I love music. Whenever I play, whether on stage or alone where no one can hear, I am awakened, alive, and free. I escape into my own world and come back happier.I’ve been hooked on music ever since I can remember, playing piano very young and always singing in church. At age nine, living at Camp LeJuine, NC where my father served as a Chaplain in the Navy, there was a two-week period where music just wouldn’t leave me alone.Around Christmas-time one of my teachers brought her husband to school to play guitar and sing for my class. We all named songs, and he played them one after another. I was in awe at how happy he looked making all of us happy. Shortly after, someone came and played guitar and sang for the whole school. Everybody was dancing, the room was electric, some of us got up on stage… I can still hear him singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home†and thinking that I wanted to do that too.I remember seeing a documentary around that same time about Elvis. Believe it or not, I had never heard of “The Kingâ€. C’mon… I was nine-years-old. As the story of his life was ending, “I Did It My Way†played during footage of Elvis’s funeral and I knew then and there what I had to do.I finally got my first guitar at age ten and I’ve been playing ever since. Making music is what makes me happy, and it is what I will always do. It is more than a passion, or a way of life. It is making sense.All of my music comes straight from my experience and if you make sense of it, I am both grateful and anxious for the chance to perform for you.Thanks for listening and I hope to see you soon,
Alisha Kay Carstens
