Years ago, I read a book by John Holt entitled, Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story. I had read other books by Holt, who started out as an educational reformer and ended up as a homeschooling advocate – writing books like How Children Fail, How Children Learn, Learning All the Time, and Teach Your Own. He had a remarkable gift for observing in minute detail how children learn, from practical, pedagogical, and emotional perspectives.
Never Too Late was a memoir of sorts, describing how Holt at age 40 took up the cello for the first time in his life and aimed toward professional competency. “If I could learn to play the cello well, as I thought I could, I could show by my own example that we all have greater powers than we think; that whatever we want to learn or learn to do, we probably can learn; that our lives and our possibilities are not determined and fixed by what happened to us when we were little, or by what experts say we can or cannot do.”
I remember reading his account when I was in my 20s, thinking of how I could be more responsive, respectful, and empathetic with my adult piano students. I was taking notes, as it were, but not really thinking the concepts applied to me, personally.
So now here I am at age 50, learning a new instrument myself, suddenly remembering the descriptions of angst and emotional drama that Holt described in his own learning.
I am a pianist, teacher, and church choir accompanist. A year ago, my very large suburban church installed a new million dollar pipe organ. It’s a fabulous instrument in every way. My music director/choir conductor has been programming wonderful choir anthems with pipe organ accompaniment. Of course the choir should sing with this wonderful instrument. But I am not an organist. Oh, my – suddenly I am updating my skill set.
I had one semester of organ lessons in college, 28 years ago.
For the past five years, I have had to accompany the choir on the organ about once or twice a year, increasing to three to four times in the past year.
You have to understand, this is not my area of expertise.
In the beginning, I thought of it as an exercise in stretching my personal comfort zone.
After a few tries, I thought of it as a grand lesson in humility.
Lately, I have realized that I am no longer learning to play a particular anthem for a particular occasion. Now I am really learning to play a new-to-me instrument.
At age 50, I can’t think of anything more humbling. I think of myself as a professional most of the time. Professional teacher, professional accompanist. I feel competent. I come prepared, I deliver an expected outcome.
Then comes the Sunday I’m scheduled to accompany on the organ, and I suffer tortures unimagined. I am awake at 3 AM imagining all the ways my feet could fail me, I half hope for food poisoning to incapacitate me, and I secretly bargain with God to do just well enough not to totally embarrass myself. Even when the playing goes well enough, the mental uncertainty exhausts me. I spend the rest of the day second guessing myself, replaying the performance, wondering if I should retire, and berating myself for not aiming higher than ‘getting through without embarrassing myself.”
All this has made me a much more empathetic teacher, especially with my adult students. Think of it – you’re the vice president of a major bank, but learning to play the melody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star takes longer to prepare than your notes for a board meeting. You’re a college teacher, but keeping a steady beat through a Clementi Sonatina takes weeks and weeks of practice. You’re hell on wheels in the corporate world, but performing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer on a recital has you shaking in your boots.
My own practice sessions on the fabulous pipe organ I am privileged to play are hilarious – I sneak into the building at 7 AM and spend days practicing with the softest organ stops available so that no one in the building will hear me fumbling about. It’s only when I am 90% sure I can dance through correct notes that I will “pull out all the stops” and practice with the sounds and open swell boxes that I’ll actually use in performance.
All in all, I am grateful for this opportunity, humbling as it sometimes becomes. Experiencing the learning process, entering the ‘beginner’s mind’ is instructive, humbling, and useful for me as a teacher.
My organ learning reminds me how it feels to be incompetent, reaching for competence.
Isn’t that what all of my students feel at some point in their journey with us?
Experiencing it, feeling it myself, helps create compassion and patience for others at that stage in their musical journey. It makes me a better teacher.
