Reclaiming Music, part 3: the Right to Do It Wrong

Due to our musical wounding, which has frozen us from using our innate musicality, many of us live our lives as if we have no right to make music. Sometimes we think we should be quiet all the time, and not take up any space.

This is abuse of the human being. If we were expected to be “barely here” in the past, that was wrong. If we are asking ourselves, now, to not make any noise or take up any space, not to have any bodily presence in this world, then we are continuing to mistreat ourselves now. This is not a reasonable expectation of a human being, that we sit down and be quiet, that we do not dance, sing, thump things, and shout once in a while.

I’m not condemning anyone specific, such as teachers or parents who taught us how to behave. It’s an illness that affects all of us, that we have tried to not be human beings. This is like if a bunch of birds believed they should not fly around, sing, or eat worms. It goes against our nature to not be musical, which means making sound and moving around.

Due to buying into the lie that we have no right to make any music (many of us insisting on self-labeling long after it’s really needed, as in “I can’t carry a tune” or “I can’t keep a beat” or “I have no feeling for music” - all lies), many of us have frozen our musical development.

We did not allow ourselves to have the musical experiences which would allow us to pick up skills, and now we are here, all these years later, underdeveloped compared to the heights of our musical potential.

Though some musical authorities like to be mysterious about how skill happens, the truth is there is only one way to develop skills, and that is to do it, a lot. If you want to be able to play the mandolin “well”, then there’s nothing for it, you have to play a mandolin a lot and sooner or later you will do so well. There’s no special or better way to do it, in the end - what teaches you to play the mandolin is you trying to play the mandolin and gradually getting better at it.

The foundation of developing any skill is trying stuff out, then repeatedly trying to do the same thing until eventually, what was once an effort becomes natural, fluid and thoughtless. It helps of course to have exposure to people who will give you new ideas and ways of thinking about it, maybe some inspiration and listening to other players - but mostly it will be you finding out what you can do, what capacities you can bloom, while hanging out together with your mandolin.

So why don’t we do that, if that’s all it takes? Because we’re not allowed, according to our anti-human culture, to play mandolin badly. There are only two things that are allowed in our world: not to play at all (to self-exclude because you assess yourself to be not worthy or capable enough), OR to play beautiful, skillful gorgeous music that everybody loves.

What people don’t tend to talk about is the inevitable fact that you cannot become a skillful gorgeous musician without making a lot of horrible, disturbing, incorrect, absolutely graceless sounds. If you think anyone - Yoyo Ma, whoever - came out of the womb able to play or sing or percuss the way they can now, you are mistaken and misled.

So I would like to officially reclaim, for every single human being on this planet, the right to make music, which also means the right to make NOISE. And the right to make BAD MUSIC. And the right to make HORRIBLE SOUNDS. The right to say Wow, how great that I can hear that I am off the beat, how great that I can hear that I am off key. That is my musicality that allows me to sense that difference. The fact that I can sense it means someday I can also play it “right”.

Don’t let anyone trick you out of your right to be imperfect, clumsy, and a total knucklehead, a bad artist or to try singing a song outside your range, because in those experiences of doing it “wrong”, that is where you learn how to do it right.

My Invitations to You for Recovering Your Right to Make Music, specifically by doing it Wrong:

Do any/all of the following, as long as it’s fun.

Part 1: Take a song that you know pretty well how it goes. (Happy Birthday, for example). Now sing it incorrectly. Whatever you do, just don’t sing it the way it’s supposed to go. See if you can make it sound really, really bad.

Part 2: Take a song with a pretty steady beat, or just use a drumming backing track like this one and do whatever you can to drum along in a chaotic, inappropriate way. Make the most off-beat, weird, too-loud, senseless percussion you can, but whatever you do, don’t gracefully follow the beat.

Part 3: Play your instrument to a pre-recorded song with some sweet harmonies like this one and again, do your best to play off key, and add just the worst sounds that really don’t fit. The worse the better. (You can also do this vocally if you prefer, also fun).

Part 4: Write some bad song lyrics to replace the good lyrics of Heart of Gold. Or do this with another song that’s relatively simple.

Part 5: Put it all together by doing a song version of the Disasterpieces prompt.

Part 6: Reflect on your experiences. What, if anything, surprised you about what happened? When and where did you enjoy yourself? Why might that be?

Have fun!

If you enjoyed Reclaiming Music, you may want to continue on with the Developing Musicality series.