Are You an Amateur? Why Not?

— We can’t all be professionals all the time — and anyway, would we want to be? —

“What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin?” asked the thirty-something impresario at the front of the crowded, stuffy ballroom. An arm’s-length away, the next finalist in the 4:00 p.m. fiddle contest twisted his instrument’s tuners and tickled the strings, ear cocked to the sound holes.

The audience awaited the emcee’s punch line, though a few knowing chuckles could be heard. Sparing the crowd undue suspense, the emcee delivered: “You can spill beer on a fiddle!”

An old timer in the front row was quick to take up the theme. “What’s the difference between a violinist and a fiddler?” he called out.

A pause.

“A violinist has to wear socks!”

There were laughs and smiles, accompanied by an undercurrent of groaning self-recognition. You had to love these folks, if only because they didn’t find it necessary to take themselves too seriously.

For the second consecutive year I was attending Portland’s own Old Time Music Gathering, a festivity unlike any other I’ve encountered: inclusive, family-friendly, invigoratingly anarchic and wholesome at once, folksy and impressive, educational, and one hundred percent free and volunteer-organized.

The Gathering’s venue, a three-story facility in downtown Portland, strained at the seams with music in spontaneous jams and scheduled performances alike. Every corner, corridor, stairwell, vestibule, broom closet, and basement cranny quaked with toe-tapping jigs and reels. Frenzied fiddles (sometimes played by six-year-olds) handled the melodies, clawhammered banjoes offered plucky punctuation, accordions were squeezed, guitars chorded, and upright basses churned and boomed. Even the restrooms resonated.

So abundant was the musical fun that it seemed, at moments, that the building was on a tilt. Try as I might, I suspect I cannot conjure for you the tremendous energy, the sheer joie de vivre palpitating through that place. You had to be there.

But ever since that ecstatic afternoon, I’ve been moved to reflect on a wonderful but much too uncelebrated means of personal fulfillment and life enrichment: the learning and doing of a thing purely for the love of it — otherwise known as amateurism.

Art critic Michael Kimmelman, in his uplifting book The Accidental Masterpiece, speaks highly of the life-giving aspects of amateurism. The word amateur, in its tertiary definition, refers to mediocrity and lack of talent, and unfortunately it’s this derogatory sense of the term that’s most familiar to all of us. But as Kimmelman reminds, the primary definition of amateur is far more positive. An amateur is:

…a lover, someone who does something for the love of it, wholeheartedly. The best amateur has the skills of a professional but true professionals stay amateurs at heart, keeping a lid on the cynicism and irony that can pass for sophistication in some circles.

Kimmelman points out amateurism’s special knack for allowing a kind of unplanned magic, or “creative artlessness,” to enter our daily lives. He argues that such magical amateur moments can remind us of

A basic fact in life, which is always heartening: that art is out there waiting to be captured, the only question being whether we are prepared to recognize it.

And to Kimmelman, any “life lived with art in mind might itself be a kind of art.”

All right, let’s call it like it is: An amateur is somebody who has more fun than a professional.

Surely there were a handful of breadwinning professionals in that throng of old-time music gatherers, but the great majority of those who arrived with instruments strung, ears tuned, and smiles bright had brought along something much finer, much purer than professional aspiration, namely: passion without pretense. They sought community, heritage, and the shared discovery of the joy that comes in the midst of musical spontaneity.

As for me, I’d shown up at the Gathering as a listener and observer, not yet ready to “hold my own” with guitar or banjo in the company of such serious enthusiasts. But at the end of the day, having witnessed unadulterated musical celebration, my own joy was mixed with a curious remorsefulness about my timidity.

Had I really thought I would have to flash credentials at the door? Or that the virtuosic chops of a Capitol Records recording artist would be a prerequisite for joining in the music-making? Many attendees had such chops, as far as I could tell — but that was simply not what the Gathering was all about.

Well, count me there next year, banjo at the ready (I’ve started lessons). I want to be an amateur.

(This post was found in the Soul Shelter archives)

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