Dylan Sidali is a first year undecided engineering student originally from Jackson, New Jersey. He currently plays in the Stevens Jazz Band, in addition to building basic circuits involving chips and optical fibers in the QuEST lab. In his free time, Dylan enjoys playing his saxophone and watching movies in his free time.
Like many freshmen students on campus, Dylan is in the process of figuring out his major. He is currently leaning towards Electrical or Computer Engineering. As nice as it can be to have your study plan all figured out, there is some excitement in allowing the time to just see what inspires you. Despite all the uncertainty surrounding his academic life, Dylan can rely on his music to be a constant. He says, “music has always been a sure thing,” and that no matter what the circumstances, he can always just sit down and play.
Dylan picked up the saxophone in the 5th grade. He was immediately drawn to the sax, and “from there, I was pretty obsessed with it,” Dylan says. He continued to play the saxophone in middle school, and later in high school, he tried to play his instrument in every music ensemble because he liked it so much. Dylan was in the Marching Band, Jazz Band, Pit Orchestra, and Woodwind Ensemble. While being a part of multiple musical groups, Jazz Band was Dylan’s biggest priority because that was the music he liked to play the most in high school.
“Jazz Band was my first experience playing music where there is nothing written on a page,” Dylan explains, “You can play a part of a song that’s written and then it gets to an improv section where it’s your turn to write your own music.” This key characteristic of Jazz Band music is a main reason why Dylan likes Jazz Band so much. He adds, “even if the solo is bad, it’s okay!” In addition to having always enjoyed improvising, Dylan enjoys Jazz Band in the sense that it is very much about “doing your own thing.” This is a different mindset than Marching Band, for example, which is “very structured, and it’s the same thing over and over and over again until you get it perfect,” Dylan says.
To explain how he started improvising, Dylan admits that “[he] was really bad at it for a really long time, and then [he] got a little less bad. It was a lot of being uncomfortable for a while with it.” Whether it is learning new software like LabVIEW or learning a new style of music, putting yourself out of your comfort zone can help expand your horizons and can inspire you to learn about new and different things. Doing these things for the first time can be intimidating, but the more you do it, the more natural it can become. Dylan remembers his band director pushing him to improvise a lot, which helped him improve his improvisation skills. His mindset during these challenging moments was to remind himself that, “the more [he] tried to do it, the better [he] would probably get.” In order to make these improvements a reality, it takes time and practice, and it is important to appreciate the progress you have made along the way. Dylan explains that he was “better than [he] was when [he] started.” In addition, Dylan adds that “It helps if you enjoy it,” whether that is improvising jazz music or constructing a HEMS for Design II. Being super uncomfortable is perfectly normal—it is how you respond to it that matters.
Improvising and the willingness to learn new things are skills that extend beyond the music realm. One of Dylan’s favorite parts of taking classes at Stevens is that you can walk into a class at the beginning of the semester knowing nothing about it, and by the end of the semester, you can have a new understanding of a topic you once knew little to nothing about. Through studying and working hard on a subject or piece of music can help you learn fascinating things. With Jazz in particular, you have no idea what it will sound like at first glance. By working on it consistently, you can pick up a new style of playing or even improve on something you have been struggling with. The thing with music and most things, is that there is always room for improvement, and there are always more things to learn.
To all the students, musicians, athletes, and passionate people who want to do something great, “just do it” and “don’t take it too seriously,” Dylan says. Sometimes life is unpredictable, and inevitable there are uncertainties in our lives, so do not stress out. Instead of stressing yourself over things out of your control, try improvising and not over-planning things whether that is concerning your major, or the outfit you are going to wear tomorrow.
