Frances Prager

As someone born into a musical family it was expected of me to play an instrument when I was young. This journey began with starting piano at the age of 4. The expectation was to sit at the piano every morning and practice for thirty minutes with my father by my side guiding me through the scales and excerpts. It was mornings of constructive criticism and tears from wanting to be a perfect pianist/musician. At the age of 6 I had had enough of the tense practices every morning before I could do anything else.

Even though my musical career had started off roughly, music was still a big part of my existence and culture. At the age of 8, being a curious kid I wanted to start another instrument, but one my father had no idea how to play. And this was the violin.

I started the violin in 3rd grade at school where I would take group lessons and eventually that led to individual lessons. I went through many teachers because my father wanted me to gain different perspective. This led me to audition for an arts high school which I later attended.

Throughout high school it was difficult to know if I really wanted to be a professional classical violinist and I believed that was all I could do. Senior year I auditioned for many music schools and eventually when I found out UGA wanted me that immediately became my first choice.

I came in freshman year to UGA a bit afraid and overwhelmed with the violin performance community because of how strict and harsh it was on the students. This brought me back to my memories of piano studies (which I did not really enjoy).

Throughout my first semester I became injured many times and mentally exhausted to the point where I no longer wanted to play violin.

I became friends with another violinist but was not performance, instead music therapy. She told me was music therapy was and all of the goals that are set in this major. I knew I wanted to be a music therapist. I wanted my goal to be to help others with my music. The next semester I switched my major to music therapy and that was the best decision I ever made in my life.

I now use my violin in ways I would not use it for in classical music And I enjoy it which is truly the most important goal when figuring out what you want to do as a career.