music in her heart

By Katie Nguyen

Claire Chao loves listening to music, and her love for music grew once she explored different genres. Music is very therapeutic for her, and she uses it as a way to help her think positively.

After she explored a lot of music genres, she found out she likes r&b, Korean r&b, rap, and pop. She likes r&b the most because the music is flowy and it can go with all moods.

“Artists like HER and Daniel Caesar have my heart,” said Chao, who expressed a lot of love for these two artists.

In addition to them, she also likes Kendrick Lamar, Rocco, Frank Ocean, SZA, Tyler the Creator, and The Neighborhood.”

Music is something that calms her down, and it helps her push away negative thoughts. A time music helped Chao relax was when she was volunteering: “When I was volunteering for a school event. It was so overwhelming, but I played some music and it helped me calm down a lot and it helped me with my work flow too.”

She enjoys listening to music more when she’s sad. Her reason: “I like listening to music more when I’m sad because when I'm happy I already have things going in my brain that I don’t need to flush out but when I’m sad and I’m listening to the music, I could think of the music only and not the things making me sad.”

The most calming place for her to listen to music is the park and her room. She loves the calmness the park and her room carries. She also loves the park because she gets to connect with nature.

A time when music helped Chao out was during quarantine due to Covid: “Everyone was at home. I was very lonely so I listened to music to fill that emptiness.” Music that got her through this time is mostly r&b music.

Lastly, Chao’s favorite song is “Just the Way You Are”, by Bruno Mars, because of how powerful and relatable it is. Her cousins, aunties, and boyfriend told her that she was perfect the way she is, and that’s why she feels a deep connection with this song. She also likes this song because Bruno Mars is her favorite artist.