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I started as a deal made between my parents. My father, struggling to raise his two young sons alone, asked his girlfriend to marry him. She agreed, but on one condition: the two of them would have a third child together.
My mother was fairly old when they got married -- in her early-to-mid-forties -- so they had difficulty conceiving and were seriously considering adoption.  When they found out she was pregnant with me, they decided to move to California from Boston to be closer to family and have more mild weather. My grandmother moved up to the Bay from Los Angeles (where she grew up), and we moved to Walnut Creek, where I was born.
I was apparently a very emotional and lethargic baby, struggling to keep my head up and having a perpetual forlorn look on my face, leading my parents to worry I had depression even in infancy.

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Below: "My gorgeous girl in her Exersaucer 1/2004. Max [my older brother] is making her laugh."

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Below: "My gorgeous girl in her Exersaucer 1/2004. Max [my older brother] is making her laugh."

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Shortly after I was born, my father discovered bluegrass music and quickly roped the whole family into a family band. I went to the Father's Day Festival in Grass Valley starting at age one. I grew up running around the campground getting my hands covered in pine sap and listening to my father work up new tunes on his guitar. When I was five years old, he handed me a tiny fiddle and said it was time for me to start playing with the family.
For almost two years, my teacher Catherine wrote down everything she taught me in a Lisa Frank spiral notebook. At my first lesson (May 16th, according to the notebook), we learned "Boil The Cabbage Down." By my sixth birthday, I was learning "Clinch Mountain Backstep" and starting to read music. While I loved my fiddle lessons, I had ulterior motives: if I had impressed Catherine with what I learned, she would give me a sticker to put on my notebook. If I had really impressed my dad, he would take me out for frozen yogurt.
Bluegrass, of course, is the driving force of my life today. I play in my own band (the family stopped playing together when my brothers went to college) and teach lessons at the same studio I started at all those years ago. I've also carved out a place for myself in the local & national bluegrass community. Through initiatives like Bluegrass Pride and the CBA Youth Program, I've been able to feel more safe and supported within the scene. Most importantly, the music itself is just so darn good.

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Below: My very first jam, Father's Day Festival 2009. My dad is playing guitar at the bottom right. I have no idea who the other people are, and Dad probably doesn't either.

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Below: My very first jam, Father's Day Festival 2009. My dad is playing guitar at the bottom right. I have no idea who the other people are, and Dad probably doesn't either.

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For several years, I had been in a band with some kids I had grown up around at festivals. We played at farmers' markets, street fairs, and local festivals -- anywhere that would have us, really. When I was in seventh grade, the oldest member was graduating from high school, and the other two members were constantly fighting. We played music together, but we weren't really "friends."
At a campout in the spring, my father made friends with a guitar player named Jason, whose daughter was one of the people I was hanging out with at festivals. As we were driving out of the campground at the end of the festival, she texted me and another girl we hung out with asking if we wanted to start a band. I said "no" at first, thinking I was too busy with my other band. My father, already foreseeing the end of that group, forced me to text her back and say "yes." I'm so glad he did.
Over the last three and a half years, we've been through a lot together: two albums, the tearful departure of a guitar player, the joyous addition of two new members, teaching and playing at festivals in California and beyond. My fellow band members are some of my closest friends and I've learned so much from playing with them.

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There were a few different reasons my family ended up moving from Walnut Creek to Berkeley. My oldest brother Nate was going off to college, and my other brother was starting high school. He had established himself as one of the best jazz bass players in his school, but there was already a bass player in his school's band, so he wouldn't get to play anything. A friend he knew at Berkeley High School told him their jazz band needed a bassist, and for several months he lived in my grandmother's house in Berkeley while we found a house.
My parents and I often talk about what I would be like if I had stayed in Walnut Creek. Despite being less than an hour apart, the cultures of the two cities are completely different. As a family of vaguely Jewish music nerds with little to no athletic talent, we weren't ostracized (though all three kids experienced anti-Semitism at school), just subjected to a subtle feeling of difference. I'm not sure we would have even noticed it if we hadn't moved to Berkeley.

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Below:  Checking out books from the Berkeley Public Library with my new library card. Very deep into my Warrior Cats phase.

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Below:  Checking out books from the Berkeley Public Library with my new library card. Very deep into my Warrior Cats phase.

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Below: One of the band's first public performances at the Kensington Farmers' Market in September 2017. Not sure what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.

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Below: One of the band's first public performances at the Kensington Farmers' Market in September 2017. Not sure what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.

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Tessa Schwartz is a high school student. They play the fiddle and are heavily involved in the California bluegrass community. They teach music lessons and volunteer for the California Bluegrass Association and Bluegrass Pride. In their free time, they go for long walks with their dog and watch standup comedy on Netflix. They live in Berkeley, CA with their parents and dog.