Jahin Fayyaz (Fez) - What/Why/How: A Career with Music

For my project I want to talk about my career choice of pursuing music and how I came to choose that path. As children we’re all asked what we want to be when we grow up, and we all have various answers. Throughout life, that choice can either continue to grow into something someone loves or it may change constantly until an individual is content. For me from a socioeconomic perspective, I was taught from all sorts of influences that job security should be held as one of the highest factors an individual should consider when looking at a career path; and with the current economic instability one might choose a job with monetary stability for a path of fulfillment. For me it was pursing the medical field and eventually becoming a doctor. What more could I lose? I loved the thought of making a difference by helping individuals, to become an MD is an incredible feat in and of itself, and the pay represented a stable amount of monetary security. In the Asian community becoming a doctor, an engineer, or anything of that “caliber” of a job is deemed to bring prestige and a sense of honor to the family (at least from what I know). Most of my childhood friends have in fact become or on the way to attain their M.D. degree. That is why I essentially came to Emory; to pursue medicine. I was surrounded by this mindset so much that my mind said I wanted to pursue it yet I did not get a sense of fulfillment. From my experience at Emory and coming to Atlanta, I was exposed to the music culture here (specifically electronic music), and I loved it. For me the different components that the electronic music culture brought to me was more fulfilling than anything else I had come across. From creating music within my home or anywhere I go, to performing at venues and festivals and striking chords with complete strangers, to meeting individual members of this community and finding it humbling.

From my experience with other musicians, music in general has become a great form of identity and self-expression; whether it’s the producer perspective or the listener’s perspective. This project can tie in with Arendt’s delineation of natality vs. plurality (everyone is different but equal) and can also fall in with the subject of private vs. public. I just haven’t decided which one yet. As for how I’m going to implement and portray my story, I plan on doing interviews with multiple musicians and individuals who listen and get involved with the community. As for input, that’s all I have so far.