Composer: Alicia Pearce

Hello, my name is Alicia Pearce. I live with my mother and brother and grandpa on a farm here in southwestern Michigan. My dad died six years ago of a brain tumor. I am a home school graduate.

I had my first experiences writing music while staring at the walls of my grandma’s bathroom as a kid, making up tunes to the ads in the old-fashioned newspaper print wallpaper. Later, I would make up silly tunes and sing them to my little sister as we lay in bed at night.

I come from a musical family. My grandpa was the choir director for many years in his church, and my dad, who had a very musical ear, chose piano tuning for his life’s work. My mom had the foresight to start me in piano lessons when I was 7, and many pulled teeth and hours of practice later, I can still play! I was so worried as a child that when I grew older, I would lose the piano-playing skills I was working so hard to attain. Those skills were not cemented in me until after I took two years of college theory at the age of 14. I am so thankful that I took those theory classes. After all those years of confusedly looking at jumbled notes on a page, music finally made sense to me!

When I was 16, I received an offer for a full scholarship to the University of Alabama to study music. However, my parents were not supportive of the idea, and after much soul struggle, and wondering what on earth God put me here for, I decided to give up the intensive hours I was spending on practicing the piano, and focus on other things. Again, I wondered if all those hours would be wasted, and relegated to be ashes in life’s dust heap.

After I made the decision to quit practicing, my musical activities turned from performance and competition, to church playing and accompaniment. There were many years I didn’t play at all, and yet I found I could always come back to it, and it would be there. I attribute this to the years of music theory that I had.

I did not know that I had the ability to write music until the summer of 2004. I had started a neighborhood Bible Club, and in an effort to make scripture memorization fun for the kids, I started writing tunes to the Bible verses that I wanted them to memorize. They really enjoyed the songs, which encouraged me to keep writing. Then, later on that year, I began to realize that music would be the key to retaining the passages of Scripture that I myself wished to memorize, so I started writing my way through the book of Hebrews. It worked! I can still sing through most of it without help!

And now, one of my goals in life is to put as much Scripture to music as I can, and to make it available to as many people as I can through recordings and printed music, as finances and time allow. I spend my days writing music, learning computer programs, teaching piano, working in the garden, making Emu Oil Salve, selling books, taking grandpa shopping, and working on this web site, along with other various sundry things needed to help keep this household going. Oh yes, I still teach the Bible Club, and the kids still like memorizing their verses!