Photo courtesy Gayla Mills
Gayla Mills, a Richmond essayist and writer, has packed several lives into one. She dabbled in music, sang and played a guitar until responsibilities took her away from that enjoyment. Earlier in her life, she taught writing and storytelling to everyone from preschoolers to prison inmates. About 15 years ago, and paired with her singer-songwriter husband, Gene, whom she met through music making, she started playing the standup bass. Together they’ve played hundreds of shows. This rediscovery of her musical self led to the creation of an inclusive guide, drawn from her experience and others, to starting, or starting over, a life of music: “Making Music for Life: Rediscover Your Musical Passion.”
Mills’ book is a real soup-to-nuts guide. There’s good advice for everyone, whatever their starting place, from the general benefits of playing music, making connections with others and forming relationships, improving memory, expressing creativity, to perhaps rediscovering a sense of adventure.
“I planned it for those who’ve never picked up an instrument to people returning after a long time away,” Mills explains. “There are plenty of people who played when they were younger; it’s a really common scenario. They might’ve played piano as kids, but now they want to move on to something different.”
In the parlance of the day, someone who excels to great public acclaim is given the laurel crown attribution of “rock star.” But not everyone can be one, nor may they wish to be, unless it has to do with getting a choice parking place.
“When you’re over 40, you’re not as focused on externals,” Mills reflects. “If you’re 20 you might think, ‘I’ll become a touring musician and get gigs and maybe I’ll be famous.’ The community of music making, which I believe in, is more important for the older musician.”
She’s played in venues alongside Gene from coffee shops to living rooms, festivals and concert venues. She’s found that even professional musicians have gaps in their backgrounds. In a year of full-time researching she found that people may know about gigs but not about music camps, or they shy away from jam sessions or are at a loss when it comes to figuring out how to record.
For the past five or six years she’s played a Kay, a plywood standup bass known in bluegrass and folk circles for its boom and great character. “I own two [instruments]; the other is a cheap-ish Cremona,” she muses. “Gene bought me a sticker to put on it that says, ‘Okay.’ When you look at it from a distance, it looks like a Kay.”
Which goes to show that, when pursuing your music, a sense of humor goes a long way.
Gayla Mills reads and jams with musicians featured in her book at Westover Station on Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. gaylamills.com
