Da Capo

Happy New Year, Everyone!

What’s on your sonic horizon for this year?

I want to start off the year by talking about our own individual, personal, special connection to music. Why humans love music has been a popular topic for a long time - we love it, we just do. Is the why of it really important? Actually, there’s a very good and interesting book about exactly this topic called Why You Like It: The Science & Culture of Musical Taste (by Nolan Grasser, the “chief architect of the Pandora song engine.”) I recommend it.

Apart from why we like certain kinds of music, I’m very interested in the “what happens” of musical experience for people of all ages and backgrounds. So many of us have a deep emotional connection to music. We literally can’t live without it, whether we listen, play, sing, dance. I’d go so far as to declare it a human need.

And: we tangle ourselves up by putting value judgements on musical genres and artists, but most of all, we judge ourselves. We think that we have to be talented or “good enough” to make music, and many of us just give up and listen to Spotify instead of picking up a ukulele. What happens along the way from being a kid who Is thrilled to explore, discover, and create music to being an adult who derides their own perceived non-ability? One hundred percent of adults I talk to who are coming back to music after years away from piano lessons, or just newly considering taking up an instrument have something to say about not being good enough. I’ve been studying piano for about a year, returning to it after zero lessons since 8^th grade. I feel that tug to qualify it, to say, “But I’m really not very good.” Where does that even come from? I’ll have a few upcoming blog posts that discuss this because it comes from many places, starting from when we’re very young.

(Sidebar: learning an instrument later in life is a major contributor to staving off cognitive decline. Just sayin’. More on this as well down the road.)

The adult students I’ve talked with are worried about making fools of themselves, they’re convinced they won’t remember or won’t be able to learn how to read music, and also convinced that they will never be good enough, by some mysterious measure on the human good enough scale. So it’s easier to not do anything than it is to wistfully listen to whatever happens to shuffle in on Apple Music, right?

I get it, I really do. But the truth is that we can learn and build musical skill, at any age. “Do you think you can teach this old dog new tricks?” asked one gentleman who was dubious about taking percussion lessons. “Old dogs” can certainly learn. The thing that gets in the way more often than not is the self-criticism and judgment that creeps in even before the first lesson. What to do about it? Take a deep breath and consider this: if you could spy on someone your exact age and background sitting down for their first piano lesson maybe ever, what would you be thinking? Would you silently cheer them on? Or would you call them names if they missed a note or took a little too long to figure out the key signature? Would you laugh at them if they bumbled through their very first piece of repertoire?

Didn’t think so. As Linda Richman (a long-ago Mike Meyers character from Saturday Night Live) would say, “Talk amongst yourselves.” We’ll pick this topic up again in another post.

Meanwhile, in upcoming blogs, there will be musings on listening vs. hearing, in collaboration with my friend and colleague Kristie Steinbock;

chats about books on music with my friend and writing coach Verna Wilder;

orchestra tales; and my journey with tinnitus, which no professional musician wants to ever have and I do. See you soon!

“I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as which we close our eyes.” Sir Richard Steele