The empowerment of being a musician.
Learning perspective and motivation.
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Thank-you, Dave.
What drives a person to become an instrumentalist or musician? Is it the need to build self-confidence? Is it a way of getting attention? Is it searching for and finding one's own identity? Is it purely for the joy of music, or is it simply just another form of breathing? Maybe it's all of these things. In this article, I take a look at the various stages I, and many other musicians go through as we learn how "empowering" being a musician can be.
So, what was my original motivation to want to play the guitar?
I grew up a relatively small kid. I didn't have much skill in sports because I was either too short for basketball or I wasn't big enough to play on the school football team. Even though I liked playing these things with my friends, I knew early on that sports for me was to be enjoyed as a spectator. I was always a creative kid. I loved drawing and taking pictures with my Kodak Instamatic camera. I wasn't very good with grammar or speaking. I was a terribly shy, introverted child with a quiet voice.
Both of my parents were musicians, so I grew up being surrounded by music. My parents never pushed me or any of my younger siblings into music. It wasn't something that was ever really discussed. Then one day, my best friend, Mark, came home with a guitar. He let me try it. I ran home and begged my parents to let me take guitar lessons. Something deep inside me had been triggered. The guitar just felt right to me.
So, I started taking lessons in 1976. I was 13 years old. Lessons included mostly learning how to read notation in the "Alfred" guitar books. I tried to stick with the lessons my teacher gave to me, but reading notes from songs I didn't know was very boring for me. I wanted to learn how to play the songs I liked from the radio. So, I practiced my lessons from the book, then I practiced learning by ear, how to figure out chords and notes from my favorite songs. Somehow, this part of the guitar came easily to me.
Suddenly, I had a voice. People actually stopped to listen to me play my songs. They sang the words while I played the guitar. I had zero confidence in singing in front of anybody. I liked to sing, as long as nobody could hear me. Luckily, Mark and I didn't really have a problem singing in front of each other. Our other friend, Curt, loved music and had no problem singing too. We sang together all the time. This was the confidence builder I needed.
By the time I got into high school, I was learning how to play the bass guitar in the jazz band. Somehow, the bass guitar made sense to me too. This was when things really began to change for me. More people were depending on me to be good on the bass, especially our band director, Al. I remember thinking how I wanted to be good on the bass - so good that Al would never have to worry about me doing my part. I wanted him to know that he could count on me to know my parts. It was important to me to never be the weakest link in the chain.
Al was always yelling at the horn players for not practicing their parts. Only a few of them actually practiced. Al never had to think about the rhythm section or any of us not knowing our parts. He knew he could count on us to hold everything down for the horns. By my Junior year, we were getting to be a tight band. We did gigs, which again, helped all of us build our confidence. I think this was about the time I started realizing that I might actually have an ego. Maybe I was a little too confident. Maybe arrogance was also beginning to creep in a little. I had no idea.
I think that I knew all along that I was good, but when you are a teenager searching for an identity and you find it, you grab it and hold onto it as tight as you can. This meant that my ego could sometimes be fragile. It was the first time I had ever had a real identity that others recognized. I worked hard to maintain that identity. At one point, Al made it abundantly clear that I needed to be reconditioned in my attitude and my thinking. His exact words in my yearbook read: "Atrophic Aural Acuity has begun to set in! You have been stifled by your prejudices - limited in your learning. Next year, conditioning will begin! Practice that bass over the summer. ~ Al C." Even though I didn't know the meaning of "Atrophic Aural Acuity", I got the point.Â
Al continued to save all of his yelling for the horn section. He never had to yell at me or Jimmy on the drums or Kevin on the keys or Jon on the guitar. He knew that the four of us could be very good on our instruments, as long as we kept practicing our parts. But, when opportunity presented itself, (like signing a yearbook), he took advantage of that opportunity, by setting me straight on my preconceived notions of unintentional arrogance. That's why Al was who he was. He was our leader, our director and our mentor.
I most certainly did not want to disappoint Al, so Jimmy and I got a band together and practiced all summer long. By my senior year, I was much more open-minded about playing the music and less concerned about everyone else knowing who I was in the band. I learned that music was doing my talking for me. Music was my voice, and that was all I needed to say. Everyone knew me as "Dave the bass player". I had earned my identity and I maintained it the best that I could. Nobody ever had to tell me to practice. I wanted to practice all the time. I knew that I could be good if I just put the honest time and effort into my learning. This gave me that much more confidence.
I continued to practice the guitar and the bass guitar equally. I never thought twice about one instrument being more important than the other. When I played in bands, I played the bass. When I was camping with my friends, I brought my guitar. Many years later, I would meet some of the most incredible musicians of my life. Honestly, there were a few times when I was rather intimidated by their level of ability, but I quickly got past that when I realized that meeting these people and working with them in bands and music projects, was a golden opportunity for me to truly test my limits. I pushed myself to get better. I wanted to earn the right to play with these people and learn as much as I possibly could from them.
I began to teach guitar lessons in 1996. I didn't have a degree in music. All I could teach was what I knew. Luckily for me, it was enough to teach beginners. It took almost no time at all to realize that what I thought I knew, I now had to prove. So, I invested in theory books and started to truly dive in, to try to be ready for all of my students when they asked me questions about music. I liked learning music theory. It made sense to me because I could prove it on the guitar. Again, I had to build a new confidence in learning more than I thought I already knew.
Music is enjoyed by everyone. Try to imagine a world without it. Musicians enjoy music too, but they understand music on levels that non-musicians might not. This is purely because of the instrument, the experience, and the learning that comes with being a musician. To me, music is math, patterns, formulas and application, and above all - creativity. But, music will always be the air that I breathe. That never changes. I am one of the very lucky ones. I am grateful and empowered to be a musician, teacher and writer.