Music & Me

How am I making a difference?

My name’s Dean Loader-Nash, im nineteen and I have C.P.

I’m currently enrolled at the University of Western Sydney studying a bachelor of music. For as long as I can remember I’ve had a passion for music and a love of singing. I’ve always felt that music can by pass anything physical about a person it speaks directly to the soul. Singing has been the best therapy for me during the hard times: It’s my expression, my release and my source of confidence.

When first pondering the question “How am I making a difference” I couldn’t help but picture the first time I sang in front of a large audience when I was 14 years old, I remember standing in the wings shaking uncontrollably and feeling like I was going to throw up. I remember confessing to a fellow performer that I was afraid people would stare at the way my arm hangs or laugh at the way I walk. I didn’t think I could go out there, at which point she asked me “Do you love singing?” I said I did, she then asked “Are you good at it?” Noticing my blank stare she rolled her eyes and insisted that I WAS good at it. Then she asked me one final question “Was I willing to let my disability stand in the way of doing what I love? Was I going to let it define me?”- When they introduced my act I turned and walked out onto the stage, and I’ve never looked back.

And since that day I’ve wanted to use music to help people the way it helped me for a long while. I entertained the idea of one day singing professionally, and that will always be the dream, but a few years ago I heard about music therapy and how it can be used to help kids and adults with disabilities and I knew that was how I was going to make a difference. It might not be on a large scale and it’s certainly not the life of a rock star! But music can have the most profound effect on people and if I can use the passion I have for music to help people then that’s something special and to me that’s more fulfilling than being a rock star.

When I finish my bachelor of music I’ll be going on to study a Masters of Music Therapy and then the skies the limit.

I’ll never stop singing, writing or performing and I’ll always strive to use music to help people, whether that’s through music therapy or by performing, it will always be my goal to make a difference.

But all of that is in the future. I think right now all I can say is, “Don’t let anything stand in the way of what you want to do in life, anything is achievable. We set our own limitations. All we can do in life is pursue our goals, chase our dreams and hope to make a difference.”