I cannot remember a life without music. Whether it’s a mic in my hand or an old tape recorder perched on a nearby table, sweetly scorned with layered recordings of random songs I created – it has always been there. Music always made sense to my soul, my inner core. It gave me the space to wrestle with what I could never understand yet needed the freedom to feel my way through. Music also showed me others and the world beyond my own. It could hold stories with no words, or have the best cadenced lyrics in rhythm to echo cultures and ethnicities surrounding its formation.
Now, I could go on and on and wax poetic. I didn't just love music, I studied it. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Music for Vocal Performance and I have more than 25 years of experience in performance and formative settings. I like to nerd out. But at the end of the day, I just love music.
I have also written in this column before to share how music informed my growth as an educator. Music brought my teaching to life whether I was teaching the art of vocal or chorale performance to budding adult performers, or math and science to my second graders. It’s the language of the heart and it just works for the whole person.
Music drenched my motherhood as well. Whether my kids were learning how to tie their shoes or share, I had a melody to pair with it. I had a song for everything – almost literally:
Learning to spin in a circle? I have a song.
Learning to have patience with others? I have a song.
Taking a nap? I have a song.
Going to bed? I have a song.
Not eating toilet paper? I have a song.
The list can get more weird and it does, indeed, go on.
Because of this, it's no surprise that my children create songs or can pick up on music made in the western hemisphere within 15 seconds, and then have ideas of grandeur of what could come next in their version. Music was another language in our home. It drew something from them then and as they continue through their teen years.
Music does this, as does all the arts. Whether it is performing, visual, literary or architectural arts, in the beginning it is the thing that you don’t have to be good at to really be a great addition to life and growth.
I will say that it is easy to let life become this noise-cancelling force to sounds you want to hear – like music. It’s easy to just stop singing or exploring rhythmic sounds and replace them with laundry or tears for the fact that there is so much laundry.
Can I get an amen?
In 2021, post-quarantine, I remember standing near the front of the stage at Miami Theater Center of Miami Shores. There was a buzz in the room of people mingling and exiting as two women approached me. One was a dear friend in town to say hello, and to introduce me to someone who would become one of my dear sisters, Shekinah Ball. Her smile was bright and her demeanor coy, but her confidence was clear.
We chatted briefly as the house playlist cheered on the conversations in the room. We talked about mutual friends, cities we both knew, and family ties, but nothing could truly mark the moment I learned about her love for music. That love was sparked by her grandfather and nurtured by her high school, local legend-band director and mentor, Dr. Richard Beckford (Carol City High, Blanche Ely High, and Florida Memorial University). Over time we became friends through real life moments, and I witnessed her cling to her convictional hope in God and love for music.
Our friendship continued to grow through the reemergence of normalcy of the world, and then she announced she was returning to school to get her doctorate in the field of music. She honed her craft at the University of Memphis, all while weathering “real adulting,” largely through her love for music and culture, and became the second Black woman in the world to obtain a Doctorate of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) in Trombone performance.
Witnessing her growth as an educator-performer and a woman has been breathtaking, all because music is just great and it's worth it. My girls have known her all this time and find inspiration in her commitment to her arts and to herself, to fight for growth and exploration of what has been and what can be made in loving the arts while still living real life.
If you are wondering, this is a shameless plug for the arts. We need them in schools, recreational programs and society. I believe we need it at home most of all. The arts let life be messy, yet still be traced. You get to see colors, movements, and sounds as a part of a creation to be honored, rather than something to be condemned or controlled. Maybe we can see our lives more in this way, just as I was able to witness the growth of my friend and fellow performer. Life is enriched when we share the journey toward growing.
I’m grateful to artistic educators, family, and friends that keep the arts loud in our lives. Whether you draw stick figures, produce with Grammy Award-winning artists, or do odd dance moves in your kitchen, keep the arts alive to echo how and where you are growing with your friends and family.
Diamone Ukegbu is a local Little Haiti artist, creative, teacher, mom and wife who is in the throes of raising three children while trying to keep her sanity.
