Working Towards A Dream

I've talked a lot about the difficulty I have in remaining motivated by something for an extended amount of time. This is of course only with regard to certain things, I am pretty consistently motivated to have naps, read books, be around the woman I love and so on. But things that most people would consider productive I have struggled with generating and maintaining interest. I have considered graduate school, writing novels, grand treks across the world, deep spiritual practice and never really seem to get much farther than the beginning.

However, there is something that I continue to do that is productive, gives some level of self-identification, and is working towards a dream. I play the mandolin and sing. I don't play everyday in alignment with the Cariaga Doctrine (if you play 15 minutes every day you will get better) but I play the mandolin more days that I don't, and I tend to play longer periods of up to an hour and a half.

It is odd that I put so much effort into the process. After all, my total number of songs I am play is perhaps forty. I have played most of these songs hundreds of times, and I am playing them to myself in my own home. As time goes by I work on more and more difficult stuff to play, and that largely consists of trying and failing at something, then trying and failing less badly, until something sort of OK comes out. Learning how to play music is hard work, and often very discouraging. About half the time I put the mandolin down in disgust at my failure.

The reasons I still play are several. I really do love music. I'm one of those awful people who will put on a piece of music and say, "See that, that! That emotion right there is what I am talking about!" while people who like pretty tunes will look at me blankly. The music I play brings images of home back to me, the greenest, thick-bladed grass blowing in the wind. Moss on stone. Something older than cars and telephones and records.

Music is also a lifelong skill. I'll always be able to sing a folk song now that I've learned how. Unless arthritis cripples my hands I expect to always be able to pick out a song or two, and really I expect simply to get better. Getting better at something beautiful is a reward. To be able to play something new, or something better, is always a recognizable achievement. The little pieces matter to me, and this is how you know you are doing something that feels worthwhile.

Then there are the memories. I don't think there is anything more rewarding that people can do than to be part of a team that works together to achieve something that makes life better. I have been very fortunate to be part of teams full of good, kind, funny, interesting people making music good enough to bring joy to others. Being in a band has been very special for me, with people becoming somehow more than friends through the process, more like family.

Finally, there is the dream. If I keep playing, keep trying to get better, still feeling the music, then at some point I believe that I will become someone worthy of being called a musician. I'm not talking about being a star, or being famous, or amazing people with my technical ability. What I mean is that I will be able to play a large group of songs beautifully, as one would think they should be played. I will be able to sit with a group of other musicians and find my way into songs. I will be able to play in the town I live at least weekly. Who is Dan? He sings Irish songs and plays mandolin. I don't know if that is five or ten years away, much depends on my own perception.

The perception of improvement, or adequacy in music is a funny thing. I have played in bands on stages for money. Two of the bands I was in have been (on some memorable occasions) asked to play enough encores so that we had to repeat songs for lack of repertoire. Is this not adequate to be thought of as a musician? Not to me. I am still an amateur, still someone concentrating on curling those fingers to get right there while ignoring the cramping and the pain in my fingertips. There is no-one who can find an error in music with quite the same level of perception as a musician listening to themselves play. I remember with a smile the times that bands I have been in have listened to recordings of ourselves playing. Everyone says how good it sounds, and everyone cringes at a litany of their own mistakes unnoticeable even to others within the band.

The best thing that has happened to me recently, in a string of somewhat difficult moments, was being asked if my old band Sam's Cross would play a friend's wedding in Portland in August. A high point in my process of working towards a dream, a comfortable dream of quiet satisfaction, friendship, and beauty. It all started with a question from a friend, for which I will always be grateful.