Your relationship to music: Why reconnection means more than improvement

If music is important to you, you have a relationship to music. Like every relationship, it’s different for all of us. And like many relationships, it’s taken for granted in modern culture.

Many people get disconnected from their connection to music, for various reasons.

If you know that music is important to you, but you don’t feel happy and inspired about how it’s showing up (or not) in your life, it’s likely that your relationship to music needs some attention.

The impact of the disconnection can be huge in terms of wellbeing and identity, both personal and cultural. It can also be an unacknowledged grief.

And the route back to connection can be complicated, due to mainstream culture’s attitude to music.

I’m writing this from personal experience and observation. I’ve been through cycles of disconnection and reconnection throughout my lifetime as a musician. And I’ve also observed these patterns in the people I work with, as a teacher and coach.

In this post I’m exploring the factors involved. And also, offering some solutions for how to start making music again as an adult.

I’ve found that the route to reconnection with music is not obvious in modern mainstream culture.

It involves asking different questions. And treating this as a relationship to tend, a life practice, rather than a project to complete, a skillset to master.

“I want music to be part of who I am again.”

Over the years, I’ve heard many versions of this sentiment.

Sometimes it comes from someone who used to play joyfully and with commitment when they were younger, but put their piano away when work and family pressures became the priority. Sometimes it’s from a singer who lost confidence. Or a musician who spent years chasing professional success and became disillusioned. And sometimes it’s from someone who never had the chance to be musical in the first place.

The details vary, but the feeling is often the same:

A sense that music once occupied an important place in your life—and that somehow, along the way, you became disconnected from it.

Most people assume the solution to this problem is to improve. To manage your schedule so you have time to practise consistently, to become more disciplined, to learn more theory, to regain lost skills.

But I’ve come to believe that for many people, improvement isn’t the real issue.

The issue is relationship.

The hidden problem: Musical disconnection

When people stop making music, it’s rarely because they stop caring about music.

More often, something has happened in the relationship. Perhaps you experienced criticism that left a lasting mark. Or you began comparing yourself to others, and you stopped playing because you felt discouraged about your progress.

Perhaps your life became too full of other responsibilities. Or your musical ambitions didn’t unfold the way you had hoped.

Or perhaps music became associated with pressure, performance, and expectation, rather than joy, curiosity, and meaning.

In each of these examples, the result is similar. Music shifts from being something you actively participate in, to something you observe from a distance.

You still love music. But you no longer feel at home within it.

Many people carry this loss quietly for years.

Why music matters more than we think

Part of the problem is that modern culture tends to frame music as a specialised activity for professionals, for the talented. In this framework, music is for performers. It requires expertise before participation.

But music is much older and bigger than these ideas.

Long before music became an industry, it was a human practice. People sang, played, moved together. We marked celebrations, grief, rituals, and transitions through sound.

Music wasn’t a product. It was a way of being human.

But many adults have absorbed the message that unless they are progressing, performing, or producing something impressive, their musical activity somehow doesn’t count.

Here’s what I think: This belief causes enormous unnecessary suffering. Because it disconnects many people from one of the most important forms of expression available to us as humans.

Asking a different question

Most people approach music with a question like this: “How can I become a better musician?”

It’s not a bad question. It will lead to more questions like, how to choose a teacher, how to practice, time management, learning technique, buying the right gear, etc.

But for someone who feels disconnected, a more useful question might be:

“What kind of relationship do I want with music?” Or, “What kind of relationship does music want with me?”

This changes everything.

Relationships can take many forms. Some are intense, some are gentle. Some are private, some are shared. Some relationships occupy a central place in our lives. Others remain in the background.

Also, relationships need tending. They don’t just “happen”.

The same is true of music.

There is no single right way to do this

Here are some of the patterns I’ve seen, in people I’ve worked with:

Some people want to perform, but not everybody has this motivation. Some people want to record albums. Some enjoy exploring the technology of sound recording and amplification.

Some people want to sing every day. Some love to improvise alone in the living room.

Some want to write songs occasionally. Some want to join a community choir. Some are drawn to the music of their cultural roots, like Celtic music.

And some people simply want to feel connected to music again.

Reconnection comes before improvement

I believe that one of the most damaging assumptions in music education is that skill development should come first.

In the fields of healing and creativity (which are in my view adjacent to music), relationship and connection usually come first. One example of this is the Therapeutic Relationship.

One of the reasons the Suzuki Method of music education often gets such great results, is that it incorporates a parent-child relationship into teaching small children to play instruments.

Think about any meaningful relationship in your life. Trust doesn’t emerge from optimisation. Connection doesn’t emerge from self-criticism. Belonging doesn’t emerge from constantly evaluating performance.

The same applies to music.

Before we ask how to improve, we may need to ask questions like:

What happened between me and music?
What expectations am I carrying?
What am I afraid of?
What do I miss?
What still calls to me?

These are not technical questions. They are relational questions.

And for many people, answering them creates more progress than months of forcing themselves to practise.

Listening to the whispers

One thing I have noticed repeatedly is that people often already know where their musical energy wants to go.

There is usually a call. A genre they keep returning to, or an instrument they can’t stop thinking about. A style of music that sparks curiosity. A creative urge that refuses to disappear. “I’d love to try that!”

Yet many people dismiss these signals. They assume their interests are unrealistic, impractical, or unimportant.

So you do some research, and settle for something that’s affordable, or you take the advice of a local music teacher. These are fair considerations – but in my view they belong in a different part of the process, when you’re reconnecting with your own relationship with music.

What if the attractions, the spark within you, contains valuable information? What if the path back to music begins not with discipline, but with listening?

Not listening to a teacher. And not listening to social expectations.

Listening to yourself.

Following this trail often leads back to forms of musical engagement that feel alive, personal, and sustainable.

Music as a practice, not a project

Another reason people struggle is that they regard music as a project.

Projects have endpoints, goals, deadlines, outcomes. They can be exciting and meaningful and motivating.

But if music exists only as a project, the relationship isn’t prioritised. When the project ends, so does the relationship, especially if it’s been taken for granted.

Instead, I encourage people to think about music as a practice. A practice is something you return to. Not because it produces a result – because it enriches your life.

Walking can be a practice. So can meditation, or journaling.

Music can be a practice too.

When music becomes a practice, success looks different. Success is no longer measured solely by improvement. It is measured by participation, presence, consistency of connection.

And by the extent to which music becomes woven into the fabric of your daily life.

This kind of music practice could look like a weekly jam with friends. Or a daily voice warm-up and chakra toning. Or sometime else.

Music and identity repair

Perhaps the deepest reason musical reconnection matters is that it is rarely just about music.

People often say: “I want to play again.”

But beneath those words is often another desire. “I want to feel like myself again.”

Creative identities can become fragmented over a lifetime. The musician you once were gets buried beneath responsibilities, disappointments, and competing priorities.

But part of you will still be there, waiting to be acknowledged.

This is why reconnecting with music can feel surprisingly emotional. It isn’t merely the return of an activity. It is the return of a neglected part of yourself.

In that sense, musical reconnection can be a form of identity repair. A process of becoming more whole.

Your invitation to music

You do not need permission to have a relationship with music. You do not need extraordinary talent, or professional ambitions. And you don’t need to justify your participation.

You only need to decide that music belongs in your life.

How this looks is entirely up to you. The goal is not necessarily to become the musician you once hoped to be. The goal is to discover the relationship with music that feels right for who you are now.

Because music is not asking you to prove yourself. It is asking whether you are willing to return.

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