My name is Paul Moustakas. I am 16 years old and I live in LaGrangeville, New York. Music has always been a part of my life. I have been singing as long as I can remember. Music and singing have always just made me feel that kind of way. It always makes me happy. My father and I own a karaoke and DJ business. I also am in our school’s concert choir and in a barbershop quartet. I also love theatre as well, this is my second year in Admiral Players. Pretty much, I love the arts.
As you all know, life has been very hard recently. Especially for me because I’m not able to go anywhere and do the thing I love most, perform. I have been going to my dad’s karaoke shows for years and singing, and in the past 2 years, I started helping him run them. It was great exposure and I loved it. Of course, now that we are in quarantine we can’t do karaoke shows anymore, or at least I thought we couldn’t. I ended up joining this Facebook page called “Quarantine Karaoke”. You can post videos of you singing, or go live, or ask questions and it’s a really fun way to keep doing karaoke. I went live a few times and some of my videos got almost 2,000 views. To me, that’s a lot. It felt nice to still be performing again even though I wasn’t seeing them in person. Doing this has kept my spirits up and has kept me happy.
Quarantine Karaoke isn’t the only thing involving music that has helped me through quarantine. All my life I had trouble with writing music. Even though my dream is to be a famous singer/songwriter, I never got the writing part down, until now. One of my good friends wrote down some words and sent them to me. And I just started putting them to music. And before I knew it, I had a song. And within about two weeks I started writing them on my own completely and loved it. I guess quarantine brought a musically creative side of me I didn’t think I had and I’m really happy I found it.
Music keeps my spirits up. It keeps me happy. I sing literally all day. I’m not kidding, like whatever I’m doing I’m probably singing while I do it. It gives me something to do and it keeps me going during this crazy time. If I didn’t have music I don’t know how I’d be getting through this. But I know I’m not the only one it helps. It helps everyone in their own way. There are so many different types of music and so many different styles of singing. Everyone relates to it in their own way. I think the variety is the best part. It’s genuinely what’s keeping us all going through this.
Life is funny, you never know what’s going to happen. I never thought this is how my junior year of high school would end up going. So many things I wanted to do I won’t be able to do. And so many things I love to do I’m not able to do either. But I’m so happy I’ve had music to help me through it. I’m so happy I still found a way to do what I love even if it’s not exactly how I’d want to. Either way, music has definitely helped me through quarantine, and I know it’ll continue to do so.
Mid-Hudson News has launched a “Student Journalist” section to allow elementary, middle, and high-school students to write essays or “news as they see it” for submission.
If you have a student that is interested in writing a submission, please send an email to Todd Bender at bender@midhudsonnews.com and ask for the submission requirements.
