The Reward Is To Play — Musings On The Process Of Living w/ Examples From Music

Whether you're a musician or not 'to play' i.e. the 'process' & 'journey' is the most integral part of life

Photo by zachrie friesen on Unsplash

It was a slightly colder February night, almost a week ago. I couldn’t sleep & my mind, rather fragmented by the numerous tasks I was trying to do or set out to achieve this month & year, began to drift off into strange thought loops. It was almost 3 am, I had just finished covering a football game, & I hadn’t practised on my instruments that day, so in a bid to tire myself, so that I could sleep, I picked up my acoustic guitar & began playing…..

Now, you’ve probably heard quotes like “the journey is the destination”, or “joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it”, but at its core, it’s a very true statement. 

In a recent book summary I read called “The Courage To Be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga on my Headway book summary app (which you can buy at a 30% discount using my code ‘GAURAV24’ ), the quote read: “We must take pride in the here and now; the present. We might be aiming for a goal, but we need to appreciate the little gifts life has granted us while we wait. Without this, we might lose focus on the essential things. The goal is important, but so is the journey to it. If we are too focused on the future, we risk ever living in the now.” 

As a musician or artist, you often get lost in the before & after while you’re making music or any kind of art for that matter. You know stuff in the after phase like, “Will people like it?”, “Will my music get ‘x’ streams?”, “Will this song get onto a lot of playlists?”, “Will some music media company write a piece about my music?”, “Will I get signed onto a label?” etc.

Meanwhile, when you’re just approaching a song or track or are in the middle of it, your mind will spin into those chasms of questions & second-guessing, “Will this riff, lick, motif or sample work?”, “Will this sample/motif sound better than this other one”, “Does this sound good?” “Should I change this section or that?”, “Should I revise my approach?”, and so on & so forth. 

If you’ve ever picked up a musical instrument or endeavoured to create music or art, it’s a long-term tryst; almost a lifelong journey. Every time you pick up an instrument, there’s a new sound, there’s a new scale, a new chord progression, a new lick, a new song, the constant need to experiment & desire to improve at it; but it’s the process that is at the heart of the journey.

We’ve all been there. Chances are if you’re engaged in any art form —  music, film, writing, painting or sketching, anything — the proverbial gauntlet of how it’s received and the end results hang down on the creative’s soul proliferating the genuine process & the enjoyment of creating it in the first place. 

“Cut away, strip away the unnecessary, and strip away what people expect,” said legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. It is after all the ‘cutting away’ & the process of picking each layer of the inner world of your mind that is the underlying basis of the beauty in creating your art, while ‘stripping away’ the adulterations of the ‘unnecessary’ and ‘the expectations’ can be rather liberating, and lead to pure undiluted art.

Quote culture has seen references thrown about like a multi-cuisine buffet at an Indian wedding on every podcast & website aggregating quotes (from f*ckall knows where) & listing them or turning them into images, like this one from Alan Watts. 

But whether you indulge in quotes & reflect on them or not —  all you have in the end is the journey; the process.

When you pick up an instrument you’re essentially signing up for devoting a large part of your life, & so much time & effort & pouring your heart & soul into it. Practising every single day or as much as you can. Hours & hours, week after week, every year.

Maybe that’s why musicians who play instruments are rather humble people because they know how difficult & how much sheer time & effort learning, improving & mastering an instrument or several instruments can entail. 

“To any musician, young or old, a beautiful studio full of instruments is like a playground. To me, I’m like a kid in a candy store. Most musicians are always chasing the next challenge and you never feel satisfied and you never feel like you’ve completely mastered the instrument that you’re playing.”

“It’s always gonna be a puzzle. It’s always gonna be a challenge. It’s a beautiful mystery, but once it gets its hooks in you, that’s when the obsession and the drive really kick in,” says Dave Grohl

Being stuck in traversing the valleys of the murky allure of getting the results & smashing the targets & goals, & the consequent success is an unnecessary yardstick & thought bubble that prevents you from overlooking the underlying process.

But in a rabid-Bukowski poetic narration, that’s where the beauty of it lies —  the ‘process’. 

You’re never going to make that song again, you’re never going to use the exact same approach; it’s just you and that piece of work in the moment, so why not just try and enjoy it & worry about the outcome later? 

In an older post of mine, I also explored the eventual banality of reaching your lifelong goals & targets, according to the 18th-century philosopher and pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer. 

But essentially, that’s the beauty of life, the ‘process’ of living.

