Musical Me

When I was a junior in high school, I was required to take one of those career placement tests-- a survey of my strengths and weaknesses, as assessed by a 2-hour list of multiple choice questions. The results listed, from highest likelihood to lowest, the job fields in which I would find a niche of success and fulfillment. The top career was one in music/"performing arts", by a long shot; it was the only area in which I scored 100%. (The next one down was social work/teaching/etc., because I am apparently a "helpful people person". I like to take my decision to pursue a career in medicine as something of an offshoot of social work & teaching. Anyway, I digress.)

I remember being really surprised that anyone would think I should be a musician. I mean, really, I shouldn't. I have a decent-to-pretty good ear, and I have good rhythm. I really just enjoy music: its subtlest complexities, its ability to evoke emotions, to soothe, to excite, the magic of harmony and dischord, of tune, tone, tempo. But I'm not talented, in any sense of the word. I'm more of a Jack(Jill?)-of-all-trades, taking on a brute practice-until-talent-feigned kind of systematic approach to music. It's through this approach that I can play the piano, violin, and clarinet to some advanced degree. I've also dabbled in the flute, alto saxophone, classical and electric guitars, a number of percussion instruments, bass clarinet, bassoon, and trumpet. (Trumpet should be taken off the list, because brass instruments and Jess: they don't mix, no they don't.) But I'm no master of any one instrument; I tend to find myself bored and antsy once I get "good" at any one thing. So I move on.

I'll never be a musician, but that's a good thing. I'm happy to keep music as a hobby, an extracurricular passion. If it were a career, it would become too important a part of my life to remain in the realm of personal pleasure. So for now, I'm just going to keep on dabblin'. I'll sing along to the radio and to the songs in my head, I'll cry when I hear music from sad movie soundtracks. I'll sit at the piano and just tinker notes out until they form some kind of tune, and add chords, accompaniments, harmonies until I've created something rough and rudimentary, but entirely my own. And, as a special goal this summer, I'll pluck away at my $5 guitar and get good enough to take it to campouts and bonfires, and lead group singalongs. If I'm going to be on lockdown for three months, might as well do something I love to get through it.