How A Movie About A Music Teacher Gave Me My Dreams Back

I'll tell you this first, because I need to go on record with it - very few movies can make me cry. I'm pretty sure that I can list the number of films that induce tears on two hands: Dead Poet's Society, Good Will Hunting, Schindler's List & Mr. Holland's Opus are the first that come to my mind, and one film changed the course of my life quite dramatically.

I have always loved music, it's been one of the few things in my life that I could use to escape the world - or take it and be transported somewhere different. I would often take my music and listen to it while I played my favorite video games, because nothing against the games musical composer, but I knew better music and wanted to listen to it instead. So, as you can imagine it was disheartening to learn in my mid-teens that I was mostly tone deaf in my left ear (which can sadly be attributed to how loudly I listened to music while I had headphones in). My love caused my greatest loss.

For the longest time, I had dreamed of being a musician. I had always wanted to be the guy who could jump up on stage and rock out a rendition of Van Halen's Jump, AC/DC's Thunderstruck, The Beatles' While My Guitar Softly Weeps or even Jimi Hendrix's All Along The Watchtower. So, to find out that I may never be able to create the music that I loved so much was a shock to my entire system.

After I had wallowed for a bit in my disappointment, I found a VHS copy of Mr. Holland's Opus. I had never seen it before, but thought "meh, why not. It might be good." I still remember watching it, and just being totally engulfed in what was happening on screen. Now Mr. Holland's Opus, for those who have never experienced it is a film about a musician, Glenn Holland, who learns that he is going to be a father chooses to put aside the professional performer aspect of his life in order to spend more time with his family. He accepts a job as the music teacher at a local high school. Through the decades that the movie encompasses, Glenn estranges himself from his deaf son but grows closer to his students as they learn to love music as he does. Then in the final moments of the movie, my waterworks begin and I cry every time but I won't spoil it for you.

Through Mr. Holland's Opus, I discovered 3 major life-changing concepts that I still try to follow today.

Life Isn't Always Honey and Lemons

We all know it's true. Life isn't fair, life doesn't always follow in the plan that we imagine it should follow. Glenn's dream was to compose his own orchestral piece, yet life happened in a way that halted his progress. His family needed additional financial support - therefore he took a teaching position. His son was born deaf - therefore he didn't know how he could teach him about the joys of music. His faculty position was marginalized - therefore, eventually he know he would lose funding and be without a job.

Life kept throwing roadblocks between Glenn and his dream. And when I discovered that music may be just something out of my reach, because how could I ever hope to play music while being tone deaf - that's when I felt a lot like Glenn. Life just wasn't fair and I couldn't understand how or why something that I loved so much could be taken from me. In my mind there was nothing more disheartening than knowing that music would likely never be a part of my life as I had imagined it would be. Through Glenn's trials in the movie, I was reminded that I had no reason to mope, because if I wasn't going to do something about it - then I surely would never reach my goals. Glenn consistently pursued his goal of composing his orchestral movement, and it was up to me to pursue my dream of music.

Music Is More Than Just Notes On A Page

At nearly every encounter with Glenn Holland in the movie, I was left with this feeling that music was more than just a series of notes strung together in a pleasing pattern. Glenn loved music, in every sense, and you could hear it in how he spoke about it. There are so many fantastic quotes in the movie, but one of my all-time favorite quotes is from Glenn as he talks to one of his students about playing music:

Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff.

When he said this, I instantly felt inspired and convicted that there had to be more to my love of music than just notes on the page. It was then that I found myself determined to achieve my dream. It was then that I asked my mom for a guitar for my birthday. I didn't want anything fancy, but I wanted to learn. I spent the following days, weeks, months, years in my bedroom for hours at a time, relentlessly repeating the same notes and chords until my fingers bled. First it was the children's song, On Top of Spaghetti, using single notes until I slowly began learning chord formations and I could play Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

I started teaching myself how to play with a "Dummy's Guide" and before I realized what had happened, I had taught myself basic music theory. And although I couldn't pick out an A note from a Dm Augmented 7th, I could tell you what was being played based on finger position and the notes/chords that had been played already. Instead of counting cards I counted notes and used the theory that I knew to anticipate what else I would hear or see, which revived my passion for music. I took the theory that I understood and began playing in alternate tunings (my personal favorite is DADGAD) and incorporated multiple capos until I found the sound that I claimed as my own.

In The End Maybe You'll Discover Your Dream Changes

At the end of the movie, Glenn discovers that his legacy of teaching music had not been in vein, and that his estranged relationship with his son was in fact redeemable. It took Glenn decades to fully understand the idea that eventually things would work out and that dreams evolve and you could be looking directly at the thing you never knew you needed.

As of my writing this, I've been playing guitar for nearly 15 years, and I've never regretted a second of all the time I devoted as a teenager to learning how to experience the music that I fell in love with. I've surrounded myself with other musicians who have found their own unique love for music, and many of them have mentored me in various things (life, love and of course music). Then in 2011, I experienced a moment like Glenn did in the final moments of the film. I saw it all come together when I was able to sit down in front of one of my favorite musicians and play a melody that I had written. He most likely will never remember that moment but it is so deeply ingrained in my mind because to me, that was the moment when I had achieved my dream of being a musician. Since then, I've only ever tried to progress my art and learn new ways of bringing life to music, or as Glenn Holland would say;

Play the sunset. Close your eyes. One, two, three, four...

I had found my sunset, and I played it and still do. Playing music became the vessel that allowed me to transport myself out of my emotions, out of my fears and to a place where it was just the music and my soul. Thanks to Mr. Holland's Opus, I discovered that my love for music didn't have to simply be relegated to my headphones, I could in fact step into something bigger and create the music for myself after I learned these 3 concepts.