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Music · Life and How to Live It with Dr Rocco

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you sometimes feel like life is passing you by?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: How would you like to get more out of life?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: We explore all things life on this podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Rush.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Live and How to Live It.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Dream Create Connect just live it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the Life and How to Live It podcast with me, Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Rocco.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we are talking about music.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: When I think about music, and I think about living a full life, a life of joy and pleasure, I think that music is an essential element of that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have often said to my family and friends that music is the best thing that humans have ever invented.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever there are people, there is music.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: If people want to have a good time, there's music.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: If they want to create an atmosphere, there's music.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to commemorate something joyful or momentous or sad, there's music.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Music literally vibrates the air that connects us all and in some unexplainable way changes our mood and not just our personal mood, but the mood of whatever room we're in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of anyone I would rather talk about music with than today's guest, my son-in-law, Doug Hertz Friedman.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Doug, welcome to the show.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Rocco.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So happy to be here.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here with us.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get into the conversation, could you play a little music to set the mood?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to go.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I am currently a public school music teacher.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I work in a middle school teaching chorus and classroom music.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I have lived many musical lives.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've worn many musical hats.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: So to take it back to the beginning, I was very privileged as a young person to take private music lessons.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I started with piano lessons.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily enough, my uh my one of my early teachers really encouraged me to explore creativity in music, first through improvisation and later through composition.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And throughout my young years, I uh young years, I was picking up a lot of different instruments and getting excited about a lot of different styles of music and facets of leading a musical life.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and ultimately composition, writing music is the thing that I chose to study in school.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I um in my undergrad, I studied music composition, and then I went on to earn my master's degree also in music composition.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And throughout that time, I was also teaching young people primarily about composition, but also about music generally, and through that discovered a love of teaching, um, which really shaped sort of the path that I eventually ended up on to become a teacher.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so uh I was working with young students as a grad student at the University of Michigan.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And in the summers, I was working at this incredible music camp in New Hampshire called the Walden School that um teaches creativity through music.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And um, through those experiences, I discovered a love of working with young people.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and whereas I had previously been on a path perhaps to enter academia and teach music composition um in the higher ed level, um I really discovered a love of working with young students and decided to go back to school to become a public school teacher.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I earned my teaching license.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I started my career working at an elementary school, so working with really young students and absolutely loved that, and uh more recently transitioned to working in a middle school.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, Doug, uh tell us, you know, like it sounds like you were on a path to go towards this kind of, you know, more academic, as you said, more, I don't know, classically oriented orchestral music, that sort of path.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that drew you to teaching children?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um, I still love to write music.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I still love the world of classical composition that I spent so much time focused on.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, as you mentioned, I um I discovered a couple of um really exciting opportunities, things that really motivated me as a teacher that go along with working with younger people and also working in a public school context where you have opportunities to reach students who might not otherwise have discovered music on their own.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and part of that is just the yeah, the opportunity to um to build these formative experiences with students where they can discover their own love of music or cultivate their relationship with music, um, whether it is as an active participant in performing music and writing music and appreciating music.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what what we teach as public school educators is quite broad and even extends beyond music.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And in many ways, we're teaching um life skills through music.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Music is the medium through which we're teaching how to be a good person, how to take turns, how to be cooperative, how to be collaborative.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that just really excited me, excited me.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And as I um realized how how huge this this world is of of teaching music to to all students, um, rather than say those who already have elected to study music maybe in a conservatory, um I just completely fell in love with the the the challenge, the enormous challenge and um and endless growth that one can experience as a teacher, because there's just always um there's it's an endless craft, you know, in the same way that music or or any art form is.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: I find that teaching is really um really really endless.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a bottomless well of inspiration in a way.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And also challenges, but but also inspiration.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: What what have you learned about music through these young children who are learning music?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's taught me so much.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: It has really rewritten a lot about what I assumed about music um and shaped my musical life.