Community Interaction

For my community interaction I will preform at the Art Show in Mansfield Center on May 8th. This obviously relates to my topic because my topic is music and I will be supplying music to the art show and entertaining the people. I preformed there last year and it was very enjoyable; I plan on playing at the same store. I will record my performance and ask people to write a review on how the music added to the atmosphere of the show and if they enjoyed it.

"I am"

I am honest;
I am secretive.

I am a peace loving hippie;
I am a fan of capital punishment.

I am a giver of advice;
I am a stealer of the covers.

I repair broken hearts;
I break some of my own.

I am cynical of man;
I am optimistic of his fate.

I am addicted to the sun;
I burn really easily.

I am loud and outgoing;

I am secretive about my emotions.

I hate onions;
I adore French Onion Soup.

I am tough and hard-headed;
I am compassionate and sensitive.

I am everything rolled into one;
I am me.

- Taylor Murphy

Self-Portrait

" My Great-Grandfather, the man who listened"

The smell of salt spray; the texture of the soft sand

the excitement of searching for who knows what in the rocks that meant so much back then.
I could have stayed there all day.
And so could’ve he.
But as the lazy sun drifted downhill we would make our way up-
Up those long stairs that we all knew so well.
And I would talk about this and that and he would listen with a patience not many understood.
To my young, always searching eyes, he was the silent pinnacle of the family for one moment and a comedic genius the next.
For him the baseball game was always on and the tea was always hot – sneaking cookies on sly because he knew he could.
Doing all those small things that my mother inherited and that I will pass on to my children

a tickle that made you jump

questions about my “new boyfriend” that always made me blush.
But there is one smell – a mixture of salt and sand, tea and ginger snaps,

that little TV room upstairs on West St., sunscreen

kindness and love that was my Grandfather who listened.

- Taylor Murphy

My Declaration

My concept is based how music affects people. Music is defined as an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. I choose the concept of music because I play an instrument, the French horn, and I am deeply in love with music. I listen to all different types of music, have an open mind, and just listen to what the artist is trying to express.

Music is in my everyday life, it affects my mood, my thoughts, my everything. To me music is an outlet of expression, and of thoughts, and of feelings, and of emotions that are hard or impossible to express with just conversation or just words; music has a mood, music has a heart, music has a soul. My concept is music’s effect on people and their lives because I think it touches everyone in some way or another.

'In Tune'

“What can I get you sir?” asked the bartender
“Whiskey” was his obvious reply, I was always falling for the cowboy type; he had whiskey on his breath, a skol can stain on his old blue jeans, a well worn cowboy hat on his head. I couldn’t help but stare, something about his demeanor was intriguing. I wanted to know everything.
“We have a special guest tonight to sing for us, Otis Tucker everyone!”
Naturally he was a singer, musicians seem to be my weakness; hopefully he doesn’t sing a love song, I can’t afford to fall in love again. I decided I was now in desperate need for a shot of whiskey.
“This one is called ‘I’m still a guy’” he announced to the hazy room. It turned out to be an anthem for the type of men that I choose:

‘And I'll pour out my heart, Hold your hand in the car,

Write a love song that makes you cry;

Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground,

'Cause he copped a feel as you walked by.
These days there's dudes gettin' facials,

Manicured, waxed and botoxed.

With deep spray-on tans and creamy lotiony hands,

You can't grip a tacklebox.’


His was becoming more and more perfect to me everytime I heard another chord on his gutiar. The perfect man that I wanted to be with was on the stage, sensitive and manly; I knew I had to talk to him after his set. Suddenly the mood in the room changed, “This one is a little slower, its called ‘She’s Everyting’”.
Oh no, this was it, the love song, the love song that would cause my down fall; I had not been very successful in resisting him in the first place never mind with his singing a beautiful love song! And then it began:

‘She's a warm conversation

That I wouldn't miss for

She's a fighter when she's mad

And she's a lover when she's loving.’

The girl he described in his song was the girl I wanted to be; I wanted him to want to hear my voice when we were ninety, I wanted him to want to me to be his everything. Great, he made me fall for him, last time this happened I ended up leaving. Musicians have this great quality for never being around and cowboys have this great tendency to drink all night every night, the combination is deadly for a relationship.

I watched her take a shot of whiskey; she was so beautiful, I wish that I could get up the gaul to go and talk to her but women don’t usually fancy the cowboy musician type, they see a bad combination. I decided to sing “I’m Still a Guy” because I wanted her to know that I was that type of guy:

‘Well love makes a man do some things he ain't proud of

And in a weak moment I might walk your sissy dog,

hold your purse at the mall

But remember, I'm still a guy’

I am willing to give up looking tough all the time for love because I know that her happiness is more important than my own. She doesn’t know this but I would even give up fishing one weekend a month to go furniture shopping with her, maybe.
She was watching me and I was watching her, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
My next song was sure to make her at least want to talk to me, hopefully. If I was lucky this love song would at least make her pay attention to me. “She’s Everything” is the kind of song that is about a great love but it is not too sappy, I prayed that she loved it. As I sang, I looked directly into her eyes when I sang:

‘She's the answer to my prayer

And she's the song that I'm playing’

I watched her reaction, she tried to hide it but I could tell she was starting to listen, really listen to my song.
I walked off my set and toward the most beautiful girl in the room; I wanted so badly just to kiss her lips, to tell her everything she wanted to know. All I could seem to muster was a simple “Hello”


I cannot believe that he came over to me and said ‘hello’! I was so nervous I could barely reply. I wanted so badly for him to kiss me; I wanted to ask him everything that I ever wanted to know about him. Despite my nerves I asked him if he would like to get a drink with me; he said yes and we went to the bar. We spent the night talking about our dreams, fears, passions. We decided to go out again.
His music, the feeling, and the meaning, and the realness behind his songs caused me to fall for him. Six months later we were married and touring the world. Finally my dream had come true a loyal, musically talented, compassionate, hardy man had fallen as deeply in love with me as I was with him.

- Taylor Murphy