Are you brave enough to be a musician?

A brave new musician recently came to me for flute lessons after picking up the flute on their own during the pandemic. Their roommate loaned them their old flute and beginning band books that had been stored away in a closet for years and encouraged them to learn something new. Starting something new takes bravery. Starting something new as an adult takes a bit more bravery. Starting something new during a worldwide pandemic is downright admirable.

Music is an invaluable and brave undertaking whether you’re a preschooler or an old schooler, during a nationwide quarantine or during peaceful passive times. The physical aspect of learning to play an instrument along with the academic aspect of learning to read musical notation requires focus, patience, discipline, maturity, and creativity.

When I mention maturity I do not mean age. I've taught 4-year-olds with more maturity than some teens and adults I've taught. Maturity in music learning means that for the duration of the music lesson or music practice you have the ability to maintain attention on the development of musical tasks whether through listening to a teacher and applying critique or through practicing independently with the ability to self-critique.

Focus and maturity are similar in music learning. If you can focus on something for at least 20-30 minutes at a time, learning music is an excellent source for your focus. If 20-30 minutes sounds like an overwhelming amount of time to focus, think about music lessons and music practice broken into 5 minute intervals. 5 minutes trying to produce good tone in the lower register. 5 minutes to recall what was learned last week and play through it. 5 minutes to go over new note fingerings. 5 minutes learning to read new notes in the music staff. 5 minutes of playing your favorite song. After 30 minutes remember to stretch and take a break!

Discipline is necessary in becoming a better musician, and music is a great teacher of self-discipline. Becoming comfortable and familiar with reading musical notation and physically operating a musical instrument require practice to attain improvement. Practice takes discipline. The motivation to practice should come from wanting to experience the lessons that learning an instrument can teach you while you learn how to play the instrument and read music. You have to want to experience music in order to attain the discipline to become better at it today than you were yesterday.

Patience is essential in music learning. Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk is not an enthralling musical thriller, but a necessary step in building music reading skills. Patience in practicing quarter notes and whole notes and just creating a sound on your instrument ensures that you will be fully comfortable with sequential fundamental techniques before learning the next, slightly harder one. Solid foundations in very basic music reading creates a prepared musician. Prepared musicians are confident in capability and will greet the next technical exercise with enthusiasm thanks to their patience in learning and practicing basic fundamentals.

Creativity is a helpful attribute in learning to be a musician. Though learning music has aspects of learning math and language, it is a creative art form and requires expression to be effective. Learning to read sound and time while also playing and expressing sound and time through song is an entirely creative endeavor. The reading of musical notation is obtained academically, expressing music as an art by playing an instrument is obtained creatively. Creativity has the most room to flourish in the musician who has focused on discipline, practiced and prepared with patience and maturity, and is open to expressing the art of music bravely.

If you have chosen to study music or to return to studies in music after time away I admire your bravery. If you have learned something new, a hobby, a language, an art, how to run a zoom meeting, how to cook an artichoke, you are brave and I admire you.

If you are feeling brave enough to start learning music or return to studying music after time away, please email me at colleenperaltamusic@gmail.com.

If you recently learned or taught yourself something new, or returned to learning something old, please share your story of bravery in the comments!