When I was studying music in a very serious (wink wink) university music school, I was part of a saxophone studio. We (the studio) had weekly meetings with our professor, and another weekly meeting of just saxophonists, and we exchanged feedback in these settings. Every week. For four years. It’s intense, and honest, and frequently baring. And it’s how many musicians are made these days.

The Beginnings

As one might imagine, hourly meetings with the same person, and among the same people in studio, every week for four years is quite the frequency, and you end up hearing similar things as time goes by, and applying those pieces of “musical advice” in other areas of your life. One of the things that my studio professor frequently told me was if you hate it enough, it will go away. To me, this meant that if I wanted to change something about the way I sounded or the way I approached the instrument, I would need to hate it so much, that I had to change it. Over those few years, I internalized this as a habit-forming thought.

You must hate ((it)) more and more until you’re forced to change ((it)) – ((insert anything that hurt or didn’t match what I wanted for myself)).

This worked for me. I would internally pick up more available nuance in my sound, but it rarely came out of the instrument naturally. It became the it for me that ruled all others. I developed a deep and growing dispassion for that aspect of my artistry, and I would spend hours training it away or into a separate place, and hope that on the other end, I would be better.

The Wall

Here’s what happens if you develop a deep and growing dispassion for your art.

You develop a deep and growing dispassion for your art.

You lose the reason why you started playing in the first place. All of a sudden, the message is lost. In focusing on what you hate, the art becomes the form, and not the art. The magic alchemizes from the amorphous, constantly changing, constantly dynamic part of your expression into something else. Something that you do for trade, or for something in return.

And unfortunately, this thought pattern occurred elsewhere – like when I saw something about my body I didn’t like or another part of my being in the world. Often, I heard it in relationships with others. I’m not sure if it started in music school, but it certainly got louder when the message got clearer.

I’ve learned some things since that time, and since I’ve come to need art. I wanted art then. I liked it – the challenge of the eternal war against the boundaries of my being and my playing. On some days, if the sun was shining just right, and if I’d just come out of a rewarding practice session, I may have even said that I loved it. But truthfully, the way that I was approaching the art was seeping into other areas of my life (especially my concept of self) and wreaking havoc.

I’m certain that my studio professor (who, by the way, is quite literally one of the best saxophonists currently living, and is also likely to end up in the annals of music history) didn’t intend for this – he knew the next part already. I just didn’t.

The Practice: The Space Where “It” Happens

Today, as I write this, I need art. It’s become a place that others can’t touch, while some others are welcomed into the space with open arms, and where we are free together. I exist somewhere on the spectrum of “There must be a place in you that remains inviolate” and “I belong everywhere and nowhere” (thank you, Maya Angelou).

My artistry is now centered in participatory improvisational storytelling, meaning that when I share art with you, you have a role in it. I want you to come into the space with me and play, whether it’s my art or someone else’s. Where we might model with the art that which we do not yet see in practice. That we might fully inhabit ourselves without threat or concern through the form is the practice, so that maybe it delivers into our lives. Even if for a moment.

I’ve learned that you need to love it. If there’s anything meaningful, lasting and transformative about the practice of coming back to the same thing, over and over and over again, day after night after day again, it’s that it must be centered in the belief that it is all good. Every part of it – even the mistakes, and especially the parts that you want to change. The parts that pull at you. The parts that hurt to look at. If we cannot look at these parts as good, they will never serve us or others. You may make those technical improvements, fill a space with your craft, or the hold an audience’s silent attention, but you won’t see the fire lit behind their eyes when they start to create for themselves. You won’t see them come alive. And neither will you.

Art centered in its goodness is generative. We model our “creative lives” (if there is even a separation here) after the perpetual, unshakeable creation that we found ourselves in the day we popped out from our mothers. And it has not stopped. No, not since the beginning of this physical existence billions of years ago, and it likely never will stop. Science tells us that our universe just keeps getting bigger. The whole thing is entangled in perpetual creation. And when we create from this place, we become co-creators with the fundamental rhythm of the very foundation of all being and matter. There is nothing quite like it.

Now, when I write or pick up my saxophone, I do so with the intention of fully being where I am that day. I have to be honest. There is no use lying in this space – it hurts only you. One morning a couple months ago, I woke up, picked up my saxophone, turned on the camera and started to play the solo from Saint-Saëns “The Swan.” It rings of death, and inevitable change, and is the place where we get the phrase “swan song” in recent history (but it actually finds its ties in ancient Greek proverbs). I needed to allow myself to be in that space that recognizes transitions and looks at endings in their eyes when they are here, and sees them dance. And it helped. A lot. I walked away feeling like I could sit in that place, and then find peace in it somehow.

It doesn’t sound right to me all the time, the concept of finding the good through acknowledging what it is right now without judgement, because sometimes it’s horrible and I have no space or patience for a silver lining. But it is right.

Beyond the Art

This means that you will need to sit in front of the things that bother you, acknowledge them, nurture them, and watch them change as you hold them in the highest regard. You will need to accept that where you are now is not just okay, but good. And you will need to actually believe it. That you are good.

It cannot work the other way around. It just doesn’t. Ask yourself: when was the last time I grew because I hated something? Those places remain stagnant, and stale, and often we long for something else.

No, friends, if you love it enough, it will change.

When we talk about our art, we’re not really talking about what comes out the other end of the instrument, or what ends up on the canvas, we’re talking about a way of being. And in centering your expression as the way that you want to be in the world, these small distinctions matter. The words we use matter. The way we think about our art matters, because it influences the physicality of the craft. Because it is us. And if we allow it, it can change us for the better.