A delightful introduction to music for adults (draft in progress)¶
Purpose¶
So many adults have come up to me after a musical performance and said, “I love listening to music, but wish I could play it myself”. This book is written for them, and in particular, to help friends of mine who in their thirties decided they wanted to get in on the beautiful, mysterious world of music not just as a listener, but also to play for their own enjoyment.
The specific problem I want to address is that not everyone grows up with formal musical education (or accepts it if it was forced upon them). In fact, I myself received very little musical education (no private piano lessons) and stumbled my way through school band playing flute for four years starting at age ten before giving up on flute for almost thirty years before I decided to try again. Age ten was also the year my mother convinced my father to get an upright piano, but since she herself had no formal instruction, we tried to teach ourselves and I gave up after a couple of weeks, only to try again in college, and then cycling through years of giving up and trying again. Eventually I simply gave up on trying to play music until shortly after reaching the age of forty, when I decided I wanted to try again, and differently. This time, it stuck, and I realized that without guidance, I had gone about music earlier completely wrong.
My goal is to help adults have a lot more fun and results in getting into music, with a focus on experiencing the delight of music. I present an active inquiry-based approach to understanding and making music by combining both theory and practice in an efficient, enjoyable way.