Why everyone should learn an instrument

A persuasive essay for English.

In my experience, I’d say learning even the basics of my first instrument - the bass guitar - was as beneficial to me as learning the alphabet. First off, I will present some simple reasons why leaning an instrument is so rewarding.

Ø It’s a challenge, and it builds patience.
Of course, the level of the challenge changes depending on the instrument you’re taking on. But in any case, your instrument will pose some immediate challenges. For instance, on a guitar or bass, you have to develop calluses on your fingers - pressing those strings down hurts. But persistence pays off quickly - you can wake up in the morning with the ability to play something you couldn’t the night before. With these rock instruments in particular, you can learn to jam with other musicians very quickly, and jamming is some of the most fun you can have.

Ø You can have fun with it at any skill level.
Part of the reason for this is that more advanced musicians will gladly jam with a beginner - in my case, when I was just a young bassist, I had the opportunity to play with virtuoso guitarist Keston Barker, a fellow Windsor Housian, and this helped me to develop. You’re always on your feet when you’re playing with someone with more experience. Now when I’m playing with a beginning player, I find it not only lets me relax a lot while playing, but it helps me learn how to play simple things.

Ø Improvement is a constant possibility.
I went to a saxophone workshop in north Van a while back, and one of the instructors, who’d been playing for (about) 30+ years said, “If I ever run out of things to practice, I’m gonna quit playing.” They talked about a pianist friend of theirs, who’d died at around age 75, and they said that up until his last month, he would still come home from gigs at 2 a.m. and then practice until 4 a.m. Whether you’re just learning your instrument casually, or you’re a 70-year-old pianist named McCoy Tyner who played with John Coltrane, you’re never gonna reach a dead end.

Ø You listen to music in a totally different way.
Of course, if you’ve never touched an instrument in your life, it’s easy to take music for granted - not to say that non-musicians can’t like music, but I myself couldn’t appreciate a great guitarist like Nick Drake before taking up the instrument.
You start to listen to everything, and picture what the music would feel like if you were playing it. You start to ask, “How is that done?” And when you start learning theory, if you choose that path, you can recognize certain chord progressions, rhythms, or scales by ear - even in sounds that aren’t music, like human speech, or traffic sounds. Also, the theory can lead you to listen to music you wouldn’t have considered before - for instance, you could just be playing Nirvana all day, then suddenly become an Eric Dolphy fan. For instance.


Now, here are some arguments that I’d like to settle.

Ø An instrument? That’s a huge commitment! I don’t have time for that!
Not true. You don’t have to devote your whole life to it - like I said before, you can enjoy yourself with only four chords. And anyways, it’s a much better way of avoiding your homework than watching the boob tube.

Ø I like music, but I can’t play it. I’m not musical.
Of course you’re not musical if you don’t try an instrument. If you try it, you are musical. No one is born with the ability to play. If you are inclined to play, you can play.

Ø But I can’t even keep a beat!
What do you think drummers and metronomes are for?

Ø I can’t read music.
You don’t need to be able to read music to play it, especially if you’re just starting out. Whatever you need to learn off the top, a friend can show you.

I’d like to conclude that music can not only improve your life in all the ways I’ve mentioned and more, but that it puts good vibes in the air and improves the quality of life of people around you. I have had two people in my co-op, people I hardly even know, come up to me and say almost exactly the same thing: “I love hearing the saxophone - I feel like I’m living in Europe!” People want to hear music. Give it to ‘em.

Today is definately a blog day.

"One might think that this blog has died but alas, no."
-Nils on Goaded by Vices
Couldn't a put it better meese elf. But a lot of stuff happened today and in the last few days.

I was home from school the other day, sick, but by the mid-afternoon I was well enough to assist Ilsa in removing the trash from our CD shelves (the first and third Hole albums? Stinko!) and bringing it to the Audiopile. We got a cool $50 worth of credit, so we got a Liars EP, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, and a 2-CD live set of the Charles Mingus sextet with Eric Dolphy, with $17 left. I asked them to order a 2-disc Swans set for me, which I'm insanely excited for.

Today I rose quite late, and consumed a mild breakfast. Ilsa and I then escorted Cookie to trout lake and fetched Slurpees. When we arrived home, I found a non-moving being on the bathroom floor on top of a towel. We have had many brief mouse sightings in the last month, so we found it bizarre to see him sitting still. We elected to bury the small creature. I lifted the edge of the towel, and whad du ya gno, the being moved. He scampered a foot or so, but then found himself cornered. He couldn't move very fast, and was limping slightly. We scooped him up in a paper towel and took him across to the park so that Cookie wouldn't bother us. We figured he would gain strength if we cared for him, so we put him in a large flower pot and put some things in there for him and put it in the bathtub. We decided we'd take him to trout lake and let him go tomorrow. About an hour later, we checked on him, and he looked ill. He convulsed a bit, and then he was dead. I'm glad we were at least there when it happened. We did wind up burying him.

I had to write a persuasive essay for English, and duly sat down to and completed my task within 2 hours. I will post this essay, Why everyone should learn an instrument, soon. It was good to get this thing over with - it was easy, but took the mental energy of coercing myself into doing it.

At about 4, I went to O'Brien's. He had had some enormous score at a garage sale earlier - some post-college students had out a box of CD's for two bucks apiece, and he vacuumed up a dozen or so of them - deluxe My aim is true, some John Cage, Charlie Hayden, Hatful of Hollow, Basement tapes, Talking Heads:77 and The name of this band is Talking Heads (a double-live set), Hounds of love, etc. Then there was the mutha lode: a small, highly portable guitar amp. I brought the Squire with me to test it, and wound up playing around with it for an hour. It yields some massive overdrive, which is very fine, but you can also get some good clean sounds out of it. Mr. O'brien obtained all these things at the garage sale for $30. We had some fud, then Ilsa swung by and we headed over to Fab's - we were getting a ride to see Fab's play, an abridged version of The Complete works of William Shakespeare abridged. Ilsa grabbed a bite before the show, and we got in for free because we brought in a man to threaten the usher. The play was very pleasing, especially Macbeth. Fab's part was much more voluminous than previous plays I've seen him in.

I am now going to venture to the room adjacent to this one, my bedroom. The reason I'm doing this is that my bed is located therein, and my bed is where I sleep. Oh yes, the Pixmeister is coming in just a week! I'm quite excited about it. But what I'm not excited about is that I recently found out my wisdom teeth are gonna be pulled in July. Yeow!