Are You Crazy To Take Music Lessons?

Music lessons can make you crazy.

 

No, I'm serious.  Give it a second's thought.  Why do so many people quit before they learn what they came to discover?

 

I hear it all the time.  "I took lessons for a few years, but then I quit."  Usually, they quit because they found it stressful, unpleasant, or just plain awful.

 

The various aspects of music lessons are enough to make anyone crazy:  the demands from the teacher for practice, practice, practice;  the stress of recitals and other public displays of competence;  and finally the simple recurring question, "Am I good enough, or should I hang this up?"

 

So why take lessons at all?  Why would anyone want to spend their valuable time going through all that stress and unpleasantness?  Unless, of course, they're one of the chosen few?

 

I don't believe in the chosen few.  I also don't believe lessons have to make us crazy.  There is another option.

 

If you are studying with someone with whom you have a good relationship, then you will have confidence that following their instructions will improve your abilities.  If you have been taught how to prepare for a performance, not asked to do more than you are ready to do, and given ways to manage the stress, then you will find that the joys of performing outweigh the unpleasantness.  Most of all, if you are being taught in a way that nurtures you and helps you grow as a person, then the question "Am I good enough" will seem irrelevant to you.

 

That's the key:  that you are working with someone who has a genuine interest in you as a person, someone who can see your potential and not just your current state of ability.  Such a teacher must be able to show you what you are missing in a compassionate way, and give you the tools to cope with the knowledge of your liabilities as well as ways to overcome them.  When you are able to see yourself as a person in process and empower yourself to grow, something wonderful happens.

 

You become whole.

 

This is the opposite of crazy.  Music lessons make you more able to deal with yourself and your world.  In short, music lessons make you sane.

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