It's Okay to be a Dilettante

I was 19 or 20, in college, when I showed enough competence to pass an introductory piano class. I was about to turn 40 when I got a keyboard to learn on at home, a beginner once again. In between, I forgot everything and ignored my inner artist while vaguely dreaming of playing in a jazz or rock band. I did learn to love karaoke, and even got to perform with a live band in an amateur rendition of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Part of me loves being onstage, even though I don’t have a great deal of talent and never know what to do with my limbs while standing or singing up there. I often thought about taking vocal lessons, for my own edification as well as to get better at karaoke, but I never called a voice coach or picked up a musical instrument.

The artist within is always drowned out by my pragmatic inner voice, which seems hell-bent, sometimes, on suppressing joy. Even after I bought the keyboard, it remained a hostage in the trunk of my car for weeks. When are you going to have time to play it? the pragmatic voice asked. You’re just going to abandon it, and then it’ll be taking up space in the house. I remembered trying to learn the guitar in my teens and giving up when it felt too hard. You’ll never get good at it, so what’s the point? The concept of making arts and crafts as its own reward eludes me. This is why I’ve never convinced myself to start a hobby involving making stuff with my hands. If I started learning to crochet, for instance, then I’d better get good enough, and quickly enough, to make things that people would want. Otherwise, surely my closets would fill up with bad scarves and hats that don’t get worn, and I would end up throwing them away. My brand of black-and-white thinking has me jumping to the conclusion that creative pursuits are not worthwhile unless they result in something recognizably good. By extension, I am not good enough unless I’m producing something of value.

This particular cognitive distortion (a therapy term) has always kept me from seeking fulfillment. Once, in therapy, my counselor held up a hand with all five fingers splayed and counted off five areas I should be tending to for managing my depression. I don’t remember them all (ha! I’m clearly doing great) but three of them represented mind, body, and spirit. For the mind, I had sessions in cognitive behavioral therapy, which I’d been doing for years. For the body, I had exercise and diet. For the spirit, I was a bit lost. I have always been a writer and artist, but only in fits and starts. A common story: the weight of adulthood quashes the abandon with which you spend your childhood writing stories, drawing pictures, and making music. Depression doesn’t help either.

After moving to Portland at twenty-five, I made up for some of that by riding my bike everywhere, rediscovering a certain type of freedom too often reserved for kids. Spending time outdoors is certainly one path to happiness. But I couldn’t do that all the time, and my indoor hobbies (reading, TV) were too passive to be deeply satisfying. I needed some creativity in my life. I made a conscious choice to focus on two things, however I could slot them in: writing and music. Whatever else was happening, no matter how distracted or lost I got, those would be my guideposts.

Writing I have never really given up, although I’ve gone dormant for long stretches, so that one just needed some reinforcement. Music would have to be something I started fresh on, more or less. My desire probably came from being raised by a musician dad a mom who did musical theater. My dad plays guitar, but I am drawn to the drums and piano. The closest I’ve gotten to drums is playing an electronic kit in Rock Band. It didn’t seem like a practical instrument to learn at home, especially when I was younger and living in apartments. A keyboard, on the other hand, could easily fit into a bedroom and be used with headphones. The pretty melodies of piano seemed more like my style anyway. I still hemmed and hawed for a long time, talking myself out of it, not believing that I could have the discipline to really learn how to play.

Finally, on the eve of my fortieth birthday, I unboxed the new keyboard and set it up on a stand in my office. I propped open a coursebook for adult beginners. I started relearning the locations of the notes, the steps and half steps between them, their written notations. The moment I heard chords, melodies, and rhythm coming from my own hands, I knew I wanted to do this every day. I wasn’t wrong in all of my earlier self assessment, though. My practice is not very disciplined. I’m always overeager to jump to the next phase in the course, to try a more complex piece of music before mastering a simpler one. I do not find time to practice every day, and that time is often short. As a result, after two years, I can play about half the songs in 39 Selections from “Rolling Stone” 500 Greatest Songs of all time, but none of them very smoothly or with a consistent tempo. This means I’m never going to be a concert pianist. That’s okay, because I’ve discovered a truth stated so eloquently by Kurt Vonnegut:

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

At Christmas time we visited my in-laws, who have a baby grand in their living room. My mother-in-law is a pianist and former music teacher. After dinner, I opened an app on my phone to find some sheet music, and played a few easy pieces on the piano. This was a little self-serving—I wanted to practice on a real piano after being confined to an electric keyboard at home. The heft of those keys, and the rich sound they produced, was gratifying. Because I’m not used to a real piano, it was more clunky than usual, but my mother-in-law listened and asked me to keep going. Bless her heart, she is easy to please because she’s family, but she gave me some meaningful validation that night. All I really want is to bring music into a home, to help people feel something about it.