Two Essays by Adrienne G. Cannon: Music and Medicare & Another Era

Come on ... smile with me through the non-stop counseling that tells us older folks how to stay young. You know ... it goes this way: work out crossword or math puzzles; better yet struggle with those impossible number combinations needed to solve Seduko puzzles, play bridge or learn another language and, oh yes, take a dance class. We can politely agree as we sigh at the amount of effort proscribed for us so we can maintain our mental faculties at their optimum level ... and avoid illness even if it is covered by Medicare.

Sitting in a chair is not so bad, I reason, as I would be while grappling with those mind games. But for me, there has to be a point to it all. So my favorite thing to do, while I am sitting, is to join with colleagues while playing in concert bands. Such bonding with friends should make those advice-givers happy as I am following what the sociologists say will keep me connected.

And what friends they are! Some are older than I am (at times by twenty years) and need help carrying their instrument (or in the case of a piano or a timpani, finding where they are located), setting up their music stand, even getting in and out of their chair, especially after a long rehearsal. I can empathize with this last ailment, in my seventieth decade, when arthritis is showing its effects on my aging joints.

But how we come alive when we begin to play! We are joined in a renewal of spirit as we play through the score following the conductor, as we count measures, observe the key signature, sense the rhythm and interpret the dynamics. Some of us have played all of our lives; others of us have returned to an instrument we played as a younger person. Yet the whole group (concert band, chamber group, swing band) continues to perform activities that younger folks envy.

Our hearing discrimination is better than many of our peers, our vision, poor as it may be, is keen enough to read a musical transcript, our minds can calculate notes and render them into sound by key combinations or breath production. No wonder musicians seem to live longer and hurt less. Maybe the prescription for staying healthy is not Medicare nor mind-bending games. Maybe making and enjoying music, for ourselves and our appreciative friends and family, is the program we should subscribe to.

Photo from Wikipedia, Indiana Wind Symphony.

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Two Essays by Adrienne G. Cannon: Music and Medicare & Another Era

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