What Music Has Helped Me Learn About MyselfApr 20 '01 (Updated Feb 10 '10) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line It's a part of who I am and I never would have learned this without my music education.
I haven't written in this category since Epinions revamped the new categories, because I was disappointed at how the categories were changed. There are plenty of reasons why people often advocate it - improving academic performance, exposure to the arts, learning a skill, enjoyment. All of these are true and are justifications for parents providing instruments and lesson to their children, schools providing classes, despite budgetary concerns, people taking up singing or playing at any age. As I've aged, I've spent a lot of time and effort getting to know myself - the scripts from my parents, my needs, how I serve others, how I worship, how I strive to develop myself, my goals, my behavior - good and bad. Time and time again studying, performing and listening to music has been a big part of the mix. Part of this study has included reading of devotional and esoteric Christian works, and this has helped me to understand myself too. I really think that my efforts involved in seeking commenced seriously about 5 years ago. I didn't place any limits on where all of this would take me, other than to hopefully understand myself better. The bottom line is that my life would be considerably worse if I had not discovered how music stirs my soul. The following are the things I've learned about myself since I started: Musical expression is part of how I seek God. It more than singing and playing in church, although I do perform regularly in my home church and with a gospel choir. It's the act of striving to express myself musically. That is what stirs my soul. I ignored this for a good portion of my adult life as I left my horns in the basement, while concentrating on providing for my family and pursuing a business career. The feelings of real connection with God happen at different times. It can happen during a jazz solo in practice or performance, where I'm in flow and everything is good. It can be singing a hymn during services - my favorites being One Bread, One Body, Here I Am, Lord, How Great Thou Art and Blest Are They. I am the sole human standard and human judge of the value of my musical study and performances. This is another way of saying that my goal in music is to be the best John Temmerman I can be. My musical skills can charitably described as journeyman (competent but unexceptional) pro. I have average hearing skills and below average dexterity. As I said in an earlier epinion, in my youth, I felt like Sallerni in Amadeus: I had a clean mind and a pure heart and I practiced lots but my playing wasn't as good as some more talented other players and wasn't good enough for me. Understanding that the journey of self discovery had great rewards and what mattered was actualizing myself freed me to play joyfully. This does not make me a practice room wonder. I do pursue live performances, I make and sell recordings, some of which are sampled on my profile page. I love to perform. Period. But I don't let the realities of the music business get me down (hint: booker rhymes with h******) and I value my performances enough so that I won't let myself get exploited by a performance fee that's just not worth it. Other roles are important to me and are also a part of me The roles that come to mind are father, husband, provider, helper (to my disabled wife), leader and servant (to the people I work with) teacher (of music and accounting) and others. For much of my life, I thought in black and white. Be a starving musician or focus on life as an accountant to provide for my [eventual] family. Adults don't spend time on such frivolous things as music, according to one of my scripts. Sometimes the roles compete with each other in terms of time commitment. Some roles I like more than others, sometimes the priorities are different at different times. However, acknowledging that there are many roles for me and I need to make some sense out of them all rather than denying them was a great leap forward. For much of my adult life, I was content (literally) to existentially flit from priority to priority and complain (to myself, mostly). I found great value in a lecture I attended by Caroline Myss where one segment focused on archetypes. She said that the people who mature and develop spiritually manage to discover their archetypes - most have from 8 to 12 - and work to understand them and experience them. Me, I denied my musician archetype for years. Listening to music provides pleasure and value Well, duh. However, I did not realize that this truth signals the meaning that music can have for all of us. I had tended to regard this superficially. Music therapy is developing as a professional discipline and there has been much esoteric exploration and increasing scientific study of connections between music and healing the body and soul. Music is not something I do, it's a part of who I am as are the other roles. Understanding this helped me understand it's meaning to me. What does this have to do with music education? Well, my parents made sure that I always had good private teachers. The study of music helped me discover a spark in me - a spark that could have gone out at various times, but didn't. Without the initial music education, I may have never learned this about myself. I enjoy passing on musical knowledge to my students and there is meaning in that for me. Music is such a central part of the human experience, each human being should be given an opportunity to discover how music interacts with there life - and that's why music education, formal and informal, should be encouraged. If you like mainstream and fusion jazz, check out my web site, www.jazzobsession.com. You’ll find information on my newly-released CD, The Power of Two by John Temmerman's Jazz Obsession Quartet. It is available through Amazon.com and www.cdbaby.com. I have a special discount available on sales through my web site. Come on by!  |
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