“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow” — Kurt Vonnegut’s inspirational letter to some students at Xavier High School in 2006:

I’ve been a music teacher for over 10 years and taught over 500 students, most of them young kids.

It’s been my calling, my gift, and my purpose in my life, and every year, I witness, firsthand the monumental benefits that music provides my young students. I’ve seen how music can help a young 10 year old break out of their cocoon of shyness, and blossom into a butterfly of confidence. I’ve seen how music can instil a sense of purpose and reason to never give up in a 17 year old questioning their future upon graduating high school.

Despite this, I still get asked on a daily basis, by parents “is it worth continuing music lessons?”

It’s quite ironic that in 2024, with the amount of resources, articles and science advocating for music education, it is still one of the first activities parents cut from their students weekly routines.

So the question is, why is this?

It would be so easy for me to start listing all the cognitive benefits of listening to music, how learning the drums can help a child fine-tune their motor skills in early develop, and how learning the piano can help a child in other areas such as mathematics.

But the reality is, this is not enough for most parents, and with no disrespect to the researchers and scientist out there, relegating music purely for cognitive and motor function would be a disservice to music itself.

I want to go back to the quote from Kurt Vonnegut and I encourage you to listen to Sir Ian McKellen, Professor X himself, read this excerpt in the empathetic way

I mean, when Professor X speaks, you listen.

Go here — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh9tMqpH8nc&ab_channel=LettersLive

In all seriousness, having interacted with thousands of parents over the last 10 years, I truly understand why music and art lessons tend to be the first activities cut from their children’s weekly routine, when reviewing the family plan.

Financial reasons aside, it’s because the benefits of music are predominantly impractical.

To put it bluntly and to be brutally honest, learning how to play the perfect Mozart Sonata on the piano is not going to help you clean your bedroom. Being able to shred over Eddie Van Halen’s Eruption on the guitar is not going to help you finish your English assignment which is 50% of your yearly report. Discovering the most infectious funk groove on the drums won’t teach you anything about how to make money once you finish high school.

There was a time that music was revered by the public, on the same level as Mathematics, Science and Literature.

Music was the perfect foil for all the academic subjects which promoted critical thinking and problem-solving.

However, this era is long gone, and in the 26 years I’ve been alive for, I, along with many people in the music industry, am part of a very small minority trying out my heart out to preserve music education for kids. In the current world we live in, the education system still follows the same old formula of “get good grades to get into a good university/college, to get a good stable job until you retire at 65”.

Moreover, schools in Sydney, Australia where I live, have become breeding grounds, fueling the obsessive bullfights, where children have been relegated to statistics to help schools rank higher at each year’s end.

So when parents become concerned that their child is not showing any progress after a few months of music lessons, immediately they worry their child is falling behind, and wonder if they should be enrolling for extra math tutoring lessons, or focus on studying more for their next exams, rather than learning a song that fundamentally makes little difference to their daily routine.

This is just the cherry on top when it comes to the plethora of worries a parent in 2024 has to deal with.

I may not be a parent yet, but every day I think about these issues, and worry about tackling these issues with my future children.

So, why am I still incredibly passionate and staunch on children learning music in today’s landscape?

Well firstly, I am a musician, so it’d be a bit contradictory for me to tell people not to learn music, when it is my life’s passion and livelihood. But in all seriousness, music has helped me become the most honest and authentic version of myself.

It has helped me find out what is inside of me.

It has helped my soul grow as I entered adulthood.

It has helped me find strength, resilience and courage I didn’t know I had.

In other words, music has provided me with a funnel, to develop all the “soft skills” that aren’t measurable by metrics or statistics.

These skills include:

• How to be patience

• How to be mentally strong

• How to be resilient and courageous

• How to embrace failure and learn from mistakes

• How to listen to someone deeply

• How to be empathetic to others

• How to instil hope and belief in others

• How to truly speak from my heart

• How to be honest

Before I wrote this, I was thinking about all my experiences in my life to date, and what moments stood out to me where I can genuinely explain how I came to learn these skills.

