Gayla Mills

My Story
Prior to writing my book about music, I published over sixty essays, features, and reviews. I've taught college students to write, ESL learners to speak English idiomatically, high school dropouts the skills to earn their GEDs, and prison inmates to read.

Meanwhile, I've entwined music into my lessons. I designed a creative writing class “Making Words from Music,” and I taught grammar to non-native speakers by using song lyrics. Now I teach others how to rediscover playing and bring more music to their communities.

As an amateur roots musician who returned to music over fifteen years ago, I’ve come to appreciate the joys that making music can bring. My husband Gene and I have recorded three albums and played hundreds of gigs. I’ve joined music circles, jammed, and made new friends while nurturing old ones.

In the process, I’ve learned a lot about playing music in the second half of life. Yet there’s been no book to help others go down a similar road more smoothly. So I talked with dozens of musicians, read countless articles, dug down to find rare resources, and pulled it together into Making Music for Life to make it easier for others to pursue their own musical journey.

Latest Writing

How to Start Making Music, a step-by-step guide in Psyche, an Aeon digital magazine that illuminates the human condition through psychology, philosophy and the arts.
Why Record Your Music? in Making Music Magazine.
Improve Your Hearing--And Your Musicianship in Making Music Magazine.
12 Reasons Live Music will Make You a Better Musician in Making Music Magazine.
"All Steamed Up," a humor piece I wrote about playing a bass in the bathroom, in Streetlight Magazine.
"Music Under a Tennessee Moon" in Sasee. It's a gentle essay about the joys of learning to play and share music.

Interview on WRIR, "Lightly on the Ground"
with host Patricia Stansbury, 2022

We discuss why music is so important to people, what steps you can take to begin playing, how to stay motivated, and learning to play when you're older.