A tough question

I student asked me today…out of the blue…”Why did you get into music?”

It took me by surprise.  One, why was this student even interested in the first place?  Second, I didn’t think I could answer the question.  In the first place, when you work with teenagers all day, every day, it is easy to become cynical about the attitudes and world view of teenagers.  Fortunately, that attitude is usually proved wrong.

On the other hand, I couldn’t answer the question outright.  Why did I become a musician and not an auto-mechanic?  Besides the obvious lack of ability in putting a sandwich together, let alone a car – I don’t know.  I mean, I could learn how to be a mechanic.  I know it has something to do with desire to become something.  But, where does that come from?  Is it genetic?  Is it environmental?  How could I find out?

It is important to start at the beginning.  First, I was born.  This is significant because I believe that when you are born you are a blank slate for the most part.  Obviously, everyone is born with certain instincts to keep them alive, and some physical and mental benefits such as big muscles, or a big brain.  Those are just tools though.  It still requires someone to nurture you in a particular direction.

This is where one can go wrong.

Let’s say, for example that your a new parent and your staring this new born baby in the face, and thinking, “What is this baby going to become?”  In most cases, the next thoughts dwell consciously or subconsciously on your own failures and struggles in life.  You become determined that this baby will be the first person in history to go through life without those missteps and stumbles.  Pure folly.

The fact is that it is the missteps and stumbles that accrue to create experience and enrich life.  If you were sheltered from those things that we see as being set-backs, you wouldn’t really achieve anything.  You wouldn’t have the benefit of those mistakes to grow from.

OK – back to being a brand new parent.

After you struggle with reliving your own mistakes, you decide what it was that you wanted to be when you were young and unspoiled, and decide that, since this is your kid, he/she will want the same things.  WRONG. Or, at least potentially wrong.  The world is filled with those notorious “Stage Moms and Dads” that we like to watch on reality TV so much.  The inevitable “living through your kids” syndrome.  In reality, it is OK to live through your kids a little.  As long as you don’t stop living your own life too.  The trick is to keep a healthy distance from their life.

In my childhood, I was fortunate enough to have parents that didn’t overtly puch me in any direction.  They simply wanted me to succeed.  That being the case, they continued to enjoy the things that they always enjoyed which was music.  This provided me with an environment filled with music, which I became naturally attracted to.  I think that nature provided me with some facilities that helped music become part of my personality.  Science has provided evidence that suggests that people that have brains with certain facilities greater than others will have talents that are stronger than others.

Let me carefully explain this, so you don’t think I am setting up some weird “I’m smarter than you are” argument.

It is a fact that music uses both hemispheres of the brain.  So it stands to reason that foks with a more developed Corpus Collosum (the part of the brain that is the go between of the two halves of the brain) might be more musically talented.  That is not to say that those that do not have this facility built in are doomed to a music-less life.  Just that they might have to spend more time practicing something to get it right.  Nothing wrong with having to spend more time doing what you love!

So, I think I was born into a musical environment and developed certain musical instincts as a result.  In addition, I believe that all babies have the facility for emotion, and I think that music was a way for me to communicate those emotions more readily than speech.  If you have ever spoken with me, you would know that the spoken or written word is not my immediate forte, as this post is evidence.

I you take all of this into consideration, I can say that I am a musician because I was born to be one.