Dear Music Lover,

I hope you are doing well in spite of the pandemic and the general state of the world.

My goal with these letters is to give you something worth reading and ideas worth trying out. My response to the global lock down has been to drop out for a while to reflect and find some solitude…

I’ve also been experimenting with ideas to answer the question “How do I maintain some sanity when so much is out of my control?”

Here is one answer to that question:

1. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it. On the right-hand side, list everything that frustrates you that you feel you have no control over.
2. On the left-hand side, write down things you do have control over, and in particular things you could do TODAY.
3. Pick something from the list on the left-hand side and do it. If the item is too vague or huge, break it down to a series of tiny steps and then pick one from this new list and do it – something that is easy and for bonus points, fun…

This simple exercise has saved many a morning for me over the last month or so. There is something about turning the swirling mess of thought / mood storms in your head and capturing them on paper in this particular structure that can make you feel like yes, you have a shot at a good day…

Getting back to item # 3… I hope that you have “practice harmonica” somewhere on the left-hand column. If you break that item down to some clear and simple thing to work on, you have a shot at bringing up your skill level with music. What better time to be doing that than now?

Practicing the harmonica can be your way of re-claiming your imagination to use in ways that make you feel good. Do you remember how you fired up your imagination as a kid to create worlds to live in? That kid still lives inside of you, and wants you to come out and play! When I was 13, I would imagine I was the Beatles. All four of them at the same time, in front of thousands of screaming girls. When I picked up a guitar, the energy of that mind movie would keep me searching for the chords, trying to sing the parts, and the sound in my mind kept me company while I crashed and burned over and over again till one day I could get through an entire tune reasonably well.

Now I am Little Walter, Lester Young, Stephan Grapelli, Miles Davis, and my main instrument is the harmonica. I have about as much chance of reaching those levels of mastery as I had at being all four of the Beatles simultaneously, but that is not the point. The point is I am conjuring up moods that I can inhabit. I am also using those moods as fuel for developing skill sets that increase my power as a musician, one step at a time.

You can do the same thing and you will be building brain muscles that come in handy for all sorts of things besides music…

It will give you a more beautiful world to live in inside of your head.

And it gives you a break from the addictive spell of the news cycles…

I will be writing to you again soon now that I have decided to re-join the conversations going on in the world around me.

Be well, stay safe, and cut your wild imagination loose just to see where it can take you!

Thanks for reading this,

Richard

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