In Their Own Words: Exploring Connections

Why is music making important to you? How would you describe the connection you have to the instrument(s) you play?

Two pretty straightforward questions… and yet the answers range far and wide—depending, of course, on who is responding. Here at the Museum of Making Music, we are in a unique position to be able to ask those questions of a diverse array of people—renowned and amateur musicians, music industry professionals, teachers, parents, students and our walk-in visitors. We’ll share these responses with you in upcoming newsletters and in future video montage pieces presented here in the museum. 

Here then is an initial sampling. Even in these early stages of the project, there seem to be a few threads that recur in the responses, such as the impact of one’s family, the importance of sharing music with others for the betterment of society, and the connection—an almost spiritual one—to one’s instrument. There will be more… We hope you join us as the Museum embarks on this ongoing project of inquiry.

"Music means my life to me. I had a rough upbringing in an underprivileged family, but every time I heard music as a little kid, it transported me. I started picking up instruments and all of a sudden, that was my salvation. That was my way of releasing all kinds of energies and being able to relax and being able to focus my energies into a positive environment. I am a multi-instrumentalist, therefore my connection is with sound in general. I hear vibrations and I feel like there is another language, another realm that I dive into. It takes me away from the mundane and it puts me in a state of mind where there are endless possibilities."  -ALLAN PHILLIPS

"Music is my life force. It’s always been the way that I felt connected to myself and maybe to some higher force, if that exists, and perhaps most importantly, to other people." - RUTH MOODY

"Music making to me, personally, is the fulfillment of promise. My mother was a professional musician. She married young and in those days (1930s), she was obligated to give up her career and raise the family. There were five of us born over quite a few years, and I’m the youngest. She had been looking for a musician the whole time, and she finally got one in me. What I found was that music was the language that I spoke…that spoke to me, and that I spoke it rather natively.

I started with piano. As soon as I was old enough to study an instrument in school, I picked up the violin. However, there was one cello in the beginning class, and I knew that that was my voice. So as soon as I could change, I did. And the rest is history."  -GORDON GRUBBS