Review and Giveaway of I Wish I Didn’t Quit: Music Lessons

With bookend stories about the fictitious piano student Olivia in his new book, I Wish I Didn’t Quit: Music Lessons, author Nathan Holder paints a picture first of an all-too familiar scenario and later an ideal scenario when it comes to studying music. Himself a member of the “I-wish-I-didn’t-quit” statistic, Holder writes from a collection of personal experiences along with numerous quotes and insights from other professional musicians that are targeted mostly toward parents who want to give their children a successful music education. Although this self-published book suffers from a lack of professional editing, Holder’s storytelling skills and relevant content were enough to help me overlook the typos and grammatical errors. It’s a quick read from which parents, teachers, and students will all benefit.

The book lists eight principles to guide parents in navigating their child’s musical journey: Learn to Manage Expectations, Know What You’re Up Against, Hard Work Beats Talent, Create a Musical Environment, Explore Your Options, There is More Than One Path, Pay Attention to the Process, and Question Everything.

Each chapter includes real life illustrations, examples or comments from professional musicians, philosophical musings, and practical suggestions. I especially appreciated Chapter 8 – Music Lessons = Life Lessons and think it will especially resonate with parents (or even older students who are considering quitting their music lessons!). He includes a quote from NYU Professor of Music Education Jarritt Sheel,

“Music, and by proxy art, is the best entry point for many people to learn about other cultures and the implications that art has on history, and that events have on our creative outputs…it gives us opportunities to interact with the past and future, while being in the present wrestling with its implications for our lives [sic] worlds and shared reality. It, music, helps introduce and often times inculcate culture, while questioning and reaffirming history’s place and our understandings [sic] of it.”

I particularly appreciate this perspective because it was through studying music history that I came to a deeper understanding of world history and geography and various other fields of study and how they all intersected. Most of our children and students will not become professional musicians, but Holder reminds that the value to be gained from musical study transcends the sole skill of playing an instrument; many other areas of our person and our character will be formed by our musical pursuits.

One cannot measure a negative, so it is impossible for any of us to fully comprehend the impact that our own music education has had on our formation as individuals. However, we do have the incredible opportunity to ensure that our children, our students, and many future generations can experience the incalculable blessings that come from learning to play a musical instrument.

Thanks to Nathan for sending me a free copy of his book for this review. He has also graciously offered to giveaway a free copy of his book to one Music Matters Blog reader! Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing to win. One winner will be chosen using a random number generator at noon (CST) on February 8, 2019.

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