I first thought about how I could relate these skills to the music classes specifically.

For example:

1. I learnt how to quickly embrace and overcome failure on a regular basis by learning challenge songs that pushed my guitar techniques.

2. How I learnt to listen deeply by trying to single out what notes the 12th backup singer in Stevie Wonder’s band was singing on a live recording of Isn’t She Lovely at his Hall of Fame induction in 1989

3. How I learnt to be patient by practising for 4 hours a day, almost every day between the ages of 13–18, to master my craft on my guitar.

On the surface, I’m sure these stories of mine will give some inspiration to others, but the problem here is, that these stories are unrelatable, and do nothing to speak to the core of humanity, which is what music is all about trying to express.

Well, I have a story for you. I’ll do my best to keep the next part under 5 minutes, but I suggest you get a cup of coffee and get comfortable because this is going to be quite the emotional ride.

The Day Music Became My Superpower

In 2017, two years out of high school, I embarked on a quest around the world, traveling through Europe and North America.

This was my rite of passage, the first frontier I had to conquer on my journey to becoming the awe-inspiring musician my teenage ego dreamed of. Before setting off, I reached out to 50 of my favorite guitarists worldwide, eager to absorb their musical knowledge into a titanium trap and morph it into my own style. In my mind, this trip would make me the next Tommy Emmanuel, the Asian-Australian bombshell who would change the landscape of guitar playing in Australia.

Two weeks into my adventure, I found myself in the small, charming town of Bristol in South England.

I spent two weeks there with two of my favorite guitar players, Mike Dawes and Stuart Ryan. I learned the art of crafting a good melody, expanded my guitar techniques, and discovered a rich tapestry of UK music I had never encountered before. I was brimming with excitement, eager to return home and share my newfound knowledge with fellow musicians and friends.

One evening, after an invigorating lesson with Mike Dawes, I was walking back to my Airbnb, my guitar slung over my shoulder.

The golden hour bathed the streets of Bristol in a warm, honeyed light, and I felt a profound sense of inspiration. As I passed the corner of St. Nicolas Church and a bustling market café, a homeless man caught the corner of my eye.

I watched as about 22 people hurried by, not one acknowledging his presence. Each time someone brushed him aside, he murmured, “That’s okay, have a good day,” with a hint of dread but still managing to show kindness.

I was about 50 meters away when something inexplicably pulled me towards him. It was strange because I had never interacted with homeless people back home in Sydney. But this time, something compelled me to approach him. Had I not had my guitar with me, I might have continued walking towards Bristol train station.

I walked up to him and asked, “How are you doing?” To my shock, he replied, “Yeah, not too bad, how are you?”

He looked like someone who had just crawled through 100 miles of dirt in an underground tunnel. His clothes were tattered, his face weathered, but his eyes — his eyes held a glimmer of light, a flicker of hope barely visible. When he spoke, there was a warmth in his voice that I would never expect from someone on the brink of rock bottom.

I reached into my wallet and found, to my dismay, only about 2 pounds in coins. Feeling a mix of frustration and determination, I said, “Wait, I have my guitar with me. Why don’t I sit next to you and play for a few minutes? Let’s see if anyone comes.”

The man, told me, “No worries, mate. I used to play the guitar myself, actually.”

I asked him about his favorite tunes, and he replied, “Anything old school rock.”

Now, I’ve played hundreds of concerts, but this moment remains unique. I felt like a puppet master, orchestrating a scene where music spoke louder than words. Even a chef from the nearby café came out with a slice of bread for the man, and a group of university students offered him a pack of cupcakes.

Incredibly, as if my guitar and my music became a magnet drawing people in, about 30 people flocked in the space of 3 minutes, and began dropping loose change into my guitar case.

