Why music is for anyone – a personal story

How do we measure the value of playing music? Is there some invisible line that we have to cross to make it “worth our while”? Is it about making money, or being the best student in the masterclass, or being admired and respected by others? Is it about mastering that really difficult piece or getting into the community orchestra? 

If you’re reading this you probably share with me a beautiful love for music. You might also share with me a complicated and difficult relationship with music. A ‘love-hate’ relationship that can be confusing and exhausting. A relationship that at times is fuelled by hope and other times feels crippled by despair. Maybe I’m being a tad dramatic, but for a large part of my life, music was a huge part of my identity. I was a music student, a teacher, a performer, an orchestra member, a concertgoer, a choir singer – a musician! I felt proud at times, but I also sat with so many uncomfortable feelings. I wasn’t the best flute player in my university let alone in my town, my province, my country, the world! I had been told I had talent, but I didn’t work hard enough, and I would never be good enough. I asked myself: “Good enough for what”?

I was hurt and tired and so I stripped myself of that ‘musician’ identity for half a decade. I went to teach English in Thailand, I didn’t take my flute with me, I didn’t find a choir to sing in, and I hardly ever went to concerts. I had been a musician, but that was in the past. My identity shifted and I became a traveler, a lover of languages and cultures. I felt free.

At some point I made friends with a group of Thai artists – they would sit at Chatuchak market every Saturday and Sunday and do caricatures and portraits of tourists. They were a hoot. They invited me to sit with them and with my conversational Thai, I helped them communicate with their English-speaking customers. At the end of the day, as the market began to close and their customers became fewer and fewer, I prepared to leave but they told me to wait for the “music party”. I waited and as the tourists shuffled out, the artist’s sidewalk market “shop” transformed into the most wonderful “music party”. Out came a few guitars, a cajon, a drum kit, and various tambourines and shakers. Some of the artists were pretty good players and singers, but mostly they just shared a love for making music together. We sang, danced, and played till well after midnight, rotating instruments, laughing, chatting, and musicking together. 

Jenny Pott (middle) at ArtStreet Group on an evening at Chatuchak market in Bangkok. You can see one of the artists setting up his drumkit at the back of the shop for the evening’s “music party”.

Jenny Pott (right) singing at a “music party” with the artists.

I became a regular at the markets and the music parties afterwards. I was invited to their homes, family weddings, and even to a beautiful traditional ceremony in the South of Thailand when one of them was ordained as a Buddhist monk. Wherever this group of friends went they took guitars and percussion instruments. None of them were formally trained. They couldn’t read music or play scales. Some of them couldn’t sing in tune. Some of their rhythms were questionable at best. But everyone was included. Everyone sang and played and danced. We all felt good enough. The music drew us together and made us feel a part of something, and I fell in love with music again. 

After almost 7 years in Thailand, equipped with a new and different love for music I returned home to South Africa to do my Masters in Music Therapy. During this profoundly life-changing degree I learned so much, including this cool “Did you know?” – In 1916 when Ernest Shackleton and his men were stranded after their ship was frozen fast in the ice, they took a banjo with them. This group of desperate stranded men who had to drag lifeboats behind them packed with the bare essentials from their ship chose to take a banjo.

Ernest Shackleton’s men hauling lifeboats behind them

They carried that banjo all the way to Elephant Island and sang and played together when times were particularly tough. Shackleton later wrote that they took the banjo with them as a “mental tonic” that “did much to keep the men cheerful”. I just love that – to think of making music as a “mental tonic”. 

And yet there exists a belief, particularly in Western society, that to play music (or dance, or paint or create) one needs to be excellent at it. This belief that music should only be made by the (very) few who excel at it and listened to by the many (silently, and preferably without moving) is perpetuated in concert halls, international talent shows, music schools; even in junior school choirs. And let me assure you – this belief has devastating consequences for so many who have been told they can’t sing in tune or play in time. To make music with others or even alone is an extraordinary gift. We make music to celebrate, to mourn, to worship, to soothe, to work, to say hello and to say goodbye, to tell stories, to express our deepest emotions. It is very likely that for most of human history, we have been making music – clapping, whistling, dancing, drumming, playing, and singing. 

“Music Therapist” is a part of my identity today, but so is “musician” which I feel is almost synonymous with my identity as “human”. Should I strive to improve – to increase my repertoire, better my technique, improve my tone, my phrasing, my interpretation? If I’d like to, then yes I absolutely should. But I no longer believe that in order to make music I need to work towards perfection. In order to make music I need only to open my mouth or pick up my instrument. My relationship with music exists because I am human. I can connect with and relate to others through music. I can connect to myself and my emotions through music. 

And so I encourage anyone, everyone, to see themselves as musical beings. Make music – find a group to play with, sing with your children in the car, play your anger on a drum, whistle your excitement, play your sadness, sing around the dinner table with friends. And in these moments don’t question your intonation or comment on your child’s rhythm. No one should ever feel that they do not deserve to make music.