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um what what you heard before was a piece of music played on banjo, which is an instrument that I have absolutely fallen in love with playing over the last few years, and I would have never picked up the banjo if not for um teaching, um teaching my students.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, what what I've learned from working um working with children is um a lot about the community aspect of music making, a lot about um how vital it is to connect with other humans through making music.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I I prior to falling in love with playing banjo and playing a lot of music, um a lot of folk music in the sort of old-time American tradition, which we could talk more about, um, but prior to that, a lot of my musical life outside of teaching involved very solitary creative work of composing and then passing off that music to a performer.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: And at that stage, there is a wonderful amount of collaboration that happens, and I've always loved that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's always really been my favorite part of composing.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but through sort of modeling what it's like to make music with others in my classroom, um, I was seeking more opportunities to to make music in that way, um, to be creative with others with others, to be collaborative.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it really working with with my students really put me on a new and different musical path that has been very rewarding.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very very interesting.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, do you think that young children receive or hear music in a different way than adults do?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think they do.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it depends on the age that they are.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I have seen students, you know, my youngest students, kindergartners who are as young as five years old, um, I have seen them have a really visceral reaction to music in a way that doesn't necessarily have the same filters that we as adults might put on what we're hearing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I encourage critical listening and I um I love the idea of of thinking about what it is that we're hearing and why we're hearing it and where we're hearing it.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, there is something just so immediate about the way that young people respond to music and often through movement.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that to me is a really exciting thing to see that music has this sort of primal um effect on students where they just can't help but move to it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think as as students get older, I think they maybe build their critical listening skills, which is something we teach, but also um they're yeah, I think that there is a an ongoing process of becoming more aware of what they're hearing and what it connects to in terms of um culture and in terms of their social lives.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it in a way, I I think that over time people's listening becomes more refined, but at the same time, that refinement can sometimes take away from like that that visceral enjoyment of music.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not necessarily.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that there is enjoyment in knowing what you're listening to and thinking about what you're listening to.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds a little bit like, you know, the difference between being in your head and in your body, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well said.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: You become more in your head as you get older and yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I and I think that that's something that music does for us, no matter our age.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Even if we are in our heads a lot, we tend to, there's music that uh you can't help but like tap your toe or you're you're you're you're clapping along or or something, you're moving your body.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Even those of us who are really kind of living in our heads all the time, you know, music can help us get to that place where we might have heard it when we were kids.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you know, like I'm 60 years old, you know, and I and everyone knows this feeling is that feeling of hearing uh some music from when you were younger, usually like your adolescent years, young adult years, and it immediately takes you back to the feeling of of being that person who was 18 or 25 or whatever.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I said at the top of the show how you know music has this kind of magical quality that it can it can change a mood, it can set a mood, it can it can make you cry, it can make you happy, it can make you move.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not to put you on the spot, but is there some explanation as to why that happens?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I think it's very complicated, and as you know, I'm not an expert in neuroscience, um, but there's definitely some amount of nature and nurture going on.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: There there are reasons why certain sounds um do sound good together, and that's often sort of the subject of this thing called music theory, but that music theory is often very much based in the Western classical music canon and doesn't explain necessarily why, you know, certain sounds will um sound good to somebody who wasn't raised in that tradition.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, going along with that, I I believe that um, you know, our personal experiences, the way that music ties into memory and just the way that you just mentioned, um, absolutely has a lot to do with it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Music has that ability to be a time capsule and to bring us right back to a moment and I think unearth memories, even that we um that were not otherwise there.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I do think there is magic to it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think music is is magical, I would agree with you there.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there's also many attempts to sort of codify what makes music sound good and connect with our emotions.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's it's a super interesting field and one that I I'm always interested to learn more about, but I'm no expert in.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's been fascinating to me.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm you know, I'm just gonna push this question just a one step further.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people say that a minor chord, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: A minor chord sounds sad, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Would a minor chord sound sad to anybody on earth?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say no.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think a minor chord is sort of, as you said, like the typical sound of of sadness or melancholy or longing.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that, you know, musical context is everything.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: So depending on what the chord before that minor chord was, not to get too in the weeds about music theory here, but um, you know, the chord that leads to that minor chord, depending on what that is, um really like sets the stage for how we receive that minor chord.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and sometimes major chords, the opposite of minor chords, sound sad too.