Stupid excuses I gave myself to give up learning music
In my family, a fairly open-minded middle class tam-brahm genre, carnatic music is the first language, followed by Slokas, Vedic-chants, Tamil, English, Sanskrit, Hindi in that order. Interestingly, around the time I joined school (LKG), I remember starting my music classes. My sisters and I would hang around after the 3.30pm release for the ‘music teacher’ to start the class at 4pm for a good long hour, three times a week. Since this was the post school time, smelly socks, sweaty palms and such other unpleasant aspects were involved which hang heavy (on odour) in my thoughts. The plusses were nevertheless the brag that you stayed back longer at school, learnt something extra and the brownie from your school music teacher who would treat you as a god-sent example for the rest of the class in the compulsory music period!
Over time, as I went up the ladder of classes, I was sent to a more formal weekend setup where you learn in an academy. ‘Arunodharan Master’ used to wear only plain full sleeve shirts and would wear a white dhoti with a colored stripe- the color matching with his shirt, every freaking day. And I used to look at him and think to myself ’a wardrobe like this…someday.’ The classes were more full-fledged for the fact that the teacher was a full-time teacher and only taught all day long- meaning he wasn’t a house-wife or a part-time music teacher. Things changed- people came dressed (attractively at that) for the classes, were serious about music and making it big in singing as a career - atleast at the ‘ganamela’ level. This was one of those places where you could sit and hear people sing endlessly but would think twice to sing yourself. Could be issues of inferiority! And from these two starkly different learning ecosystems, came my 5 reasons to give up on learning my first language thereafter..
1. If I’m not going to do it for a lifetime, why serious?
When you see people around you spending all their energy and time in practicing and wanting to learn more, you get that feeling where you ask yourself if you are worthy of this company- this is what you tell people around you. In your mind, the only question you have is why should I spend time and energy on this if I am not going to make a career for myself here. Particularly true when you are focusing on other things.. like studies, quizzing and every extra curricular activity at school. In retrospect, the nearest analogy to saying anything like this would be why play cricket, video games, study, do an MBA..
What you do today is not for an RoI. An MBA gives you confidence to face the world, you may learn nothing in the classroom. Cricket helps you gel with people, play in teams. Video games give you a break, a sense of excitement and something to maybe look forward to.
Today, listening to the same music is therapeutic for me. The next time around you say what’s in it for me- remember, it need not necessarily be long term.
2. I’m not able to give time to do justice to this.
The best line we could use to give upon a hobby, a relationship or something that we don’t want! Why does it become so difficult to say I am not interested and I don’t want to spend my time on this? It is more of an ego massage that we do to ourselves by not accepting that we have indeed quit. In my early days of graduation, I picked up ICWA for a supplementary course because B.Com Hons wasn’t keeping me ‘filled’. Since there was little difference in the syllabi, I also added a CA topping to it.
With 3 courses running paralelly and discovering that I’d rather write, talk, think and be a little left brained, I gave myself and the world around me the same line- unable to give time, shifting gears to MBA test-prep.
Plain stuff- I din’t have the guts to take up the challenge and do it and it seemed that way because I wasn’t interested one ounce in finance and accounting, though I was pretty good at it!
Thing to remember- it is ok to not be interested in something, not ok to convince yourself otherwise and supremely important to introspect on the effort you have already invested before pulling out. It is intimidating today, when you find it difficult to sing basic stuff after 8 years of solid carnatic learning.
3. I know you are my well-wisher and you are telling me to do this, but I don’t see why I should!
20 years back, I wouldn’t have understood if someone were to tell me how music, prayers and all things S (spiritual) will help you beat the rat-race and keep you ahead of the pack. I remember my parents and grandparents untiringly telling me how somethings should become a habit and part of the routine. Deep within, you knew they were right. You couldn’t reason, see results then and bullshitted them forever. Two dozen years later, you spend evenings downloading slokas, vedic chants and guided meditation audio bits online.
You struggle with pronouncing the chants of your ‘Sandhyavandan’ (daily rites), fight with your eye-lids in an attempt to 20 mins of meditation every morning and pay ransom to learn music for 2 hrs a week!
Thing you know- once bitten twice shy. When someone whom you trust tells you something, don’t reason, just do it. You cant CtrlZ around here, but now you know you don’t need answers before you do something. I’m sure there are many things which would be fundamentally right but we’d never be able to reason until we hit the grave!
4. This is so not todayish. These things are irrelevant in today’s world.
Sure. A lot has changed in the last 10-15 yrs to an extent that their earliest forms are not even traceable- like the typewriter, record player, calculator.. Food, festivals, composition of air, water haven’t changed though. These are fundamentals and wouldn’t change. Things like footwear, clothes which have considerably changed are seeing a come-back. Chappals are fashionable again, dhotis and saris are exotic wears, temple jewels are sought after..
What goes around, comes around. So learn a thing or two and be the king when the next cycle steps in!
5. Practicing and up-skilling is painful. I have learnt the basics, this is enough.
The only reason I was bad at Math in high school was because I refused to practice. Though I managed to pass, the failure stuck along until a point where I started reading math books, doing sudokus, solving puzzles like crazy to overcome the jitters. If you aren’t gonna spend time perfecting whatever you do- hobby, routine, passion or work, you are surely getting yourself into a ‘this is not my cup of irish coffee’ zone. Try saying this statement at your workplace around the next appraisal- we won’t right? Practice is always going to be painful but that is the only way we’d go to another level. You are no-one if you just know the basics.
And just like that I did a google search to find a music teacher in my neighbourhood, told myself I’ll leave early from work every Wednesday, ‘sacrifice’ an hour every Sunday morning and learn carnatic music, again. I might deserve a bravery award in future for bullshitting my own 5 excuses (which I think are pretty strong ones) to learn something from where I left it.
On a lighter note, my new music teacher, a chirpy Mom of two smart kids tells me that I have to start off from a little over the basics and not exactly from where I left. Tragic, but I learnt a thing for sure!!