One of the things you learn learning music is to be persistent. Music teaches you persistence, because learning music is not easy. It t takes time and hard work, so you have to stay at it.
Several years ago, I was doing a lot of writing for corporate executives, interviewing them in their offices. Time and time again, I can’t tell you how often, I would see a plaque on the wall or a frame on their desk with this quote from Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
In music, especially jazz, persistence is a characteristic fostered by jam sessions. My Music Life and Times podcast partner and What You Learn Learning Music co-author Kevin Bales recalls a discussion with one of his students about jam sessions and how much they can help young players. The real value of a jam session is in being tested, Kevin told him. You don’t know what song you’re going to play. You don’t know who’s going to be playing with you. You don’t know if they’re going to be great musicians or mediocre musicians or maybe beginners.
The student wanted to prepare one song and make it perfect, and he wasn’t going to go to a jam session until he had that song down perfectly. But Kevin was trying to get across to him the benefit of going and failing. “Not because anyone should suffer,” he told him, “but because when you fail you learn firsthand the value of persistence. You stop worrying so much about yourself and how well you are performing, but more about the group expression. Then you learn how much better you can get just by sharing the stage with people. You can go up and find yourself in all kinds of terrible situations that end up being wonderful.”
There’s a story about Charlie Parker, the great saxophone player. He’s 16 or 17, living in Kansas City near 18th and Vine, that famous area where so much jazz was born. He went to his first jam session and started playing and he was in the wrong key. The drummer was so disgusted that he stood up, took off one of his symbols, and threw it at him. He was humiliated. But thank goodness Charlie Parker didn’t give up. He practiced hard for a long time; and when he came back, he changed the world.
In a jam session when something goes wrong, you can’t stop, you have to keep going, even amidst adversity. There’s great benefit in learning to do that, in music but also with about everything else in life.