Welcome back! To kick off the season, here is a tale about my 3-year old friend Leila, who she is, how she makes music and some thoughts on facilitating creative music with people of all ages, whoever they may be.
for Leila
I lost my mitts. Again. I always lose my mitts. This time it’s minus 33 outside and I’m outside the garderie looking at Leila playing in the snow, feeling the cold bite my hands. I can’t have come without my mitts. I would have noticed. They must be inside.
“Leila. I lost my mitts. Can you help me find them?”
Leila looks at me, puzzled, and keeps digging in the snow. I’m puzzled too. These mitts are huge – big black mitts that come almost up to my elbows, keep my hands warm in this frigid cold, and are really hard to lose.
“I lost my mitts, Leila. Where’d they go?”
She looks up, still puzzled, but I have her attention. What belongs to who is important to Leila. Ever since she could crawl, she’s brought me my things. My shoes when I’m sitting in the living room talking with her mom. My coat, bringing it to me in the middle of a crowded party. My backpack, dragging it with determination since it weighs almost as much as she does.
I ask for her help. I mean it. I don’t want to make the trek across the city in this cold without my mitts. I looked everywhere in the garderie. Even the garderie staff looked. Nobody could find my mitts.
“Leila, my mitts. Where’d they go?”
She looks up at me and makes the gesture every 3-year old I know makes that means ‘I dunno’. Then she starts looking: up, down, around. We walk to the garderie, the snow brittle and crunching under our feet. I open the door, and the warm air rushes out to greet us, fogging up my glasses so I can’t see anything.
“Where are my mitts, Leila? I looked everywhere,”
I say as I polish my glasses. I put them back on and see Leila holding my mitts up, delight shining out of her face.
“Leila, you found them! Where were they?”
“They were right there, Louise! Right there.”
And Leila holds my mitts while we walk back outside, holds them while I put her in her stroller, holds them while I struggle with that damn buckle, holds them while I get her snack. Holds them until we are ready to go. Leila looks up at me.
“Your turn, Louise. Mitts on. Yaay!!”
This from my 3-year old friend who just learned how to say my name in full, Lou-ise, two weeks ago. She’s looking after me. Looking after me in the best way she knows. Bringing me my mitts. Keeping my hands warm. Cheering me on.
This tale reminds me to pay attention to the person or people in front of me and recognize their strengths and interests. In the case of Leila, not only is she far better at some things than I am (keeping track of my mitts is not the only thing), she is one of the best improvisers I know. Ever since she was born, she has explored every object she can get her hands for it’s potential for sound, from scratching surfaces and fabrics with her fingernails to very purposeful real-time mixing using various sound-making toys. Put an electric guitar on the floor for her to play with, and she creates sounds I’ve never heard from a professional. It would be easy to assume that Leila doesn’t ‘know’ anything because she’s three, but then I would be completely missing out on what she already does very skillfully.
When I enter a room full of people ready to make music, I do my best to keep in mind that there is always more to another person than I can possibly know, and the last thing I want to do is underestimate someone. Who is this person? What do they know and like? What skill have they honed, and take pride in? How do they know and understand the subject at hand, and related subjects? How is this the same or different to how I know and understand these subjects? What can I learn from them? How can we make music together?
All the best in your creative music endeavors this season!