A few days ago, however, Harry taught me something. As I said, he has a little problem with his agitator. Usually, my wash pattern was to put in my clothes, turn on the wash cycle, start writing or doing whatever else I was up to, and then walk over to restart the agitator every two minutes or so. This time, I let the tank fill up, started the agitator, and proceeded to add my laundry piece by piece. Starting the wash still takes a little effort, but since then I have only had to start it once per cycle.
This is a surprisingly accurate allegory for my attempts to teach music to Costa Rican and Nicaraguan children here in the barrio. When I came to San José, I looked at my opportunity as their opportunity: the chance to learn how to read, play, think, and feel music from a real life music major. Someone who understood theory, musicianship, music history, and the beauty in musical complexity. I couldn't have been more ridiculous if I had tried. For the first few months, I tried to do exactly that: I taught students about eighth notes, thirds, staves, and clefs. I tried to convince them of the beauty of harmony by playing and singing it with myself. Even when they tried (which some of them certainly did), they left the class with very little idea of what had happened and almost no ability to reproduce it. A few weeks ago, I tried a new approach. I didn't bring in a handout or draw up a rhythm on the whiteboard or try to teach them a new word. I just sat down, played, and said "do what I do." The results were nothing short of incredible. A percussionist who couldn't follow my pulse to save his life successfully found the backbeat the second he closed his eyes and just listened. My flautists went from halfway-playing the one song they'd been working on to learning entire songs in a week or two. My guitarists...well...kept kicking butt. Why?
I realized that I had been approaching teaching the guitar in the way I've learned to play it here. I don't think about contrapuntal melodies or even complex harmonies; I focus on playing I-IV-V-I in the absolute best way possible because that's the only thing these songs were meant to be accompanied by. Really, I hardly think at all. I feel and I do, though only occasionally in that order. I focus on the idea happening in the room around me, and let my hands do what they can to join in. I don't put the clothes in the bottom of the bin and try to start the cycle with my pre-inserted self. I give the water a little stir, wait for it to get moving, then join the wave.
Sometimes, when we find ourselves outside what we already understand, we ironically try and make up for it with our intellectual power. Such was my approach to the piano, the recorder, and every other musical effort I made other than the guitar. Sometimes we're smart enough to fool those around us into thinking we know what we're doing, but in our heart we know there is no substitute for experience and we usually feel intimidated by a lack thereof.
The moral of the story of this is the same one we learn from Peter in Matthew 17: when you don't know how to do something, even and especially if you think you're supposed to, resist the urge to pretend you do. Wait. Watch. Listen. Trailblazers are only good at what they do when they set out from something they know and understand as a base. This isn't to say you should always "go with the flow" - rather, before before you go against it, you should ensure you actually understand where it's going. You might be surprised.
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