My name is Sumaila and I’m in year 10 at Sydney Girls High School, and I am so excited to pursue my week of work experience at Eastside FM! Growing up around a family line of musicians, I have always felt a connection to music since childhood. My father grew up in a musically inclined environment, and watching him and my relatives learn to play countless instruments and progress their vocal skills embed into me the love for music. While I don’t listen to jazz much in my free time, as I’m more of a pop listener, I have been doing dance in the jazz genre since I was 3 years old, so it is definitely a genre I am interested to delve more into.

I’ve learnt to play many instruments, ranging from the flute, the guitar, and the piano, yet nothing has connected me more to the nature of music than piano. Ive been playing piano for over 8 years, and i’ve come to learn that I am an auditory learner of notes, and I can compose the melody to songs i’ve heard just by listening to them, and without the requirement of sheet music! I could be in the middle of my homework, or in the middle of lunch, and if i felt like playing a song, I would run to my piano to play it. Music is always there for me when the rest of the world feels overstimulating. While I’m too scared to sing out in public or even to my close family, I feel that I have good vocal range and wish I was extroverted enough to give it a try professionally. I am looking forward to experiencing many genres of music here at Eastside FM, and expanding my very tight knitted barrier around my music taste.

While my music taste does have range from instrumental and acoustic to folk, I will admit I am always more connected to pop. While slow progressive songs do comfort me at times, I prefer more high beat songs which have a clear tempo to follow. Recently, I have been obsessed with this song called Dog Days Are Over, by Florence + The Machine. Her style of music isn’t really one I listen to often, yet this song has such a clear beat and it is so lively, and truly enlightens me when I feel down.

While I listen to high tempo songs like this, I also prefer to listen to songs by other artists such as Taylor Swift. Her album “Folklore” resonates with me so much, and when I need a break from the world I sit down and I listed to her songs from that album. It is so hard to list a favourite, and her lyric writing is so creative in both her album “Folklore” and “Evermore,” which are considered sister albums. While it is impossible to list a favourite, some would be “This is Me Trying” and “Mirrorball,” which never fails to evoke an emotional response from me.

Whenever I am in an environment surrounded by music, I feel like that is where I am happiest in, which is why I am extremely excited to be at Eastside FM, where I can hear other people talk about their musical opinions and learn how others are provided the listening experience that I am in the car or over the radio at home.

While I have been to many concerts in which my family or relatives have performed, I haven’t been to a concert of my favourite artist until this year. This year, I’ve been to both The Eras Tour (Taylor Swift’s concert) and The Guts Tour (Olivia Rodrigo’s concert), and those were probably the best experiences of my life, especially The Eras Tour! I went with my best friend Rebecca, who is also here at work experience with me. Watching the music i’ve only ever listened to through Spotify or Youtube come to life right in front of me was an unbelievable experience, and both Taylor and Olivia communicated with their fans to an extent and it was crazy! I feel that it will be a similar experience here at Eastside FM, as I am surrounded by so much music in such a cosy environment

This is from The Eras Tour! All those individual lights are people! There were over 83,000 people there.

This is from The Guts Tour! We were Olivia’s final show EVER for her first world tour, so it was a really meaningful experience for both us and Olivia Rodrigo!

It is clear that I share a meaningful connection to music, as I have all my life, and I am so excited to learn more about the origins of music through the radio and more specifically Jazz music during my week here at Eastside FM for work experience!