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes minor chords sound like a relief if what if what we've heard before that um is say something that's relatively more sad.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um no, but like I'm there's such thing as diminished chords, for example, which is a um an even minor chord than a minor chord.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: More minor, yes.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: More minor.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so it's all about context.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I also do think it's about the way we are we are raised and the way we're acculturated to different sounds, because within a lot of the music that we listen to in Western society, the minor chord is sort of thought of as this um the minor and major are thought of as this yin and yang, whereas other musical styles don't really conceive of harmony as being um some something like a a two-state um situation where there's there's a happy and a sad or a major or a minor.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I this is a question that I'm uh I'm often you know struck by, you know, when I listen to music and I instantly my mood changes, and I and I want to understand why that is, you know, it's it's just something that fascinates me.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have a question, you know.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're playing the banjo, and and you know, knowing you personally, I know that you've become cum somewhat obsessed with the banjo over the last few years, and um, but you play many instruments, like what just kind of list out instruments that you play just for curiosity.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I play piano and I sing, I play banjo, I play some guitar.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as a music teacher, you know, I have a little experience on some band instruments like clarinet, saxophone, flute, um, as well as some brass instruments like trumpet and trombone.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also play percussion.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: I play a lot of different percussion instruments.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: I have uh a love for Brazilian percussion music, and I play this type of Brazilian drum called a pandeiro, which is a big part of my classroom.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's sort of like a tambourine type instrument.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Look it up.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what is it about the banjo that has just like grabbed you?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the banjo um exists within a really interesting historical context, and also presently, like when I play it, it's often um in a musical context that is very collaborative and egoless in a way that I find really appealing.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to speak to the historical perspective.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned before that um within my within my job, I do a lot of teaching of not just you know the sounds themselves, but also the sort of social and cultural forces around music.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the banjo um has a really interesting and important history and is sort of a prism through which we can understand a lot about American history.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: The the banjo um is a uh a descendant of an instrument from West Africa, or of several instruments from West Africa, and was an instrument primarily played by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, um, in the United States, and in South America, and transformed over um hundreds of years into the instrument that it is today.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, a hundred years ago, banjos were actually very common.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: There were banjo orchestras.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was sort of like a parlor instrument for those who couldn't afford a piano.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so the banjo has been there through all of American history and really tells a story of um of European settlers and enslaved Africans and how those forces came together and created um a new culture or new cultures.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the band the banjo was there the entire time.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's music um for banjo that is some of the earliest recorded music documented.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's notated, not recorded, um, in the in the new world.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the arguably people say the the oldest piece of American music is a banjo piece, uh, or it was it was heard first played on a banjo.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, through any era of American history, the the banjo has been there and the music of the time was expressed through the banjo.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of stories, a lot of storytelling that can go into um into the banjo.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then to speak to the way it's played, I mean, I often participate in these things called jams, um, which is where a bunch of people who have this sort of shared cultural knowledge of this type of music, um old-time American music, get together and play these songs that are as old as 300 years old, sometimes even older, sometimes they're newer songs that are sort of written in a style.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's a very non-hierarchical way of making music with other people.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so people call out tunes.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if you don't know the tune, you try to you do your best to pick it up.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the tunes are really complicated and that's hard.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're simple and it's easy.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and these jams happen all around um, not just the country, all around the world.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it is a really beautifully structured way to get together with people and make music and to build community, which um I have found that the playing the ban show has been an amazing um entry point into a very inclusive and welcoming community.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so that's I mean, that's really beautiful.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love the idea of community, you know, how how you can have community by playing music, um, and how you know the music is so tied with history and culture.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, banjo sp in this case specifically, but all music has is is tied to some culture, some place, some history, some group of people, you know, and and I I and I feel like America is is especially rich with that, you know, when we think about you know the the blues or jazz, rock music.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can name so many different kinds, and and they seem to have grown out of the south.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is that true for the or is that my impression?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that the south has been responsible for a lot of the music that um sort of has mixed and mingled and become what we think of as American music, but there were also forces from the Northeast.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's sort of French influences, um Quebeccois influences.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: But to your point, absolutely.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the American South is where this intermingling of white and black American culture was happening, and that's where a lot of the styles that you mentioned um came from and continue to evolve from.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, so absolutely.