Take a Class, Turn a Page
What I got, and you can too
Want to add some color to your life?
For a long time while working as an estate planning lawyer, I carried a notion of writing music some day. I knew myself too well to dive into it too soon. I tend to be obsessive about things I get into. Years before I had started piano lessons but quit them because I was spending too much time practicing. I saw it would erode my work and family life of that time.
But our daughters grew up and had families of their own, and the time approached for me to move on from lawyering. So it was go time.
Over a couple of years, I took the six-part music theory series at Tacoma Community College. I then added a class on digital production. My main aim was to write and publish music as I am now doing.
TCC has a really good music faculty. Friendly too. When I had trouble registering for my first class, the chair of the department swept me right on in.
I don’t know where you are in life. This kind of pathway isn’t timely for all, but I think it is for many. You don’t have to have a specific ambition like mine. You can just want to make your life more interesting. And if you’re a little less obsessive than I am, you can do this alongside your working life.
What did I get from my classes at TCC? Mainly three things, I’d say.
I learned a bunch and you can too, or just a little if you want
I got a great perspective on how musical pieces are constructed. Scales, chords, rhythm, chord progressions, form, modulation, and the like. We did composing exercises. I got to write short articles on various kinds of works, encouraging me now to write not just music but also about it.
But that’s just me and you aren’t going to care a lot about my path. How about yours?
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Community and vocational colleges offer tons of different kinds of classes to the general public. You can pretty passively audit (sit in on) some, or you can register to take courses for credit, even if you’re not going for a degree.
You can go after any of a multitude of subjects: cooking, gardening, health, fitness, literature, science, politics… You can take one class and be happy with that, or pursue a line of courses in the same or different areas.
It made me feel better about the world
I was a seventy-something guy in classes with middle-age instructors and mostly twenty-something students. I was the guy who plugged in my computer when I arrived; the others knew their devices would easily last the period.
And everyone was nice to me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was a little. One teacher made a harmless little joke on me. She was talking about the 27 Club of musicians who had died at that age: Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, etc. She lightheartedly admonished the class to avoid joining the Club, then added “…although Alan and I are safe.”
People don’t generally go to community college because their parents made them, or expected it. They’re trying to get somewhere by putting in some time and effort. One guy came directly to our morning class from his work. I was pleased to be in the midst of that kind of steady striving for a better life.
& a hidden benefit?…
I guess if I was looking to make friends or even find a girlfriend, school could’ve helped to get me out there with new people. There’s a good chance you could get something like that. But for me there was another kind of benefit.
As implied I was well behind the other students in the use of technology. So to do the classes I had to do some catching up: recording, uploading, submitting, stuff like that.
Yeah, I had to figure it out. Lucky for me, I had time: kids grown up and no longer working. I could spend whole days going over the class material and figuring out how to get it done, while some of my classmates were juggling kids and work.
And this having to figure out the technology part has carried into the rest of my life. As you know, more and more we have to do things like take, upload, and send photos to return a product, renew a driver’s license, or sign up for something. We don’t have the option of not knowing how. And I have a bit of experience, and a lot more confidence than before, to just poke around and get that kind of thing done.
So, do you want to turn a page in your life? Take a class. Some good things will happen.
Thanks to you who read and consider.
