There is a sense from many that music must be performative. It must be on a stage or recorded and broadcast somewhere. The idea being that music requires an audience, or at least an ear to hear to confirm it happened. Like the old adage “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  did the music happen if only the musician was there to hear it? Did it matter? Did it count? Did it contribute? 

Knowing what I know about the power and healing of music I think it does. It is deeply important to the musician and has resonances around them. It is also a cumulative contribution to a future act of music (“practice”) that someone may in fact hear down the line. It may also be the right sound at the right time to allow a musician to move forward and through whatever may be holding them back. 

To place music on a stage, or a pedestal more correctly, is to place it apart and out of reach, when it is something that is in fact from within us, around us and is for all of us. The stage is important to remind us how special music is but should remind us too, to take some of that power home with us. To play and engage with music on our own terms and in our own way.