When I was a young child, my late grandfather asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told him I wanted to be an astronaut. When he asked me why, I responded that I had seen them in movies and had cool-looking suits, or something to that effect. He responded with good-natured laughter, and then said asked me a question I will never forget:
“Do you love astronauts?”
Do I love astronauts? Like, come on gramps, I’m not totally in love with Neil Armstrong, but I, like, think he’s cool and all, and I wanna be cool too, so I guess doing what he does when I grow up might get me there, right? Such was the reasoning of a child of the space age (and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one). I thought his question was bizarre, until he explained it to me:
“You see, once you grow up, unless you really love what you decide to do, you’ll never be really happy while you’re doing it. That’s why it’s important to do something you love.”
Needless to say, that got me thinking. And I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
Now, my grandfather was a pharmacist. He’d never had a huge amount of success in his life, and I doubt he totally loved his job, but he was happy, had a good life, and clearly had acquired a fair amount of wisdom along the way. There were two things that I remember made him truly happy though: playing solitaire (usually with me on his knee while he taught me the game) and playing the accordion. He’d never had much musical training, but bizarrely could play this most complicated of instruments effortlessly and with a broad smile on his face. When I watched him play, I realised that this was probably what he had wanted to do with his life, this was what he might have wanted to be when he grew up.
It won’t surprise you to learn that this experience was a large part of my decision to be a musician. I was blessed with a fair amount of intelligence and the opportunity to pursue pretty much any career I would have wanted to, but I chose music because, whenever I applied my grandfather’s question to any other occupation, the answer always came back no, or at least uncertain. Only music responded with a resounding YES.
Having picked up the violin as my first instrument at the age of seven, I quickly learned that being a good musician is far from easy. Raw talent (of which I had a fair amount, but was certainly no prodigy) was not enough. You needed to put in a lot of time, effort, and practice (which I absolutely hated) in order to keep up with the best, and even then, it sometimes wasn’t enough. I remember being frustrated to the point of tears when I was unable to master a difficult section of a piece, and on one occasion threw my bow across the room so hard it stuck in the wall like an arrow. Still, my deep love for music drove my perseverance, and I continued to love and learn music, picking up many other instruments along the way. All the while I began to engage with music on a more personal level, continuing to study it on my own terms in my spare time.
While playing music in school taught me a great deal, perhaps the most valuable thing I learned is that when music becomes too much like work, it loses its magic and has all the joy sucked out of it. The stress and pressure of having to perform for grades in front of a panel of judges for the better part of ten years did just that, and for at least a year after I left school I didn’t want to touch a violin, which was very troubling for me. This was part of the reason that, despite the fact that I wanted very much to continue pursuing music as my life’s work, I chose to study psychology and philosophy - two of my other main interests - instead. These taught me many things - particularly the ability to constantly reassess my patterns of thinking - that have been extremely helpful to me in my musical career as well as my life in general.
Instead of spending all my time poring over a music textbook, learning harmony-by-the-numbers, or subjecting myself (and others) to an endless repetition of scales (god, I hated scales), I instead opted for a more naturalistic method of musical education. I played in bands, composed pieces for no one but myself, learned the ins and outs of recording and production, and most importantly of all, devoured music like it was necessary for survival, cramming as much of it into my brain via my ears as possible. My tastes broadened and deepened, as did my overall musicality, and I was able to understand and play things I had not explored before.
Fast-forward to today, where I have a fairly successful career as a composer/producer-for-hire and pursue several collaborative and solo projects at the same time. It wasn’t easy to get here, and often it still isn’t. Music is a do-or-die industry - either you’re good, or you’re not even on the radar - and this applies to commercial work as well as the purely creative stuff that I do. After all, there’s a long list of skills and technical knowledge I need to be able to write an orchestral film score the one day, record a rock band the next, and perform on stage over the weekend.
But perhaps the most important factor in getting here was the way I learned these skills, out of love and out of necessity. The vast majority I picked up not by paying an exorbitant fee to get a piece of paper saying I had learned them, but by learning them myself, seeking out knowledge that I wanted to have from all the sources readily available to me. In this day and age anyone can learn almost any skill through the power of the internet, and you can learn even more by combining this with the power of doing what you’re learning in real time. For instance, when I wanted to learn to play the piano and couldn’t afford lessons, I got hold of a keyboard, downloaded some sheet music, loaded up some youtube videos, and got to it, building my skills up day by day. Similarly, when my first band couldn’t afford to hire a producer, we instead spent the little money we had on some basic recording gear, and I learned the basics of recording and production by doing it myself. It’s a method of learning that I have found invaluable, and that has not only helped me to acquire most if not all of the skills I see in people who have graduated with music degrees (while also allowing me to graduate with two degrees in other areas entirely), but has also allowed me to develop my own unique style in the way I do things. And, as we all know, uniqueness and originality in music, as in any art form, are arguable the most important factor of all!
Here’s the bottom line, a philosophy I continue to live and make music by: if you love what you learn, you’ll learn what you love. I firmly believe that the reason I’ve been able to learn so much about music to be able to build a career out of it is because I have actively sought out knowledge about this art form that I love more than any other. I’ve done it on my own terms, at my own pace, and in my own unique way, and it has helped me to develop as an artist, through struggle and success, in a way that I’m deeply grateful for.
I urge any aspiring artist or lover of any area of study to choose the path of learning that is connected most directly to the source of that love, without creating any frustrations that will only make you love it less. Choose to learn something because you love it, and you will find it comes to you in ways you never expected.
PS: if you'd like to check out some of the music I make, you can hear some of it here: www.echodepartment.com
And here: www.mindpool.bandcamp.com
#music #learning #philosophy #art #creativity #strugglingartist #learnwhatyoulove #lovewhatyoulearn