Life Lessons Learned Through [Teaching] Music
As you may know already, Lauren is one of my favorite people on the planet.
In addition to being a great friend and a lot of fun, she is an incredible educator. I'm sure this is not news to those of you already familiar with her. Aside from Lauren’s abilities to break down musical concepts and communicate them in effective ways, she also has a gift for understanding people, helping them, and making them feel good. These are skills from which I have learned a lot—from being near her while she works her magic or being its direct beneficiary. When I’ve come to her with teaching questions, she’s helped me both with the specifics and with the bigger picture. So in this blog post, I’ll be sharing some ideas that come directly from Lauren, some from other mentors, and some of my own. My hope is that these thoughts resonate with you, and help you navigate your musical journey or your life journey with music as a guiding light.
First and foremost:
Music is about self-expression.
We listen to music because we want to feel things; we play it because we want to feel things ourselves and because we want to make other people feel things. This means that it is crucial for musicians to feel like they can be themselves, and safely express whatever it is they have inside that reflects who they are. This is all about acceptance and making space for people.
Creating music with or for other people is a common goal, but this doesn't mean that there is one way to go about it. In fact, there are endless ways. This is why music is always changing - people are inventing new genres, writing new songs, stringing together notes into melodies that feel new, etc. The diversity inherent in these possibilities comes from unique individuals. If every person were the same, music would cease to be interesting very quickly.
There is room for all kinds of people and all kinds of musicians. It might be difficult to work with every single other person, but there is certainly value in trying. This might seem obvious, but it's harder than it sounds - music also happens to be really intense. So even if you're playing it with people that you normally get along with, it may get difficult.
Here are some things I've learned on this topic:
Remember that you exist outside of the music you're making.
Although music is extremely personal, it can be super effective to distance yourself from it. Your music might feel like your voice, but you also have another voice - a version of yourself that exists when you're not making music. Maybe you all don't struggle with this one, but I've certainly gotten hung up on this - feeling like my self-worth is tied up in my musicianship, and if someone tells me what to do musically it is a criticism of my value as a human. Not so!
Something that comes to mind here is a great Abe Lincoln quote that goes like this, “It's surprising how much you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.”
How this is relevant: when we’re making music together, there is a collective creativity that happens. If you think about the music instead of the personal interactions (whose idea is best, etc.), you’ll waste less time and energy. I still advocate for basic politeness, but sometimes being direct is the best thing you can do even if you risk hurting someone’s feelings. As Lauren recently reminded me, criticism can come from a place of love - you’re telling someone something they can improve on because you want to help them be better for themselves.
Focus on the good stuff.
Some days that might be the music, some other days it might be something else. Darol once revamped a quote from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers into a brilliant piece of advice: “Fiddling can get you through times of no money better than money can get you through times of no fiddling.” Let it fill your cup! But if the music is a struggle (as it inevitably will be sometimes), try looking elsewhere for comfort - maybe to some nice people, or if that’s not doing it either, try taking solace in nature.
Be kind in communicating.
Remember how totally different someone else’s experience of the very same thing you’re experiencing can be. If you don’t understand why someone’s doing something the way they’re doing it (like, say, playing at a certain volume that seems inappropriate), ask them! Tell them your thoughts too. Have a discussion. It’s kind of shocking how many misunderstandings happen all the time, but I guess that’s because we’re all still working on communicating effectively.
This leads to another facet of collaborative music making: You will eventually need to deliver some constructive criticism to your bandmates or students or friends with whom you jam. This point is about respect. It’s pretty important, so let me expand on that.
Constructive criticism is about respect.
Lauren is helping me wrap my mind around this because I am an extremely non-confrontational person. I get scared thinking about asking my neighbors to stop burning trash. Sometimes you need to confront someone about something unpleasant! They might be annoyed/mad at you. BUT, if the reason you’re discussing the topic with them is because there is something that can be DONE to make things better either for them, you, or the both of yas, then it is important to not avoid the issue. (It is better if no one burns trash). Just say it! And it works better if you phrase it not in a blame-y kind of way.
So for example, instead of “It sounds bad when you do that,” try “I don’t think it works when you play that note over that chord.” Here’s another take: “The way you’re cuing the ending isn’t working for me” has infinitely more useful information than “you’re ruining the tune when you end like that.”
As the receiver of a comment like this, it’s important to take a deep breath, let the comment sink in so you can tell if it’s useful, and remember that however they may have said it, they probably aren’t trying to tell you that you’re a terrible musician and/or person, just that there’s a small issue with something that’s happening musically. And solving issues is great because everyone feels better after it’s happened - and often, you can learn a lot from other people’s opinions because they have a different perspective than you and might notice something about how it sounds or how it fits into the rest of the music that you haven’t yet noticed. So really we should all be thankful for the constructive criticism we receive.
Back to respect - this goes two ways. Respecting your fellow musicians is crucial. Equally important, you want to respect yourself enough to try and make situations work for you so that you feel good, and get things done. If you respect yourself, it extends outward to the people you’ve chosen to share music with. You want to make your relationship with them work musically and otherwise. So you need to address any issues and do so both clearly and with love.
Ok enough about all that. Next lesson:
Never stop learning.
This is an obvious one, but also easier said than done.
There is always more to know. Which is frankly kind of exhausting. But it’s also exciting! And we all have our strengths, which means there is a lot of knowledge very close by at any given time and someone who’d probably like to share some of it with you.
