“Harmony is a noun that describes an agreement, such as in feeling, sound, look, or smell. It’s necessary for roommates to be able to live in harmony in a small space, or they’re in for a wake-up call. In music, harmony is a pleasing combination and progression of chords. If it makes you wince, it’s lacking harmony.”
Vocabulary.com Dictionary
The transitional period of life after graduating high-school is always chock-full with many different emotions running rampant. First it’s excitement as you are finally freed from all of the drama high-school often brings, then it is sadness as you realize you will no longer see your friends as often, then it’s confusion as you try to answer the question “what do you want to do for the rest of your life?” at the tender age of 18, then it’s back to excitement as you are moving out of home for the first time ever, then back to sadness as you realize you will miss the comforts of home – and then the whole post-secondary experience is the constant questioning of whether you chose the right program, if you fit in, if you will graduate, find a job, ever learn how to cook a meal other than Kraft Dinner… ever be able to afford a meal other than Kraft Dinner – and the list goes on and on.
Thankfully during this discordant time period of life I was placed in East Residence – a dormitory at UOG where I met Katie McLean -a star-crossed roommate who was previously living a parallel universe to me. We quickly bonded over our similar love for Star Wars and The Beatles, our childish senses of humor, corresponding high-energy levels, and our love of music and life in general. There was no longer as much time to waste sitting around worrying about the future, since there were songs to sing, places to go, people to meet, concerts to attend, boys to admire, and things to learn at school with my new pal!
Katie and I were attached at the hip, and always causing trouble- a true Wayne and Garth friendship. We were really the sisters we never had growing up since we also knew how to annoy the heck out of each other. Between being roommates, being in many of the same classes and performing as a duo around campus people began to constantly mix up our names, and show concern if we were not with each other every second of the day. To the dismay of our other roommates who would be trying to study, we would be constantly procrastinating by either pranking people, writing songs, playing the guitar, violin or piano, Katie teaching how to harmonize properly from her choir days, and regularly singing in our dorm rooms making cover videos, and in the hallways (which had great acoustics) … which usually carried into extremely late hours in the morning. In first year university our personalities ultimately became one..thus our musical duo’s band name was born: KatieKat.
KatieKat would play anywhere we could from the Bullring, the University Center, Doogies Bar, 39 Carden Street Bistro, house concerts, bonfires, CFRU 93.3 FM, BBQ parties, open mics, busking downtown and of course Paige’s Passion; and would even collaborate with other local bands and musicians like The Johnston Brothers with Kelsi Cole, Joel Saunders & Joel Dubee, Tommy Wewers, and many others. Our second homes at the University quickly became the “on-campus living room” known as The Bullring Cafe where we played for four years straight, an hour set every week in exchange for a delicious lunch; and the UGCC– a student run rock climbing gym where we could get some of our energy out in between classes… both always encouraging live music performances and probably the most hipster and laid-back places on the planet.
The “University Daze” were definitely not always easy as they were also jam packed with anxiety, heartbreak, stress, darkness and confusion; but having such amazing friends and music to pull us through every time… chaos would come and go to teach us a lesson, and would always eventually end in harmony. Miss these days tremendously and the amazing people who filled them! And surprisingly, yes! … Somehow we did actually manage to graduate despite our lack of studying and making it to class on time.
