Importance of Being Alone

I love being alone. Many people love the solitude and quiet of a personal life without distraction and busy-ness common in our modern world. Call them introverts, call them shut-ins, call them cat people, whatever joke abounds, but remember that in this noisy existence they may be onto something important. The music of silence and separateness is important for human flourishing. I feature it quite a bit in Music is Important because I am also seen to be stressing the need for more live music everywhere. Yes more music and yes more quiet!Being alone is also one of the key ingredients to making art and music. Getting away from the others and writing and focusing on the scales and content of musical excellence is a primary job for a music student, as seen here from our Florida online student working through a part or just exercising her musical muscles or gaining knowledge of the keyboard. To get focused like this you have to sacrifice the company of others sometimes to grow alone with the instrument or voice.I celebrate those who give the long, hard hours of practice to become professionals musicians and technicians and managers or music people. As Kirk Whalum would say, the work is in the long notes.