Lessons From a
Quieter World

After an especially tricky lesson, a great cello teacher of mine once asked me why I played the cello. I regurgitated a line I heard from many other musicians: I play the cello because I can’t sing.

She smiled and recommended a few exercises and, above all, to practice slowly. “Or,” she concluded, with a twinkle in her eye, “you need to learn how to sing better!”

That was over 20 years ago. Still, the most vital lesson I find myself reiterating in my personal practice time is the need to play slowly. When I share this with music students, they nod the way someone does when they’ve heard something a thousand times. And I get it: We’ve all heard it a thousand times.

Yet I’ve noticed even when students intend to practice slowly, they often aren’t playing slowly enough. Some of my most rewarding practice has come from pulling quick passages down to 20% of the actual tempo. 

I’ve come to realize slow practice may be the one most important activity in my preparation. It’s easy to zone out while doing it, or to begrudge the chore as a checklist item. But there’s a rewarding effort in the deep study and focus on the shape of the sounds one is making. The insight and growing conviction in how we imbue intention into the beginning, middle, and end of every note within a passage. 

Without this focus, one too easily misses the core meaning of the music itself. At worst, we cement unwitting mistakes and bad habits.  

I’ve found slowing down the music to plumb the very sinews and tendons of the music brings a certain concentration. A quiet and intentional focus.

In the same way, the act of writing has the same benefits to me of practising slowly. It forces me to think slower. I find when I get started writing for the day, I realize I am improving my thinking often in mid-sentence. I must commit more time to an outgoing idea through the slower process of outputting the idea. The act of writing is an intentional process which allows a more thoughtful unfurling of that idea.

In short, writing forces me to be quiet, clear the clutter, and focus.

Clear the Noise, Find the Words: Lessons from Birds and a Quieter World

The white-crowned sparrow didn’t ask for a pandemic. It didn’t sit around thinking, "Oh, good, humanity’s staying indoors—time to really finesse my trill rate." And yet, while we humans were feverishly baking sourdough and debating the use of Zoom backgrounds, scientists found that these little birds, free from the droning chaos of our cities, started singing differently. Not louder. But maybe better.

Researchers studied the variations of the birds’ amplifications, frequencies, and “signal salience” in California’s Bay Area during the pandemic, when the world was blanketed in quiet. They noted the marked difference from historic, recorded birdsongs pre-pandemic: These songs became more complex, richer, and more nuanced.

This transformation, according to Derryberry et al. (2020), was a response to the sudden stillness, the silence left behind when we stopped flooding the world with honking, shouting, and endless traffic. The sparrows reduced the minimum frequencies of their songs and broadened their bandwidth, transmitting more information with greater vocal performance. In layman's terms: They stopped shouting and started singing beautifully.

Birdsong Takeaway

Amid the constant noise of tasks, emails, meetings, and Slack notifications that feel more like a doom-scroll than collaboration, it’s easy to lose nuance. Within the sheer jangle of ideas and thoughts in my head, I’ve found myself responding quickly instead of thoughtfully. I notice how we repeat buzzwords instead of crafting ideas. We might revert to certain processes because “it’s the way it’s always been done.” Every problem is a nail as we can only conceive that we are holding a hammer.

As sparrows, shouting louder and not better.

I’ve found strength in seeking out my own version of quiet and a process where I can work out ideas through exploration and experimentation. Not just a metaphorical silence but intentional space to reflect, refine, and choose my words.

Writing daily has helped me carve out the time for quiet and quietude.

The world may not need more shouting, but more beautiful singing.