Only stick with something if you like it

There's an interesting post over on Segullah about piano lessons and whether or not to allow your kids to quit taking them.

I play the piano, although not much more than hymns. I was ward organist for a couple years, mostly because no one else could play, not because I was that great. (I used the bass coupler rather than playing with the pedals, although I did take an organ class to try to learn to play with my feet.) I think it's a life skill to play the piano. You tune other instruments to the piano. You accompany people singing and other instruments with the piano. You learn the notes, many styles of music, and possibly more than that - a little bit of discipline.

I do wish I was better at music theory and being able to do things like play jazz or make up songs on the fly or transpose music into another key on the fly. But I'm okay with being able to play most of the hymns and learning a song if I need to. I actually only took lessons for maybe 3 years. I don't remember wanting to quit or asking to quit or how lessons ended. It might have been a financial deal, as we didn't have a lot of money. I'll have to ask my parents. I just didn't take lessons anymore but kept up on my own. The first Sunday I turned 12, I was playing piano in priesthood meeting. Preparing a hymn and prelude for priesthood meeting was something that drove me to practice, because I needed to be able to play. I wasn't just practicing some scale for a piano teacher.

My wife quit when she was young and wishes she could play better. A lot of people feel that same way. I know a lot of people quit and don't feel bad. A lot of people don't quit and do feel bad, because they hate music and their parents for it. Everyone is different.

That said, I wonder about the culture that seems to be growing across the country, within and without the church to just embrace who you are and not try to push yourself to be something you're not. I get it, that we need to love ourselves, although not in a prideful way, and love others and accept them for who they are. That is great. But you can love and accept that you're not musical and still learn to play the piano. Whatever happened to seeking earnestly the best gifts? In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul lists a ton of gifts and points out that not everyone has same gifts, but then finishes up by recommending that we develop the gifts we don't have.

I don't pretend that piano is the be-all and end-all and that everyone really has to play, as my favorite line from Mulan goes, "Well, we can't all be acupuncturists." But back to the culture thing, the comments in the blog post I linked above are as telling as the post itself. One comment in particular says:

Why on earth would you force your children to do anything like that (music lessons, sports, whatever) if they don’t want to do it? Have them try different things and only stick with something if they like it. And you’re wrting about piano lessons as if every child takes piano lessons. That’s a rather odd thing to think.

No, not everyone takes piano lessons. All the more reason to be the person who does. Seek the best gifts. Be the one who steps up where others have been afraid to. On my mission, in one area I was teaching our branch president how to play the piano. My parents bought a little learning how to play kit the church had in the distribution center and sent it to me, including a simplified hymnbook, and I left it with him when I left the area. He played one verse, one hand of a very simple hymn in sacrament meeting and completely slaughtered it, but he was learning. I could have played most hymns much better, but I would be gone in a few months, and who knew if the next elders who came would be able to play.

The more disturbing part, however, is the first thought. Only do something if you like it. What if you don't like reading scriptures? Just stop reading them, I guess. What if you don't like cooking? Hope you marry someone who cooks well or get a good enough job you can afford to eat out all the time, I guess. What if you have a stubborn child who doesn't like doing anything you ask of them? Just stop asking them to do things, I guess.

As much as I disliked the old lesson manuals and rarely taught from them, one thing has stuck with me from one of the lessons. I'd have to search to find which manual and lesson it was, but the idea was that young children may not be experienced enough to be able to understand spiritual promptings. (Sometimes they're more in tune than we are, but that's a different discussion.) But as parents and leaders of youth, our job is to help guide and direct those in our care in the same way the Spirit should be guiding and directing us. That way the youth learn to seek and find answers and follow the guidance they are given from someone they trust, eventually being able to transition away from listening to us and towards listening to the Spirit.

Maybe it's the piano or maybe it's something else. Teach them to sacrifice and do things for others. Teach them to serve. Teach them a foreign language. Teach them to cook and clean up after themselves. Teach them to garden. Teach them to push themselves. Keep in mind, however, that your example is as important as what you're telling them. You practice the piano yourself, whether or not you already know how to play. I have a personal policy to not ask someone to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. Let them see that you're doing hard things, too, so they don't think we're just trying to live out our broken dreams through them or that we're being lazy and making them change a diaper just because we don't want to.

If we don't try to push them to do something that would be good for them, what they'll learn is that they don't have to stick with anything they don't like because that's just how they are. When the Spirit prompts them to do something they don't want to do, they will have learned from us to ignore that prompting, as it will eventually go away like our promptings did. That’s a rather odd thing to teach.

Let My People Go

I've had a bit of a sore throat the past couple days. This morning when I woke up, I had one of those extra deep voices. I couldn't help but sing a couple lines of Go Down Moses while waiting at the bus stop. (There wasn't anyone else there.)

