Music is the Tool that Cracks us Open so that Spirit can Shine Through

 Young Carers Music Leader Amie Simons talks about the biggest lesson she has learnt whilst training...        

The late writer David Foster Wallace told the following parable to University graduates:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

The point of the fish stroy is that sometimes, the most obvious and important realities are the ones that are the hardest to talk about and they are also the ones that we can so easily take for granted.

For me, I took for granted the fact that I am working with an extremely powerful medium- art. It is a medium that does not speak to the mind alone but that talks directly to our very essence, to our spirit, straight to our soul. How does one train for this work? What professional development can possibly prepare us for the conversations that we will witness between music and the very essence of little Jack, or Jill, or Jo?

The truth is that regradless of the quality of preofessional development offered to us, it can never teach us about the human soul. The only way that we can learn more about the spirit of others is to get to know that which exists inside of us. This is the job that we do- to assist people in their own internal development. Music is a tool we use to crack us all open so that spirit can shine through. It is the finger that we use to point to the soul but we must never mistake the finger for the soul, we must never forget that music is our guide but it is not our destination. In this sense we must never forget the importance and the power of our own inner development. We are people first, and then we are professionals/ practitioners/ musicians second.

It is not enough to solely develop as a musician or a choir leader or a drummer. We must develop as people, we must learn and grow and change, constantly, living with a childlike curitosity for the world and everything around us. In this sense, we are eternal students and we can learn so much from the young people around us. At the same time that we teach them harmonies and chords and rhythm, they are teaching us so much more.

The subconscious work that we do with our students and with ourselves through the powerful medium of music can not be quantified. It can not be put into a spreadsheet or a presentation. It can't even be expressed in words so we must listen with our hearts at all times and learn to work from this sacred space.This is the lesson that I have learnt.