Now I’ve since played hundreds of concerts, but to this day, this moment is the only day where I’ve truly felt like a puppet master, willing people to come forward.

It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and the power of music truly spoke. Even one of the chefs in the cafe next door came out with a slice of bread for the man. A young group of university students gave a pack of cupcakes.

Ten minutes earlier, he was nothing more than a shadow, a barely visible silhouette against the ancient walls of St. Nicolas Church. Now, he had 100 pounds and enough food to sustain him for the next few days.

As I stood up to leave, the man looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and disbelief. “You should take this,” he said, pushing the pile of coins towards me.

I knelt down, meeting his eyes, which were now shimmering with unshed tears. “This is yours. You earned it.” I paused, feeling the weight of the moment.

For a moment, the man hesitated, the flicker of hope in his eyes growing stronger. He finally nodded, a small, genuine smile spreading across his face. “Alright, mate. I’ll do that.”

We shook hands, a simple gesture that felt like a binding promise, and with that, I walked home back to my airbnb, not quite realising how life changing this moment would be.

The Real Reason Why Music Is So Important

So, why am I telling you this story.

I certainly don’t want you to think I am pawning for praise, credit and a round of applause. At the time, I thought I was just doing something to help out a person in need. But, whether I knew it or not at the time, this was the first time I genuinely used my music to make an impact on someone, other than myself.

For most of my childhood, I was quite a loud and cheeky kids, and I always enjoyed the company of my friends, family and even my teachers.

But after a string of events between 2014–2016, including my mother being admitted to hospital for 8 months, my father shutting down one of his businesses, my best friend losing his grandpa and me losing my grandma, I became a complete shadow of myself, and isolated myself in a cocoon of my own solitude.

I wanted nothing to do with other people, the world outside, and all I wanted to do was to dig myself a hole and never come out.

I was ready to give up on my life, even before it truly began.

I saw my year 12 graduation as nothing more than a routine ceremony to cap off 13 years of forced friendships and sleeping in classes, where all the algebra I learnt would be rendered useless.

The only thing that brought me a whisker of joy was playing the guitar, and showing off my skills to people.

To this day, I don’t know what happened to that man, and I don’t know if he is still alive or not.

But knowing that I had done something to lift his spirits with my guitar and music, even just for a day, confirmed in my mind, that I had something of a super power with music.

Over the years, I’ve tried my best to continue the lessons I took from that experience, in every situation I put myself into on a day to day basis.

Yes I still get a kick out of seeing my young students learn their first songs or master a difficult guitar technique.

But I get an even bigger kick when I see my young students tell me they finally believe themselves and have finally found something they love and enjoy and happen to be good at.

Yes I get a kick out of seeing my students entertain an audience and give them a good show.

But I get an even bigger kick when they tell me they have found their purpose in making people happy, and escape from their daily stressors for a moment, by playing their favourite songs for them.

Yes I get a kick out of playing old time classics by The Beatles and Frank Sinatra for residents with dementia at aged care centres.

But I get an even bigger kick when they tell me playing a song like “In My Life” by The Beatles, reminded them of their childhood and the happy memories they shared with their parents back in the 1940s.

And of course, I do get a kick out of seeing my younger students walk out of their guitar lessons with a smile.

But I get the biggest kick of them all when their mum and dad say thank you to me for continuing to believe in them and giving them a purpose.

So the question beckons:

“Is it worth continuing music lessons?”

Absolutely.

It may not teach your child how to get an A on their next math exam, or what university they want to apply for when they finish school.

But it will teach them all the traits, values and lessons that the great people in history all have.

Not necessarily the famous or the celebrated, but those who stay true to themselves, who know how to love unconditionally, who show empathy to every human being regardless of their status, and who strive to become better people, little by little, every day of their lives.

And finally, and most importantly, music will teach them that even in the toughest of times, hope is the light that cuts through, and joy is a possibility in any scenario.

These are traits and values you can’t measure because they will last a lifetime.