Gayla M. Mills - Making Music for Life: Rediscover Your Musical Passion

Praise for

Making Music for Life

As a scientist who frequently speaks about the benefits of music on the brain, Im often asked: is it too late for me? Mills provides a highly readable and practical guide that democratizes musics promise.

Dr. Nina Kraus, Professor, Brainvolts Auditory Neuroscience Lab, Northwestern University

Making Music for Life absolutely fascinated me. Its beautifully written and engagingly constructed, and it helped me better understand why music has remained central to my life. I found it entrancing.

Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World and guitar player

Gayla Mills precision with language, delight with music, and intrinsic joie de vivre make her the perfect author for Making Music for Life. Everyone who has tapped a foot or hummed along with a band will love this book, and maybe, just maybe, make music a bigger part of their lives.

Charlotte Morgan, author of Protecting Elvis

Making Music for Life is the adult novices friend. First, it cheerleads for musics salutary benefits to the music-makers soul. Then it becomes a useful how-to handbook: finding a teacher and learning how to practice once you have one. How do you hook up with like-minded enthusiasts and what are all the ways you can learn to make music together? How about performing for others? And maybe you will end up teaching others yourself. This useful book is a doorway into the endless joys of making music, for everyone at any age.

Bernard Holland, music critic emeritus, The New York Times, and author of Something I Heard

Gayla Mills shares the nuts and bolts of fostering ones hidden musical talent. But perhaps most importantly, she shares the power behind music. It boosts creativity and reduces stress. It strengthens social bonds, helping us find harmony while resonating with others. From amateur musician to Grammy-winning performer, anyone seeking to awaken their musical passion will find this book ideal.

Dr. Lynn Szostek, psychologist

What better way to counteract boredom, stress, anxiety and even depression than playfully learning a new instrument, singing, jamming, or just learning to hear the pitch, rhythm and timbres of sounds around you. Gayla Mills, in her book, Making Music for Life, offers tips for learning to hear and live life like a musician, while boosting your dopamine and improving cognition at the same time.

Dr. Jodie Skillicorn, author of Healing Depression Without Medications: A Psychiatrists Guide to Balancing Mind, Body and Soul

A musician all my life, if anyone had suggested that I might stop playing, Id have laughed. But life can get in the way: aging parents, heightened work and family demands. My guitar strings rusted; my piano went out of tune. I am the perfect audience for this thoughtful, detailed book, and Im very thankful Gayla had the vision and heart to write it.

Liz Hodges, author of What the River Means, guitar player, and pianist

Music can be a powerful part of your life even if it is not your livelihood, and Gaylas book Making Music for Life is a powerful serving for this magical, mystical, musical table setting of love.

Michael Johnathon, folksinger and host of WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour

Gayla M. Mills

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

Copyright

Copyright 2019 by Gayla Mills

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Making Music for Life: Rediscover Your Musical Passion is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2019.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mills, Gayla M. author.

Title: Making music for life : rediscover your musical passion / Gayla M. Mills.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019000326| ISBN 9780486831718 | ISBN 048683171X

Subjects: LCSH: MusicVocational guidance. | MusicInstruction and study. | Older musicians.

Classification: LCC ML3795 .M525 2019 | DDC 780.23dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000326

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

83171X01 2019

www.doverpublications.com

Table of Contents

Prelude

Do you long to do more with music? Is the idea nagging at you like a puppy nipping at your heels? Or is it a whisper you hear now and again, like something youve forgotten to do?

Its one thing to hear inspirational stories about people whove picked up an instrument or to read the ways music is good for your heart, mind, and spirit. But how can you take the next step toward making your own life more musical?

Ive been down that road. After stumbling along a musical path over the past fifteen years, Ive discovered a lot about playing music in the second half of life. Yet theres been no book to help others go down that road more smoothly. So I talked with dozens of musicians, read countless articles, dug down to find rare resources, and pulled it together into this book to make things easier for you. Ill show you how to choose an instrument, learn and practice with the latest methods, improve your musicianship, enjoy playing with others, and build a richer music community.

I returned to music in my forties. I was an amateur guitar player, mediocre singer, and rusty bass player. I had last performed as a teenage Sunday school music teacher, leading my kids in song to a captive and sympathetic audience. I knew very little about music and nothing about the music business.

Now Im in my fifties, and my husband Gene and I have recorded three albums, two of them reaching the top ten on the radio folk charts. Weve played at festivals and weddings, cafes and bars, listening rooms and house concertsas we held down full-time jobs. In the process, weve strengthened old friendships and made new ones. Research suggests that Ive also improved my brainits memory, processing ability, and health. Music has intensified my perceptions and emotions, bringing out the highs and bringing up the lows. I hear sounds differently and enjoy them more deeply. Music has transformed my days and my years.

As a youth, I never imagined such a future. I lived in the present, where songs were an emotional soundscape. I listened to them everywhere, in my car and in my room, when I went out dancing and when I met up with friends. I took guitar and bass lessons. I felt the world intensely, and music added another layer of richness. But as I built a career and a nest, that musical soundtrack receded. In my middle years, I noticed how much I missed music and how little attention I actually paid to it. Many people I know find themselves at a distance from the powerful relationship they had with music as teenagers and young adults.

Gene was a dedicated musician during his youth, though he spent less time on music in his middle years too. He started young, wrote his first good song at nineteen, and caught my eye while he was performing solo at twenty-one. We began dating, and Id listen to him play two or three nights a week, never tiring of it. He paid for most of his college expenses by performing and teaching guitar. He practiced six hours a day instead of doing his schoolwork. But by his thirties, he chose a life in academia. With the pressures of studying, teaching, and publishing, he found music taking a back seat as well.