“I was able to feel things I hadn’t let myself feel for 20 years.”

“I was able to feel things I hadn’t let myself feel for 20 years.”

That was what one of the incarcerated men in a prison said to me after I had played Bach and improvised for the class I was leading.

The way people have responded to Karl Paulnack’s beautiful essay (which everyone seems to be re-sharing with each other on Facebook today) on the power of music reminded me of this.

After I left full-time college music teaching in 2017, I took a quasi-break from intense cello playing–there was a whole bunch of stuff to sort out. What I found myself called to, easily, joyfully, sometimes with some “am I really up to this” was working with incarcerated men to clean up their past and create new, powerful future for themselves and their families. Soon I found myself at a medium-security prison two or three days a week, facilitating a powerful leadership course (developed by others).

The guys, as I call them, asked me to play for them. The first time was Christmas night of 2018, and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, playing some Bach and wonderful Christmas songs, like “White Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which speak so powerfully to being alone and missing family. I was away from my family, other than my husband, and being together with other men missing their families, and facing much more challenging circumstances than I was, was an extraordinary gift.

Another time, I played for the men in the class and some others, including some of the officers. I don’t know of any more powerful experience to have as a musician than to share music with incarcerated people who are deeply receptive and almost desperate for meaningful human connection.

I started bringing my cello in more often.

It was at the end of of those sessions that this extraordinary man I had come to admire so much, this man who had overcome his addictions, who was dealing with what had been for me unimaginable trauma from his past, who had become a leader and mentor for other men in the prison, said, “I was able to feel things I hadn’t let myself feel for 20 years.”

Maybe that was when I recommitted myself to the cello. I’m not sure. But it sure created a new sense of what it means to be a musician for me.

I share that with my students when they are caught up with the minutiae of learning the instrument. This is our job, this is what we are preparing ourselves to do–to create experiences in which people can feel things they haven’t been able to let themselves feel.

A 13-year old has learned the notes of Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste can now close her eyes and share a “sad song” and touch me, and herself.

I’m in the process of taking on a new professional challenge which involves an audition. As a lifetime of audition anxiety gets triggered. As the scared late adolescent who wants to prove himself to himself and others is reawakened, it is SO helpful to remember that music is, among other things, creating the opportunity for others to feels things they haven’t let themselves feel.