The popularity of TV shows like American Idol illustrates two aspects of the appeal and fascination of music; that of enjoying the charisma of a moving performer, and the desire to participate, to be that idolized performer.

But there are other avenues in music. When we see the performer we may not be seeing the creator of that music. When we long to be that "idol" we may overlook what it takes to create the music the performer delivers.

I sometimes use the words active and passive to describe how people interact with music. Passively listening and being carried away with the music or actively participating to create the music. (And some people readily shift back and forth between these modes through out their life.) But there are other avenues; song writer, composer, musician. They actively engage themselves to create music.

The song writer, composer, musician exists today far below the radar of popular recognition. But this avenue allows participation in music for people who may not have star quality charisma.

On a practical level participation in music only requires the capacity for listening and the time for learning how to play or sing what we hear. But listening and learning a musical language has long term benefits of entertaining us with new discoveries. Writing your first song will lead you to wrting a better one. Writing a better song will lead you to learn how great writers have written something similar. And you will only get better as you hear more and more. This hearing and learning will keep you young and participating far longer than the span of a TV show or the popularity of an "Idol".