Imperfect

still a musician

Inspired by Ron's Identity and Disability: Am I still a musician? (blog deleted).

First off, I'm sorry for your loss. Without trying to diminish your experience, the closest analogue I can think of to being unable to play music is being unable to hear the world, similar to what Thyag describes in how i would do my college differently. Auditory input and output, whether through noise, sound, or music, are wonderful phenomena that many people would be heartbroken to lose.

Do you recognize any remote ability for you to perform music for an audience, even if only for your own ears? If so, even more if you seize the opportunity, I see much merit in saying that you are a musician. Being able to play an instrument for only 15 minutes at a time is more than enough to make you one. These days, you don't even have to be capable of playing a traditional instrument. The variety of musical tools we have available today makes music making that much more accessible.

Speaking of tools, I am reminded of a point I adapted from Determined Quokka's Quietly Polite to Robots in cybernetic fusion:

AI can be a force multiplier for coherent writing despite impediments like dyslexia, hand injuries, and more.

Interestingly, the Oxford dictionary defines talent this way: "Mental endowment; natural ability." Does focal dystonia or any other disability you have take away either or both? Let's say you were presented with a different way to play your instrument. How much of your mental endowment and practice could be transferable to that other way of working? How quickly could you acclimate given what you know? Even if you have to resort to a mechanism or instrument novel to you, I think it would still count as musical enough to continue considering yourself as a musician.

I also wonder about how open to interpretation "the art of music" can be. Yes, people thinking of that jump to firsthand musical performance via an instrument. However, music "knowledge, taste, and experience" can fit the bill too. I think that such factors can be transformed into performance in a different way or musicality by different means. While disability can reduce how much of those factors you can cultivate, repurpose, or remember, it might not yet render any or all of them inaccessible. In addition, said phrase can cover supportive nodes within the realm of music: teachers, reviewers, composers, and all kinds of other producer and consumer roles.

We can try to approach the question of talent without play at the limit. Do we still consider renowned musicians who have passed as talented? They are like "many renowned music teachers" in that they "can no longer play or perform", but are often "sought after by the best musicians".

I think you can internally focus on engagement with or creation of anything and its profound effect on us to the effect of continuing to fulfill that role at heart. Whether a brick layer, a CEO, or a musical artist, any of those experiences not only helped you get to where you are today, but can be a very core part of what makes you yourself.

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