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, this is all wonderful if you play music, but what if you're just a person who listens to music?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what how do we get something?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I will just say, I don't play any instruments.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love music.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get in on this action?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, I think that there are many ways to participate in music, obviously.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um, Rocco, it sounds like you are an active listener.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it takes active listeners in order to make music um a thing, the magical thing that it is in the world.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and when I when I say active, I mean there's a couple of ways to think about this.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's the active listening in terms of just being intentional about your listening, um, but there's also the active listening that goes along with going out and seeing live music and supporting music.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's very easy to take music for granted in this day and age with streaming platforms um and you know AI.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's just a lot of ways in which music um can be taken for granted in in modern society.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And a way to work against that, to participate in music, is to support artists who are making music, um, support the artists who are coming to to town, um, and uh yeah, participating in music, talking to musicians after the show, buying their merch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: um whatever it takes to support them because that that is um how music and culture musical culture is is pushed forward it's by these people who are um who are committing themselves to making music and sharing it with us um at the same time i i will make a case for uh for for anybody to play an instrument um as a music teacher i so often talk to people who tell me about how they played an instrument when they were younger and then they gave it up and they've been thinking about getting back to it but they haven't done it um and you know I I think that that's that's all valid um absolutely and also um I I I think that there's sort of a false narrative about needing to be a certain level of proficiency with an instrument in order to play it um and there are you know it being a beginner at music is a is a beautiful thing it's a challenging thing and I have seen a lot of people pick up instruments and maybe they remember how to play a chord on a guitar but they you know they make a sound and then they're like oh I'm not sure like I I you know I don't have the skill to do this or um I I'm not a musician.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not cut out for this.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact is that um unless you're in the s really like small percentage of the population who has some sort of like actual legitimate tone or beat deafness um like you do have musical instincts.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: We all have musical instincts and a part of um being a musician is just allowing yourself to be a beginner and to live with the struggle that goes along with growing.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know musical instruments actually can be learned pretty quickly but it does take that um that time that intention and that struggle that often goes along with learning a new skill.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I encourage people wherever they're at in their lives whether um they are young or old if they think that they have musical instincts or don't I I think that picking up an instrument and learning it just a little bit um will just yield huge dividends in terms of um you know your own experience of learning a creative craft a way of expressing yourself um and also hopefully connecting with with other people yeah I love I love that um because I I used to know a guy who said anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at the beginning and I think that you know we yeah and I'm guilty of this too you know it's like we you know we want to be great like right away at whatever we do you know if you're learning a new language you want to be fluent right away you don't want to make mistakes and sound like a first grader you know but um same thing with music um I'm curious so so if somebody wants to learn an instrument um any recommendations like what's a good instrument to start with obviously passion like if you love an instrument that's where you should start but what's a good instrument like for someone who is not going to dedicate a ton of time and how's the best way to learn absolutely and I love that you brought up passion.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that keeping it fun and making it connect to some music that you're already interested in is a really good starting place so that you have that immediate feedback of like whoa I'm doing this I am making music in this way that is very um sonically pleasing to me and excites me because I already love this music.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah there there are so many instruments to start with.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the guitar is a wonderful starter instrument just because we live in a very guitar centric musical world where a lot of the music that we listen to features guitar.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know guitar like any instrument is endlessly complicated and difficult.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: But to pick up a guitar and learn a couple of chords actually gets you a lot of mileage in terms of being able to um you know make a lot of different music and um play songs from in different musical styles.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: I would add to that that singing is also something that um though I know it it can be an intimidating thing to do, especially if you've never done it or you haven't done it in a long time but we all have this instrument built in and we all know how to use it to a certain extent.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: So so I would say guitar and or voice are two really great places to start.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what's the best way to start find how do you find a teacher?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Should you do something online?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah well you know um if you can afford private lessons that's always the best way there's no real substitute for somebody who can give you immediate feedback and um your your growth will just be more individualized um and probably take you further if you're working with a private teacher and the internet is an incredible place to learn how to play music.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: So YouTube obviously YouTube University all day I have learned to play banjo through a mixture of in-person lessons and online lessons um and there's just uh an abundance a plethora of resources on the internet to play any instrument in any style and again to connect this to starting with your own passion I I think doing some thinking first about what you want to get out of the experience of learning an instrument like do you want to be able to play classic rock?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to be able to play Brazilian choro music?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like what is it that excites you?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And there's probably a YouTube video for you that explains um how to get there or the path to getting there.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you've made a good case for learning to play an instrument or or learning to use your voice as an instrument.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: But what if somebody doesn't really want to do that?