I’m thinking about buying a cheap fishing pole and just going down to a spot on the Watauga where fishermen hang out, hoping some generous soul might feel like sharing some of their knowledge. It’s kind of cool to think about people being experts on all different kinds of things, and how sharing is the key to knowing more about more things.
In music, there is foundational knowledge and fundamental skills, but even with these, you can always keep building. For instance, I’m reading a theory textbook at the moment (slowly), and it was news to me that the three minor scales are really just variants of one minor scale - the “natural” one. I always thought these ‘melodic,’ ‘harmonic,’ and ‘natural’ minors were mysterious distinctions that it was very important to understand and yet I could never for the life of me remember what was what. So there you go - as Aldwell and Schachter so clearly explain, “most compositions in minor will contain elements of all three forms of the scale.” Which notes you choose to use depend on where you are going. Kind of like packing a rain jacket and sunscreen for the same trip.
Sidenote: Lauren has a freebie fingerboard map of minor scales you can go download. Anyways, we’re all just piecing it together as we go, so remember to be curious and keep your ears open. This brings me to my next point:
Find what you like, and then go after that.
There’s only so much time in the day, so it can be difficult to find the balance between being ambitious and realistic. But in deciding what to learn, it might be helpful to think about why you are playing music.
I’m co-teaching a college course right now called “The Art of Interpretation,” and a few weeks ago we had Bruce Molsky as a (Zoom) guest. The students had a bunch of questions for Bruce and he threw a few back, like “why do you play music?” People were kind of speechless because it’s easy to forget why exactly you are doing something, or to do something because you’re compelled to do it and not really know how to put that into words. The answer to that question might tie into what you’re like as a person.
Understanding yourself and accepting yourself can help you plan accordingly, find things that work for you, and set goals that are attainable. We are who we are, and this includes limitations - not to say that you shouldn’t push yourself, but you can also give yourself some grace. We are often our own worst critics. For some, this might be motivating (looking at you, fellow perfectionists!); if this is true for you, use it to your advantage! Get better, do better so it can be a reflection on you and so that it can help lift up your bandmates and enable you to give the best version of yourself to your future audiences.
Related to that last point is the value of diligence and discipline and how these fit into a musical life.
There are several common conceptions of what it’s like to be a professional musician. Beyond the starving artist image, there is the idea that it’s a glamorous life filled with freedom and constant inspiration. You get to play music all the time! Normally it feels like that but sometimes something flips and it feels like you have to play music all the time when you might wish you could do something else sometimes.
And, there is totally glamor sometimes, and a very nice dose of freedom that I try very hard not to take for granted. But, there is also a danger of these elements being overrepresented, which makes it hard to find a routine of productivity. And I don’t mean productivity in capitalist terms, but more in terms of the personal satisfaction that comes from having work to do and doing it.
I still haven’t finished reading “The Artist’s Way” but I know there’s a lot of good stuff in there about how to find a routine of being creative to get you on a fulfilling path of making art, expressing yourself… You might be thinking, but I’m not a professional musician. Well, this still applies to you.
Enhancing creativity is important for everyone. And you’ve probably sorted out how to have discipline in certain areas of your life and how to create routines that enable you to work hard in an organized fashion in order to achieve your goals and further yourself as a person. I guess what I mean to say is everything is related, and any good we can do in one area of our life can carry over into other areas. I used to think of it as more ‘zero sum’ - like if I had to blow-dry my hair every day, that would be 5 minutes less time to putter in the garden or practice sixteenth notes with a metronome. But now I think if you are able to stick to a routine of doing whatever you need to do to feel good/productive/organized (exercise, meditation, vacuuming…) then you can make space in your mind to accomplish anything you put your mind to.
There’s all this talk about work smarter not longer; I guess I believe it. 10 minutes a day of really deliberate practice might be exactly what you need to get to the next level with whatever you’re working on. And then there’s using time when you don’t have your instrument. I’ve heard some really great musicians talk about how they think about music or even compose while walking.
In conclusion...
There’s not really an end to thoughts like these, but I sure do like opening the door to thinking them. How music can help us be better people and make the world around us a better place.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately along those lines is how traditional music in particular accesses us on a fundamentally biological (or spiritual, depending on how you look at it) level. It’s a deep well of material - melodies and rituals like dance and telling stories through song - things we can hang onto, that anthropologically connect us to the past. Having this connectedness with our ancestry is a really important part of finding purpose on earth... and it goes back as far as we are able to conceive.
There is a power to traditional music that lies in its longevity and accessibility, that made it last so long in the hands and minds of the people who played it and passed it on. So I want to leave you with that thought. It might seem like, ‘we learn these tunes because they’re easy and fun,’ but really it is so much more. Beholding that significance brings us together and makes us want to share it, which is the whole point anyway.
Happy fiddling.
-Brittany Haas
Editor’s Note: It’s always wonderful to collaborate with Brittany, and when she suggested this topic I was intrigued. I have learned so much about music through Britt’s generosity and by listening to her musical choices. She’s an inspiration to everyone who’s heard her music and felt her kindness. I appreciate her sharing how she learns about life through the lens of music and teaching. For more lessons from Brittany, you can read her post on finding inspiration through source recordings, and learn this original tune from the fiddler herself.
For other related posts on the blog: How to Approach Learning as an Adult and Sounding Bad Before Better. For lessons with me (Lauren) you can browse the Courses.
