When your instrument chooses you

Many people ask me, in particular for their children who are beginning to learn an instrument, which is the best instrument to learn to play. In one sense there is no best instrument, they all offer a unique path to learning music with their own challenges and opportunities.

The best instrument to learn has the sound you get lost in. The best instrument is the instrument that fascinates you for no apparent reason. This is not always the easiest or most convenient instrument to play, or the coolest one. When you discover the instrument you are fascinated by, it is as though the instrument chooses you.

I’ve seen students over the years try to study an instrument they are not drawn to, and they tend to be less motivated and excited than the students who genuinely love the sound of their instrument.

I remember the moment when my instrument chose me. When I was an average thirteen year old clarinetist, I happened upon my Junior High School Band Director’s double bass, casually leaning in the corner one day. I was drawn to it immediately. I didn’t know what it was.

My band director caught me looking at this six-foot-tall carved wooden thing towering over my small frame, and I asked her what it was. She said “it’s a double bass.” This meant nothing to me as I had never heard of it before. My teacher then asked me the question that set me on an entirely new path. “Do you want to take lessons?”

To this day I have no idea why I immediately, without hesitation, said yes. But once I did, the double bass became a lifelong companion, a mission, a journey, and an adventure that I never experienced with the clarinet. Double bass became my voice and my home. My advice is to let your instrument choose you. Let yourself and your children follow the sounds you are drawn to, so you can experience the enjoyment that learning an instrument has to offer.