I’ve only elucidated this from the perspective of music & art, but it can be applied to almost any life activity. Whether it’s an assignment you’ve been delegated at work, an academic task at school, hiking up a hill or mountain, a morning run or a drive, or you’re playing a sport or just about anything. The key is to immerse yourself in the ‘process’ & to just ‘play’.

Even football (soccer) players or any sportspersons for that matter are often judged & evaluated based on their performances. Stats, KPIs, metrics, results, trophies, accolades etc etc. But maybe, just maybe, they need to realise that they’ve got a gift & they’re lucky enough to just ‘play’ the game they love for a living. Sometimes, you’ve just got to throw the results & numbers out the window & just enjoy the sport;  just enjoy playing. 

In the realms of family & raising children — if you’re raising a child, you might have lofty ambitions set out for them, but as they try to reach those ambitions & dreams you’ve set out for them or if they harbour their own, you’ll see the process of them at work, at practice, trying something new, learning and unlearning, and making mistakes but they enjoy the process.

Also, watching kids learn an instrument or two is immensely gratifying. If you’ve bought your kid an instrument & they’re just starting out or they’re already chipping away at it, you’ll see them approach it as if it were ‘play’.

[As a side note, let them enjoy the process & make mistakes & in turn, you should enjoy it too]

“All around the world, there’s these rooms full of kids who are really pushing themselves to try and figure this out. I’m inspired by watching that process that becomes a lifelong process. It’s not something that you ever truly master,” adds Dave Grohl

But there’s a bit of a paradox. If you’ve watched the film Whiplash, you’d know how demanding some teachers, instructors or parents can be & how difficult it is for youngsters let alone adults to truly master an instrument. Of course, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) in Whiplash is the devil of Saddam Hussein on a solo-6 gram cocaine bender mixed with the (literal) whipping skills of Xena: Warrior Princess and a bag of insults rivalling former Oasis frontman, Liam Gallagher. 

But while the characterization & performance by J.K. Simmons was staggering; his dialogue in the movie where he defends his method of teaching in a conversation with his student Andrew(Miles Teller) is rather thought-provoking. 

Shortly, after getting fired, in the movie, for his extreme teaching methods, he sits across Andrew in a pub and says,

“I don’t think people understood what it was I was doing at Shaffer. I wasn’t there to conduct. Any f*cking moron can wave his arms and keep people in tempo. I was there to push people beyond what’s expected of them. I believe that is… an absolute necessity. Otherwise, we’re depriving the world of the next Louis Armstrong. The next Charlie Parker.” 

“I told you that story about how Charlie Parker became Charlie Parker, right? Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head.” 

“Exactly. Parker’s a young kid, pretty good on the sax. Gets up to play at a cutting session, and he fucks it up. And Jones nearly decapitates him for it. And he’s laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night, but the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And he practices and he practices with one goal in mind, never to be laughed at again.” 

“And a year later, he goes back to the Reno and he steps up on that stage, and plays the best motherf*cking solo the world has ever heard. So imagine if Jones had just said, “Well, that’s okay, Charlie. That was all right. Good job.” And then Charlie thinks to himself, “Well, shit, I did do a pretty good job.” End of story. No Bird.

“That, to me, is an absolute tragedy. But that’s just what the world wants now.”

Of course, there must be a balance. Life is all about balance. So, there will be times of frustration, disappointments, difficulties & the lot; but the key is to enjoy the process whether it’s good or bad and make consistent & gradual progress, however slow it may be.

In his revelatory 30-minute documentary on the process of making a 20-minute solo instrumental song, which involves him playing several instruments, former Nirvana drummer & Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl plunges you into the ‘process’ & the drive for excellence in music. The documentary also interviews children & teenagers on their approach to music, the issues they face, & why they love spending time trying to master their instruments. 

It’s a candid take & documentary which outlays the difficulties & hurdles of being a musician, young or old, which culminates in a rather impressive & astounding 20-minute instrumental song. While depicting Grohl’s process & the perspectives of young kids beginning their journey in music, it dovetails the broader message of how to enjoy the process of making music; and in turn the ‘process’ of living life, including embracing the difficult bits.

Yes, there’s blood, sweat & tears involved. Especially if you want to get to the pinnacle of music as a musician or any industry or any aspect of life. But, in the end, whether you get there or not, “the reward is just to play”.

If you liked this post & would like to receive more interesting articles to enhance your knowledge, learn new insights & help you grow, consider subscribing to my Substack newsletter Light Years, and get the most interesting posts straight to your email inbox!