Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story

Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story
by John Holt

Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story
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Book Summary Information

Author: John Holt
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1991-09-12
ISBN: 0201567636
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Book Reviews of Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story

Book Review: Musical Memoirs
Summary: 5 Stars

This book contains the musical memoirs of John Holt, amateur cellist. Throughout his life, Holt was fascinated with the process of learning and of education. He taught classes in elementary schools, and he published a number of books including "How Children Fail." In this book, Holt presents many observations about his own struggles to learn music. Holt didn't come from a musical family and had practically no training in music as a young person. However, starting in his teenage years, he developed a great love of listening to music. Over the next few decades, he dallied with learning the guitar and flute, but it wasn't until he was 40 that he began studying music in earnest on the cello. Of all instruments to choose, the cello is not one to be taken up lightly, for it is notoriously difficult in its fingerings, bowings, and tone quality. Holt found that his musical studies were requiring more and more of his time, but he also found the time spent on working with his instrument to be so rewarding that he was willing to give up many of his other activities so as to have more time to practice and learn.

In this book, Holt presents a lifelong analysis of all the types of music he had been exposed to, and what they meant to him and his development in music. He takes us from learning songs with his aunt on summer vacation through how he figured out musical notation by fiddling around with piano keys, through intensive summer music camps he attended as an adult with his cello. At times, this seemingly exhaustive enumeration of musical experiences can drag a bit. On the other hand, each anecdote does eventually play an important role in the big picture as Holt unfolds his story.

As a struggling amateur musician, I found Holt's story to be quite inspiring. Since Holt was neither a trained musician nor a music educator, he was able to offer an uncommon perspective on music practice and learning. I was struck by his insistence that musicians at all levels should include in their daily practice pieces that are much too hard for them, rather than just sticking to material that is appropriate for their current level. He also stresses the need for playing real music, and not just exercises or pedagogical pieces (although he does note that sometimes these, too, are useful). He stresses the importance of playing pieces in their entirety as well as working on individual trouble spots. Holt makes it clear that musicians of all levels should be playing music that speaks to them (rather than to their teachers). Through his example, he shows that it doesn't matter what age you are when you first begin to study music-if you are serious about your practice, you will progress and find immense enjoyment as you play.

Summary of Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story

“If I could learn to play the cello well, as I thought I could, I could show by my own example that we all have greater powers than we think; that whatever we want to learn or learn to do, we probably can learn; that our lives and our possibilities are not determined and fixed by what happened to us when we were little, or by what experts say we can or cannot do.?Best known for his brilliant insight into the way children learn, John Holt was also an intrepid explorer of adult learning. At the age of forty, with no particular musical background, he took up the cello. His touching and hilarious account of his passionate second career demolished the myth that one must start an instrument (or a sport, or a language) in early childhood, and will inspire any reader who dreams of taking up a new skill.

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