A lot is written about how music reflects life. Our musical terminology is filled with metaphors that prove the point, and I put a lot of thought into the topic myself. But there’s another direction ideas and influence can flow: music offers lessons for life as well. I’m not saying no one has broached the topic, for there is plenty of persuasive writing about the importance of routine, finding how to work with others toward shared goals, etc. That stuff is powerful, and in it we find much that points toward engagement with music as a positive influence on society. I want to talk about something else.
Have you ever listened to a piano tuner, or to string or wind players tuning their instruments? What you will notice is that a person tuning an instrument will never simply come toward the correct tuning from just one side, from only above or below. Well, yes, you might hear that, but before very long the person will realize that they must go beyond the in-tune spot and come back to find correct intonation. One of the great lessons of music for life is exactly that: to find balance, one must go beyond the middle point, into the other side, in order to even find where balance exists.
OK, so I said balance, not tuning! Yes, the same is true for finding balance in posture, of which I am intimately aware. In 2020, just as the lockdown for the pandemic happened, I got a severe case of sciatica. I won’t go through the whole story, but suffice it to say that it was the result of years of carrying my body out of balance. I’ve been doing Zhan Zhuang for 20-45 minutes per day for 4 years now, followed by 30 minutes of zazen, and I am finally about to be able to sit up straight and relaxed, poised over my sit bones. Incrementally, I am getting there, and just when I think I am there, another realization of balance comes, usually some form of doing on the left side what I’ve been overdoing on the right. Then I can feel the balance begin to emerge. I can’t say I’m fully there yet, but I can report the very long struggle, the extensive attention over a long period of time, that has made it possible.
Adjustments to habit, to long standing patterns of being take a long time to truly fix.
Music, life, spirit. Many similarities, many parallels.
Musicians, speak up! Let’s take some real, verifiable lessons from our musical, physical, and spiritual practices and carry forward their meaning for social relations. If we want balance, then moving to the other side of the balance point is critical and must be pursued carefully over a long period of time. Hurried, superficial responses only create more problems. Life process also teaches us that our imbalances often arise from attempting to correct an old one. Ever try to quickly fix an out-of-tune trumpet only to end up with it out of tune the other way? I have.