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like how can they get more out of music or what would you recommend to them?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I I think again being an active participant in music um and and exposing yourself to different things.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was just sort of um you know talking about the challenges or the dangers of of our modern streaming platform based musical ecosystem um and at the same time it enables listening to music from so many different places in the world from so many different time periods.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: And there's just so much to discover and give yourself over to that process of discovery of listening to new music um start to question the boundaries of what you think is is your music because there is an endless ecosystem of different types of music to listen to and um I I think it's such an important part of understanding who we are and where we've come from the experiences we've had to sort of identify with a certain type of music and identify with maybe like a culture or learn about a culture that's not even our own through enjoying and appreciating their music.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So listen to music, go out there support musicians that is a perfectly valid way.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a necessary part of the musical ecosystem.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well I I really like that a lot Doug for the listeners hang on for Dr.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Rocco's recs which is coming soon Doug has actually talked about and maybe stolen a little of my thunder with the with for my rec.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um Doug, so we're we're getting close to the end of our conversation is there anything else you'd like to say about music um at all?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot I could say about music.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm grateful for music.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: Music has really been there for me and a number of times in my life it's been um a place that I've gone to for community it's been a place that I've gone to for reflection it's been a place that I've gone to um to understand my place in the world and this moment.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I started writing music because I was processing um the first death of my life and I I feel like that sort of hardwired in my brain um the fact that like responding to tragedy responding to difficult times um through music is a really productive and um and useful way to to process emotions.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm very grateful that music has been there for me and it can be there for you too because music is available to all of us.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: It is um it's it's everywhere it is a uh infinite resource um and it it's there for us to enjoy and to appreciate and to share.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well that is a beautiful way to close the conversation now before we say goodbye um I have a question I ask all of my guests and that is uh if you had the opportunity to put a message on a billboard and you knew this billboard was going to be seen by many many people every day what would your message be?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: My billboard message would be and I I already mentioned this a little bit but it's to give yourself permission to be a beginner and that's not just in music that's in so many facets of life.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know I I teach a lot of young people music and I think that the single most important musical skill the thing that most predicts um a student's success with music is how much permission they give themselves to be beginners how much permission they give themselves to um to not succeed immediately and then to grow from that and to um reflect on the path ahead and the reflect on how to to grow as a musician and as a and as a person.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: And of course that has applications as you mentioned to so many different things but give yourself permission to be a beginner I think that um adults are um there's sort of a uh a taboo against being a beginner or or failing or struggling with with new skills and that is that's a counterproductive instinct um where it comes from is is kind of um beyond my scope of expertise um but to give yourself permission to to fail to be a beginner to reflect and to grow um is is the heart of learning new things um and and building understandings of new things very very well said I love that billboard message give yourself permission to be a beginner so Doug why don't you take us to the next segment of the show with another piece of music all right I'll play something a little livelier this time by the way the first tune I played was an Irish tune of all things a tune called She Begs She More and this will be um Sal's Got Mud Between Her Toes which is a Kentucky tune for the doctor Thank you Doug that was beautiful and thanks for joining us um for today's episode now it's time for Dr.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Roccozarix Dr.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Roccozerix now it's time for Dr.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Rocco's rix my recommendation today is seek out live music so as I said uh my son-in-law uh stole my thunder on this he did not know this was my recommendation but I think this is a really important one um we live in a time where we have access to pretty much any song that's ever been written it's incredible I mean I love living in this time you can listen to a symphony an old jazz tune you can listen to the latest new song um but it is not live music live music has as and I mentioned this word magic it has a different magic when you're seeing the music performed in front of you and you're and you're sharing that with other people who are there also um listening to the music uh there's a certain magic there so don't sell yourself short on the opportunity for some magic you know I um recently took a trip to the west coast of Ireland and one of my favorite things about that trip was going to the pubs and listening to live music um and one of the things I love about that is that even the tiniest town on a Tuesday night would have live music.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think they've got that right and I think that you know you it's hard to know where you live it's whether it's easy or hard to find live music but seek it out that is my recommendation for this week did you know that the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras yes that Pythagoras the one with the triangles that you studied when you were in high school geometry well Pythagoras did uh experiments with vibrating string and discovered the link between math and music and intervals and and and chords and things that sounded good together.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: He also believed that the sun and the moon and the earth and the planets all created a certain music when they moved through space and he called that the music of the spheres so when try going out at night on a quiet night and see if you can hear the music of the spheres.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well that's all for today's show thank you for spending a little time with me today.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed it until next time so long thanks for listening to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Rocco if you'd like to book a coaching session with me simply visit the show notes and schedule a discovery call.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if today's episode encouraged you or added value to your life please subscribe and leave a review.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Remember life is not a dress rehearsal.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time so long