Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
“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.
Reviews with the most likes.
Before starting this book, I didn't research the author at all, and when I eventually did realize he passed away many years ago, I was very disappointed. He seems like such a lovely person and offers up so many insightful and thoughtful observations about learning to play the cello. His book is as relevant today as it was when it was first published.
There are so many passages in the second half that I read and reread. He is able to put into words things that I have experienced during practice and orchestra rehearsals, that I was never able to fully express. His documentation of his growth as a musician really reflects my experiences and is inspiring to anyone feeling frustrated or discouraged.
Near the end of the book there is an amazing paragraph where he writes about stage fright and how, to overcome it, one has to achieve complete musical focus and “musical immersion.” I read this on the day where I had finally achieved that in a performance, and it was so validating and interesting to read this perfect description of my experience.
There are many quotes and paragraphs I would love to copy out of this book and stick on my fridge. And in fact, I probably will do just that! I highly recommended this book not just to anybody learning the cello, but to anyone attempting to learn any musical instrument.
The only thing that prevented me from getting this book 5 stars is that it required a good editor. There are quite a few pages in the first half that I skipped over because they were just about his general experiences with music or with elementary school teaching, and I wasn't very interested. I suppose they provided some kind of context for his musical journey, but I don't think it was relevant enough to actually include in the book.
