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Mono Mukundu

There is a seemingly everlasting debate about music and education and how the two interlink or influence each other.

Many people always ask if going to a music school can make one a musician.

In other words, is a musician born or made?

Well, music is a gift that one is born with. Teaching someone is not injecting a talent into someone who did not have it, but its watering the talent that is there already.

In 1983, American developmental psychologist Howard Gardener described music as one of the nine types of intelligence.

So, it is an intelligence that is inborn. So the ability to read music does not make one a better musician than the one who does not read, but being able to read is extra ammunition.

It is an extra gun in the battle, you can do without an extra gun, but having it is an added advantage.

The advantage that most Zimbabweans who read music have over musicians elsewhere who read is that they can play by ear too, because all of them start by ear.

Did you know that there are musicians who started by reading music and got stuck to the extent that they cannot improvise?

In other words, they cannot think of melodies of their own. You have to give them a paper for them to play. In 1998 I was surprised when I asked an American lady who had called me to teach her piano.

She was amazing, so I asked her why she called me to teach her when she was such a prolific pianist already.

She said they had recently started a church in Zimbabwe and their keyboard players could just hear someone sing and work out the chords by simply listening to the singer.

So, she wanted me to teach her to play by ear like that. So this shows that both sides have advantages and disadvantages, but if you can do both you are in a better place.

If you can read music, you can be given music written on a paper and play it or sing it as it is. It is also very useful for documenting music. Mozart’s music is still played as it was exactly written ages ago when there was no recording equipment.

And those who play by ear are known for having sharp minds that can calculate chord progressions, sharp minds that can create stuff on the spot without prior rehearsals.

My point is that you can do both. You can play by ear and be able to read and have the best of both worlds. Having formal music qualifications also opens doors in academia, like teaching at institutions, there are certain academic doors that will not be opened by skill alone.

So this also answers the question: is music an art form or science? The answer is: it is art that can be aided by a scientific approach as well.

If you have money, time and resources its best to try both. There is a very common habit that most Zimbabweans have, of criticising anything that they failed to achieve, either by lack of time or resources.

If you do not have the opportunity to do something, just celebrate what you have without criticising what you do not have.

l Mono Mukundu is a musician and producer who has worked with prolific musicians and produced a number of hits.