What Older Musicians Can Learn from Young Creators

What Older Musicians Can Learn from Young Musicians

A Reminder About Passion, Creativity, and Why We Make Music

The other night, I had a chance to talk with my nephew Noah on the phone.

When I moved from Las Vegas up to the Pacific Northwest a couple of years ago, I knew one of the hardest parts would be not being able to spend as much time with him. Even though I’m “Uncle Ted,” I’ve had a big role in helping raise him and take care of him since he was born. That has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

And now, somehow, he’s 17 years old and taller than I am.

Life moves fast.

Noah has gotten deeply into writing and recording his own music. And I have to say, it’s very cool stuff. Beautiful, creative, emotional, and often surprisingly complex.

But here’s the thing: the way he creates music is completely different from the way I was learning music at his age.

When I was coming up, if you wanted to be a serious musician, you learned an instrument. You practiced. You studied. You learned chords, scales, theory, sight-reading, ear training, tunes, technique, time, harmony, improvisation, and everything else that came with the path.

If you were a jazz musician, you spent years trying to understand what was happening inside the music. You learned standards. You learned changes. You learned how to comp, solo, listen, react, and hopefully say something meaningful through your instrument.

That path still means everything to me.

But for many young musicians today, the path looks very different.

Young Musicians Are Creating in a Different World

A lot of today’s young creators are making music on laptops, tablets, phones, and home recording setups. Some may not play a traditional instrument. Some may not know music theory. Some may not even know the names of the notes they’re using.

And yet, they are creating real music.

That may be hard for some older musicians to hear.

I get it.

For those of us who spent a lifetime working on our craft, it can be easy to look at a young person building tracks on a laptop and think, “That’s not the same thing.” Or even worse, “That’s not real music.”

But I think we need to be careful with that reaction.

Because when I listen to Noah’s music, I don’t hear someone trying to bypass music. I hear someone trying to express something.

He may not know what a German augmented sixth chord is. He may not be thinking about voice leading, secondary dominants, modal interchange, or altered extensions. But he hears something in his head and feels something in his heart, and he uses the tools available to him to bring that feeling into the world.

That matters.

And in some ways, it may even protect the music from becoming too intellectualized.

The technical language never gets in the way because, for him, the goal is not to prove what he knows. The goal is to make the music represent what he feels.

That is something worth paying attention to.

Don’t Let Craft Replace Passion

As musicians get older, especially musicians who have spent decades developing their skills, something interesting can happen.

We can become very good at what we do.

We know the tunes. We know the instrument. We know the fretboard. We know the harmony. We know what works. We know what not to do. We know how to get through the gig.

And all of that is valuable.

But sometimes, without realizing it, we can lose a little of the fire.

Not the ability. Not the knowledge. Not the experience. But the urgency.

The feeling that this note matters.
This song matters.
This performance matters.
This message matters.

Young creators often still have that urgency burning hot. They are writing about love, loss, confusion, loneliness, hope, anger, beauty, heartbreak, and identity. They are trying to make sense of their lives through sound.

And when you’re 17, life can feel incredibly intense.

The feelings are big. The questions are big. The pain is big. The dreams are big.

That intensity comes through in the music.

As older musicians, we may not want to make music the way younger artists do. We may not want to trade our guitars, amps, archtops, standards, ii-V-I lines, or years of study for a laptop-based approach.

I certainly don’t.

I love the musical path I’ve taken. I love the guitar. I love jazz harmony. I love the tradition. I love the lifelong work of becoming a better musician.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn something from a 17-year-old making music in a completely different way.

Or maybe “learn” isn’t even the right word.

Maybe I can remember something.

Listen for the Fire

When we listen to younger musicians and creators, maybe the question shouldn’t be, “Do they know what I know?”

Maybe the question should be:

“Do I still feel what they feel?”

That’s an important question.

It’s easy to dismiss new forms of music because they don’t follow the rules we were taught. It’s easy to be annoyed by the tools, the sounds, the production, the lack of traditional musicianship, or the fact that someone can now create an entire piece of music without knowing the things we spent years studying.

But change is real.

Music has always changed. Every generation has had its gatekeepers. Every generation has had musicians who looked at the next wave and said, “That’s not music.”

And yet, music keeps moving.

The better response, I think, is not to feel threatened by the change. It is to ask what the change might be showing us.

Maybe young creators can remind us to:

• Put emotion before perfection
• Let the message guide the music
• Stay open to new sounds and approaches
• Remember that rules are tools, not prisons
• Play as if something important is being said
• Reconnect with the passion that made us musicians in the first place

That last one may be the most important.

The Tradition Still Matters

None of this means tradition doesn’t matter.

It does.

Musicianship matters. Time matters. Sound matters. Harmony matters. Technique matters. The history matters. The instrument matters.

For jazz musicians especially, we are part of a deep and beautiful tradition. That tradition deserves respect. It asks something from us. It asks for discipline, listening, humility, patience, and devotion.

But tradition should not make us closed.

The best musicians are always listening.

Not just listening for chord changes or rhythmic ideas, but listening for life.

And sometimes life speaks through a young person with a laptop, a microphone, and no idea what a diminished substitute dominant chord is.

That doesn’t make the feeling less real.

A Friendly Challenge for Older Musicians

So here is my friendly challenge, especially to older musicians.

At some point, listen to music being created by someone much younger than you. Maybe someone 17 years old. Don’t listen to judge it by the standards you grew up with. Don’t listen for what they don’t know.

Listen for the passion.

Listen for the love.
Listen for the pain.
Listen for the urgency.
Listen for the story.

You may not want to make music that way. You may not even like all of it. That’s fine.

But you may hear something that reminds you of why you started making music in the first place.

And the next time you pick up your guitar, walk on stage, record a track, or play a simple melody, maybe that reminder will stay with you.

Maybe the goal isn’t to become young again.

Maybe the goal is to keep the fire alive.

Because at the end of the day, music is not only about what we know.

It is about what we can still feel.

And more importantly, what we can still make others feel.