It reminded me of one Sunday when I was a Priest. Being 17 years old, of course I stayed up late and slept in until right before church started. So I got up and ready and drove myself to church without having talked to anyone, since my family had left before I got up.

It was my turn to bless the sacrament, and since I hadn't really said anything outloud yet, a booming, deep morning voice came out.

Now, when you have something weird with your voice, you can try to cough a little and clear it up and start over at totally different pitch or just keep going. I kept going. I figured switching in the middle would be more noticeable than continuing on, plus there's no guarantee after clearing your throat that it's going to be any different, so the grunting into the microphone may have been in vain anyway.

The other side of that, of course, is as a teenager, I would have been somewhat proud of my deep, booming voice. If I had to pick now, I'd choose to be able to knock out a wicked high tenor, but at the time, I was proud of the fact that I fit squarely into the bass section in choir. I suppose how low your voice goes fits right in there with shoe size, height, a paycheck over $100, and beard development for a teenager showing off his manliness.

So I was secretly pleased after the meeting at the comments on my sacrament prayer. Of course I now know that if I'm doing enough to draw attention to me during the prayer, people are not thinking about what they should be thinking about because of my distraction, which is bad.

But not bad enough to turn down the chance to bless the sacrament this Sunday if I'm asked to sub and my voice is still in the same shape as it is today.

Cheers

I hear often from some of my family or friends who have been minimally involved in Scouts that they think all the little songs, skits, and cheers are ultra-lame. Whenever I try to explain their purpose, the response is just, "Oh, well there's the big Scouter, blah, blah, blah." That, my friends, is called an ad hominem logical fallacy, which means that they don't take my argument seriously because it comes from me instead of analyzing the actual merits of the argument.

The thing is, I don't particularly get that excited about all the cheers and cheesy songs myself. However, when you go to camp and the staff teaches the Scouts a bunch of new silly songs, you will inevitably catch the boys singing the songs later, whether the next day or even months later. They stick, because the boys enjoy them. Scouters don't do silly cheers and songs because they enjoy them but because the boys enjoy them. It's all about the boys.

I was thinking about this tonight because I just got home from a high school football game. The game was a good one, other than being a little bit cold. As I listened to some of the cheers that the cheerleaders performed, I began asking myself who in the world makes up these stupid cheers. I've been to a lot of college games recently, but it's been a long time since I went to a high school game.

Suddenly, the connection was made. I could clearly feel the uncomfortable feeling that many people have doing or watching some silly song and dance. I also watched the student section during several of the little ditties as the whole student body joined in dancing, chanting, and singing with them. It wasn't much different than the cheesy stuff we sing at Scouts, and it was for kids about the same age as my Scouts, yet to most people there it didn't seem weird. In the context, both make sense, but it can be hard to commit yourself to the context.

Wait a minute; this sounds like rock and/or roll.

I've always looked young, and so many other Scout leaders I know are a bit older than me, so I generally feel pretty young. I've had some experiences recently that have made me feel old, though. It doesn't have anything to do with the guy who called me Sir last week, but that didn't help either. It has to do with music, which has the power to amplify or cancel out emotions, depending on the situation.

Rewind back 3 or 4 years, and I was running a couple of my Scouts to their houses to grab their books or something that they needed. On our way there in my truck, they were looking at some of my CDs, one of which was a Van Halen album, probably Balance. I asked them if they like Van Halen, and they replied that they had never heard of them. I was floored.

Fast forward a couple years, and I was relating the above experience to my ASM. He likes the same kind of music that I do, and neither of us like the crap that kids listen to these days. He just pointed out it's always like that. Every generation has different music that they like. It just made me stop and think that I was getting old. I'm out of touch with the current generation. I seriously hate the music, if you can call it that. But everything I can think of that's bad about it is pretty much the same thing you hear of any parent complaining about the music their kids listen to.

I really think that hip hop music is worse than what I listen to. Of course, really thinking about it, some of the songs I like are not entirely appropriate, but for some reason it seems different and not as bad. Maybe music is getting worse. Maybe it's not, but I can't judge, because I'm out of touch.

Anyway, fast forward to just recently on the way home from a campout. I had a kind of weird mix CD in my truck that someone had made, so one of the boys popped it in the CD player. It doesn't much matter the purpose of the CD, except that it had a song by The Manhattan Transfer on it. I'm not necessarily a big fan of them, but I appreciate their music and understand the style of it. During a part of the song, where they hold a note and slowly drop the pitch, one of the boys complained that 'those guys are really bad singers'. I assume it was because they couldn't hold the pitch steady, not realizing that they do it on purpose just because they can. I'm not totally sure. It was just another reminder of how old I am. While I'm not a big fan of The Manhattan Transfer, like I said, I appreciate their music much more than I do Jay-Z or Soulja Boy. The boys now either dislike or have never heard of the music I like or even marginally appreciate. And I don't think there's anything that anyone can do about it, except hope that whatever replaces hip-hop is something better. I'm not holding my breath.