A musical interlude, maybe

       Once, at a celebratory event, I happened to be dancing with my young adult daughter. Afterward, as I probably was receiving oxygen, my daughter said she needed to tell me something.

      She prefaced her remarks by noting, “I mean this in the nicest way possible,” and then added, “but you are the worst dancer I’ve ever seen.”

      I thanked her for the compliment, but in fact, I was not surprised. I have known for some time I have absolutely no musical abilities of any kind. Even though I love music and know all the lyrics to most Beatles songs, I nevertheless am so unskilled musically I can’t even play the radio very well.

      It dates back a long time. In elementary school, when the entire class sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I was told I was a “listener.” And I probably listened off-key. Years later, in college—like every other student at the time—I tried teaching myself how to play the guitar. After years of practice, I think I finally discovered I was holding the guitar at the wrong end.

      My inability, I think, is akin to the inability of people who can’t learn a language. No matter how much Duo Lingo they do, they still can’t really hear the new language, replicate the accent; they still can’t trill their “r” in French or say “merci” instead of “mercy.”

      I thought of all this history and the exchange with my daughter the other day when my friend Roger suggested he could teach me—at my age and, for that matter, at his age—how to play the bass guitar.

      Like a number of similarly aged friends, Roger still regularly plays music. A number of people I know still have actual bands they play with, sometimes in public. Neighbors down the street, all no longer young, gather in a garage most every weekend to practice. You can hear them all the way to the corner.

      They get pleasure out of it, obviously, but it’s also, we are learning, a very good thing to do. It keeps them sharp. And as we are frequently told, in an endless series of newspaper and magazine articles, podcasts and videos, to maintain our cognitive abilities as we age we should engage our brains in a challenging activity. Play music! Learn a language! Take up crocheting! Do crossword puzzles in pen! Play Boggle for money!

      Anything to do with music would indeed be challenging for me.

      So, I told Roger, sure. I’m just hoping we don’t have to do it in French. Or while dancing.