When asked about his post-graduation and career plans, music major Asher Wolf \u201918 replies without hesitation, \u201cI want to be a rockstar.\u201d On campus, Asher proudly displays his self-described \u201cobsession\u201d with music in many ways. He has written a classical piece performed last semester on strings by the professional Jasper String Quartet, as well as a choral piece to be performed this semester by the Swarthmore College Garnet Singers. He has performed on campus in various student bands and has branded himself under the moniker \u201cGlom.\u201d In all appearances, Asher \u201cGlom\u201d Wolf is well on his way to becoming a rockstar.<\/p>\n
Asher\u2019s love for music began before he can remember, before he believes he had \u201cformed a sense of self.\u201d According to his parents, Asher was always drawn to the guitar and loved sad cowboy songs as a young child. Fast forward to today, and Asher can be found listening to anything and everything, absorbing as much music as he can. \u201cI\u2019m at the point where I have this skill to be able to hear music that\u2019s unfamiliar to me, of a different style that I don\u2019t know very well, and be able to enjoy it. Now I kind of just love everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asher attributes his open and diverse appreciation of music to his Swarthmore experiences. \u201cThe world\u2019s kind of opened up to me with music since I\u2019ve been here.\u201d Upon arriving at Swarthmore, Asher had not yet chosen his major, nor realized his lifelong path in pursuing music. He remembers discussing his academic plans with a high-school friend who told him, \u201cAll you talk about is music.\u201d At first offended, Asher reflected on the statement and came to a self-realization. \u201cI decided to be a major then when I realized that it was obvious that I was totally obsessed with music, and that it would be silly to do something non-music related with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he claims to have taken on the role of \u201cdevil\u2019s advocate\u201d with the music department, expanding his focus to include folk, rock, jazz, blues, pop, bluegrass, and funk, Asher admits that he also loves the classical repertoire he studies. However, his passion for diverse genres has manifested in an interest in ethnomusicology within his music studies. When asked to describe his major, Asher explains, \u201cThe discipline of music theory is very internal. It\u2019s about taking a piece of music and then burying your head in it and waiting for your eyes to adjust then looking around and figuring out how it ticks. Which is awesome and necessary for understanding music, but I also care about looking at music in a more contextualized way. So what that means for me is combining it with studies in sociology and philosophy, describing how music works the way it does and how musical meaning is conveyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating, Asher hopes to teach music in Philadelphia while performing and working on his songwriting. Although he is set on his ultimate goal of being a rockstar, he sees his path getting there as more unclear. \u201cIf [teaching] doesn\u2019t work, then I\u2019ll get some kind of day-job, hopefully something music-related like a music establishment, performance venue, or guitar store. If not, I\u2019ll wash dishes or wait tables, something to free my brain up so I can do brain things while I make money. Basically, just somehow make a living until people\u2026I don\u2019t really know what happens after then, but maybe till people notice you and sweep you up to heaven?\u201d More seriously regarding his goals for the future, Asher says, \u201cI say \u2018rockstar\u2019 kind of facetiously, in homage to my twelve-year-old self, but I want to be a musician. I want to be an artist. I want to make original music and have people hear it and be the kind of musician that brings joy and substance to others\u2019 lives.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Maya Kikuchi ’20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When asked about his post-graduation and career plans, music major Asher Wolf \u201918 replies without hesitation, \u201cI want to be a rockstar.\u201d On campus, Asher proudly displays his self-described \u201cobsession\u201d with music in many ways. He has written a classical piece performed last semester on strings by the professional Jasper String Quartet, as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7346,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344\/revisions\/7346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}