Getting Wise to the Game
The Pull of Music
I called my first (official) Youtube video on music education “How I Won the Game of Music”. Besides trying to succeed at a clickable video title, I wanted to convey what I’d learned about the nature of studying and playing music. These lessons came from working through various frustrations over my career and, in desperation, seeking out advice from wiser creatives than I.
The results and insights gained from this searching were paradoxical, to say the least. It took grappling with what music even was, how to channel its creation, and how to discover and encourage my and others’ musical actualization.
Now I’ve been at sharing these lessons in weekly videos for over three months. It’s a new game, one I’m bad at, but one I’m motivated to play. I remember what it felt like not being hip to the essential musical truths I’ve learned as of late, and other musicians downstream from me deserved to hear the good news.
You are likely still in the game too if you are reading this-still trying your hand at this music thing, maybe for years or maybe at the beginning of your journey. Everyone comes to music for different reasons, but I’d wager your reasons (like mine) had an electric, irresistible pull on you. This pull often leads to an initial commitment to some kind of musical practice and the beginning of a musical history.
Losing Connection
As it happens, the demands and obligations of life, self-doubt, distraction, changing environments, often weaken or even break that initial magical pull music had on us. As a teacher of about 15 years, I’ve seen this happen countless times. It became the central problems my instruction sought to answer:
Why are some students able to progressively improve and deepen their musical journey, while the vast majority fall off prematurely? How can that majority be helped and pointed in the right direction?
The music pull hooked the student in me so deeply, and at a young enough age, that I’ve stayed hooked. This isn’t to say I’m musically where I want to be, but I was thankfully able to stay in the game long enough to recognize the game as such.
The same is true for my teaching career. I refused to accept the status quo, knowing that I could be a more effective teacher and hook more students into an endless musical journey. It took years of trial and error, discovering blindspots, and finding an embodied practice for myself that I could model for students before I felt like I could actually be helpful.
Defining the Game
These newsletters will be my documenting how I improved my music game, in interest of making my world and your world a more musical, creative place.
So how should we define the game of music?
MUSIC (The Game):
The regular and habitual pursuit self-expression, art, sound-making, button-pushing, learning, growing, and creating- for its own sake, as a means of practicing self-acceptance, emotional and imaginative development, attention, devotion, and self-actualization.
(I’ll need to work on that game subtitle)
To win the game of music, the paradox is that it’s more about you (how you feel, are changed, your inner life) than it will ever be about the external results (whatever those ideally look life for you).
Zooming Out (and getting context)
That’s an initially bitter pill: music isn’t about music, or results. Of course that’s a part of it, but it’s the natural result of a process of self-development.
It’s about us- how we attend to the world, how we work with ourselves, how deeply we feel. Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, two of my jazz piano musical role models, have said the same in interviews: there is a great confusion that music is about music, but that’s thinking small- music is about life. They feed into one another, and a life well-lived produces music full of meaning and humanity.
Properly contextualizing music, for many, makes it come and flow so much easier. The results come if you don’t need them to come. Anything treated as a game and not quite as seriously can be more easily conquered.
For those that were hooked early like me, playing the game is second-nature. We can’t help it, and acquire enough skill and/or success to hook us, frustrated or not.
Yet in my music game (and I’d imagine yours), I still want to “win” in the traditional sense that I want to share my music, create worlds and emotions and experiences to share with whoever can benefit. It’s fine to want that. The paradox that I’ve come to is that one must value playing the game without the need to win. This yields a sustainable practice in which you aren’t the central character anymore. By serving your music, finding value and self-development in the journey, you can freely reap the rewards of being a conduit for music.
Music can be the game that improves your life, if you are drawn to it. The game can be anything: cooking, working at something, parenting, learning, reading, helping, building…
In short: living life in a positive direction, not for yourself.
The larger implication is that life itself is a game, one that takes a whole life of living to figure out and play well. The musically hungry can join me and start practicing this game by bettering ourselves in a creative direction, as we grow into the musical masters we already are.
If you’ve read this, genuinely- thanks! I hope to inspire you on your musical journey as others have inspired me.
More tips on playing the music game next week. I’ll be discussing all aspects of a healthy music practice and our relationship to it.
My favorite musical things this week:
Jacob Collier’s Magnificent Conclusion to the Djesse series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzGXQraNoLc Challenging music, but the all four of his Djesse volumes speak and point to the limitlessness of the human spirit.
Julian Lage’s endlessly interesting new release, bringing different ensemble combinations together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhE3RrzfZ5w
Until next time,
Chris