Hello! I am a 16 year old artist!

Except...am I really?

My dream job since I was very very little has always been to be a singer. I grew up poor (and with, to be frank, not rlly supportive parents), so naturally I couldn't take lessons, but I've been singing since my very very early years. My mom even says that I was singing before I could even really talk. Music has always been an important part of my life, especially growing up. When playing dolls I'd create stupid little songs for them to sing in talent shows.

Along with growing up around music and singing, I grew up shy. Obviously the two didn't mix, leading me to never sing in front of others and usually only humming to myself or saving it for when I'm home. Around 4th grade there was a talent show, and I signed up to sing a song, but got scared and ended up doing shitty gymnastics for the talent show. This shyness continued until around middle school, when I joined chorus. I was told I was pretty good, especially being self-taught. But once I sang a solo and heard someone whispering i quickly clammed up once again, not singing by myself until high school.

I'm now a junior in high school, who has never taken a music class other than guitar and chorus only THIS year (and middle school.) I've been thinking about what I want to do and how I should go about it. I could apply to a school for vocal technique, but usually that includes opera singing or classical kind of music which isn't something I want to do.

A few interests have added to my love of singing, that being musical theatre and drawing. During freshman year and sophomore year, whenever I was bored during class I would open a blank document and type out the entirety of HAMILTON from memory. So gaining a career in Musical Theatre also became a strong idea of mine.

But the thing is...I don't have any outside experience. No one knows who I am.

I know fully well being an artist is hard, especially nowadays, but I genuinely cannot see me doing anything other than music. I feel like I will die if I don't pursue this. But again, no one knows who I am. I don't post myself singing, my only music experience is just what I taught myself and what I learn in Chorus or when I volunteer to usher for theatres nearby. I feel like it's not enough. On top of this, my grades haven't been the best. I've kind of adopted an "I'm going to be an artist so I don't really need to focus on school, i just need to focus on music" mentality. (Which I know full well isn't a good mentality.)

My parents are also making me go to college, and obviously I want to go to an arts college or a college with a good arts/theatre program, but I can't help but feel like I'm not good enough for it. As of right now, I'm taking 2 music classes (Chorus and Guitar). I plan on taking the next level of guitar next semester, and I plan on taking chorus next year. I also previously took Introduction to Theatre (Freshman year) and Performance Theatre (Sophomore year). I also plan on auditioning to be in the spring musical, I even have my own band now as a lead singer (However we're not performing right now. We're practicing covers to perform as we create original music to find out what sounds good). I'm trying to do all I can to make this happen, to make up for lost time. But I don't know if it'll be good enough. (I haven't really tried with social media as of now because...that's almost entirely luck.😭 I think once my band gets the covers together and I write original music I'll start a social media account.)


This became a really long rant but isn't that what blogs are for? LOL


I just had a lot of feelings about this.