From Making Music for Life by Gayla M. Mills

Playing music is one of life’s great joyrides, one you can take with a warm community to help you along the way. (pg xi)

Being a musician is about more than playing an instrument—it’s about creating a life with other people in a musical circle. (pg 176)

A musical journey has many on-ramps. (pg x)

Good music should make you move, whether it’s tapping your foot or swaying in time. (pg 38)

Music can offer compassion and solace. (pg 188)

Musicians choose instruments like people choose lovers: some are loyal to their first and invest heavily in that relationship, while others prefer to explore a buffet. (pg 15)

One day you’ll pick up your instrument and realize it fits against your body like it’s part of you. (pg xi)

The joy we feel during the song, the game, the battle, is in our genes, our brains, our blood. That desire to sing in unison, to confirm we belong to the group, is where much of our musical joy comes from. (pg 5) ​

Most of us don’t connect tapping our feet at a concert with the intense emotions we feel or with our brains taking part in a complex neural dance. (pg 3)

We may think we’re working on a song, but what we’re really rediscovering is the joy we felt when we were playing music as children with an open heart. (pg 23)

Listening to all the parts in a musical composition helps you appreciate music more, and listening to all the players in a jam helps you play better with them. (pg 40) ​

It’s no wonder that (learning music) is tough: we’re building calluses on our hands, rewiring our brains, fine-tuning our attention to others, and training our ears to hear things we didn’t notice before. (pg xi)

If you incorporate focused listening into your day, you’ll do more than improve your ears. You’ll become more aware of the beautiful sounds of the world. (pg 63)

Singing in front of others can feel like an intimate act, a moment when you’re sharing your feelings with your voice. (pg 57)

As you age, your voice won’t have the sweet untested tones of youth, but you can use it to express your depth, wisdom, and nuance. (pg 57)

You can focus more on the tone of each note instead of racing to play lots of them. (pg 161)

Many of us still like holding CDs in our hands, seeing the artwork, enjoying the autographs from musicians we’ve met, and appreciating their sound quality. (pg 152)

Instead of thinking about hitting it big, we’re thinking what a privilege it is to make music with friends. (pg 114)

We have more life experience to understand the layers of lyrical meaning and can deliver more emotional depth to our playing. (pg 114)

Your record may become one of your most cherished mementos. (pg 155)

Music begins as a sensory experience. It tickles our ears and sends blood to our feet. But it’s also the language of the heart, making us laugh, cry, rage, reflect, dance, kiss, and accept. (pg 193)

As we age, music offers us even more. It helps us fight ennui, decline, or uncertainty. It can keep us vibrant, stretch our fingers, and refresh our minds. (pg 193)

Your life will be enriched if you live it with music by your side. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part. (pg 173)

Others quoted in Making Music for Life

As a kid you dream of being famous. As an adult, you’re more practical. Just to play now, just enjoying it for what it is—is enough.
— Kelly Trojan, bass player/singer (pg 113)

Music and songwriting and the arts can help us explore a new vision for what we’d like to leave in the world.
—Reggie Harris, singer/songwriter and performer (pg 13)

Silence and the space in between is just as important as the sound you’re making.          
​—John Bittner, guitar player and jam leader (pg 39)

I think music in church and music as worship extends our ability to feel God’s presence.
—Diana Brake, cellist and SongFarmer (pg 69)

You learn a lot about somebody when you do something as intimate as play a song with them.
— Carolyn Stone, bass player/singer (pg 106)

It’s a profound experience to make one note or to make a symphony, to be in an intricate jam session with many instruments from around the world or to be in a bluegrass jam session or to be in a drum circle with many different rhythms. 
​—Judith-Kate Friedman, director of Songwriting Works (pg 185)

Playing music reminds us to take time for ourselves and our friends and to forget about the stress that surrounds us in our daily lives. Music makes everything better.
—JoAnn Pinkerton, mandolin player (pg 1)

I think each music camp forms a community, a little town. And because we’re all there for music, it feels different from other places we go.
—Chris Sanders, singer/guitar player and camp teacher (pg 87)

For folks who are going through some hard times, music takes them back to a time when they were healthy and happy. I don’t think it cures them, but it helps them feel better and deal with what they’re going through.
—Charles Absher, singer/songwriter (pg 188)

Rhythm is a universal human language. It connects so instantly with people.
—Robert Jospé, drummer and music professor (pg 48)

You have to learn to hear the difference between notes, and that comes from steady listening. 
—Kathy Kallick, singer and vocal teacher (pg 60)

The beauty of music is that it stays with us.  
​—Frets Halligan, ukulele player and teacher (pg 158)