more, but I already told you, I'm writing this for me, not for you.
My graduation cap...there's a reason I didn't go to art school. Go Blue!
So if you like what you've heard so far, and you're still reading this, there's a good chance you'll like my future thoughts. I'll be talking about a lot of things, from my favorite albums and artists, to providing suggested playlists, to analyzing songs, to community highlights of local musicians, to random rants about 90s cartoons, and whatever else I feel like writing about because it's a free country and I can do whatever I want. JK, only straight white men can do that.
Welcome to Aambient Thoughts - no filters, no bullshit, just 100% real, authentic thoughts from the mind of a self-proclaimed musical prodigy AKA millennial musician.
Aamina Ali is a musician, dreamer, and founder of Aambiance Music, a service dedicated to providing aural aesthetics to enhance event experiences. Learn more about Aambiance Music at aambiancemusic.com.
