Chapter 1- About the author
Hi my name is Tonia. I am 20 years old and I really love music. My dream is to become a singer-songwriter and performer one day. Ever since I was young I’ve had a love for music – especially country music. I grew up with some of the greatest female singers in country – music like Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Reba Mcentire and so on. The first instrument that I learned to play was the fiddle at 10 years old and still play today. When I was 12 I taught myself to play the acoustic guitar. That same year is when I did my first performance in the 6th grade.
That is when I fell in love with performing and I knew I wanted to do that for a career. Then in the 7th and 8th grade, I got a chance to perform again. Then I was hooked. I took 2 years off from performing to focus on my schooling, then when I was 16, I wrote my first song and performed it in the 11th grade at a talent show. After that I wrote a second song which I performed in the 12th grade talent show. After I had graduated I started writing more songs and playing guitar more and also working on my singing voice. Some of the other instruments that I play are Mandolin, Piano and Electric Guitar.
To this day, I am still trying to reach my goal of becoming a singer-song writer and performer. I practice guitar and voice every day, hoping they’ll get better and each day that I do practice I feel like I’m getting closer to my goal – the mottos that I live by are Never Say Never, Don’t Give Up and Believe. These positive words of encouragement help me stay focused on what I do and where I want to be in life. If you asked me what I wanted to do instead of music, I don’t know, because music is the only thing I know. My life would be nothing without music – it makes me happy and I like to make people happy too.
