If you're looking at my website you're probably a musician. If you're not, you might be looking into becoming one. Why do we play music? Why do I play music? Why do you play music? The answer to this question often changes throughout our lives. The reasons I had when I started playing music over 20 years ago are not the reasons I play music now. Similarly, your relationship with music will change throughout your life.
Despite some music classes early on, I'm going to say my relationship with playing music began in 5th grade. My family owned a trumpet so the trumpet was what I played. I had no passion for the instrument and not much interest in being good at it either. Certainly none of the music I was listening to at the time (Linkin Park) had a brass section. I cannot even remember why I wanted to play music at all at this period of my life.
The guitar - My Primary Instrument. My interest in the guitar began when my friend Brad would bring Guitar Hero to my house. Eventually I got Guitar Hero III on the Wii and enjoyed playing it. I started having thoughts of playing guitar for real. I remember the first time I saw an electric guitar in person. I remember how cool it looked, how it had knobs and fancy electronics. I remember its shape and its bright red color. The instrument had magic. I'm reminded of a quote by Mark Twain about the Mississippi.
"Now when I had mastered the language of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river!"
I cannot see electric guitars the way I used to. I know them too intimately. I know how they work down to the technical details. I know how electromagnetic induction works. I know how strings vibrate and the harmonic series. The magic I once saw in them is gone.
Playing the guitar was an act of rebellion. It wasn't rebellion in the sense of sneaking out late at night or taking illicit substances. For me, it was a rebellion from school. I hated school and everything about it. I didn't care about the grades I got as long as I passed. My self esteem at the time was too low to believe I even could succeed academically. I hated math and thought it was worthless. (Ironically, math would be one of my favorite subjects in college.)
I put my effort into being good at music. I had something I cared about that wasn't related to the hours a day I had to spend in class. I became obsessed with being good at the guitar. My parents were generous enough to pay for lessons even though I didn't want them.
I have absolutely no talent. The modest amount of skill I have now is the result of hours of work. I'd share clips of my playing online and the reception was not good. Many people told me to quit and that I was wasting my time. These comments always stung, but I would practice even harder.
I believed that being good at music would make people admire me. If I was a great guitar player it would make up for the awkward person I was. And yet what developed was that I kept music to myself for years. Many people that I knew personally didn't even know I played music at all. Music became something just for myself. It's hard to explain, but this was a selfish act. Music was for me and only me.
Being skilled at things won't fix your self-hatred. It just makes you a skilled person who hates yourself. With the advent of the internet, today's players can see the best musicians in the world. How old were you when learned to stop comparing yourself to others? Was it when you were 12?
Later in high school my musical interests were outgrowing the electric guitar. I took lessons for classical guitar, bassoon, and piano. My senior year of high school I joined choir. At this time my relationship with music began to change. I played music because I loved playing music. When you're fully immersed in playing music, you experience ego death. You don't have insecurities or issues when you're truly immersed in the music. You become part of the sound.
I'm not trying to say that my relationship with music was fully pure at this point (or even is fully pure now). My relationship with music continues to evolve as I get older. Music puts life inside us. I'm less concerned with being good and more concerned with self-expression and fulfillment.
Your relationship with music will also change throughout your life. I do not believe there are "wrong" reasons to play music. The impure reasons we have when we're young are part of growing up. The best reason to play music is the simplest one. Play music because you like playing music.