The yellow walls of John Dillet’s sunny Wisconsin home office extend past the confines of my computer screen and warm the bleak atmosphere of my dreary desk. From halfway across the country in Georgia, the drab, insipid landscape maintains my sterile surrounding air. I look through the screen with indispensable jealousy. Almost as if I could escape into his sunny world without consequence. My Uncle wears that smile I never see him without, and it’s incredibly infectious. And although music is one of the only things we find ourselves talking about, I realize it was the first time I had sat down with him and formally asked him questions, especially about music’s role in his life before its inevitable collision with my own. How well do I really know my uncle? By the end of the interview, my question has a clear answer. John Dillett is as steadfast a lover of music as he is in his relationships.

 It’s about 18 minutes into the interview for my school project on a profile piece when I ask John about what he values, and how music influences what matters most to him. Having consented to the to have the information shared in his profile, I can tell he is a bit cautious of his answers. After a beat, he responds.

“Wow” he marvels. “What do I value?”

I laugh as he shoots me a wide-eyed look through the screen, and I can almost see him attempting to wrangle his thoughts into a comprehensible sentence. He takes a moment to compose himself, leaning back in his chair, looking off to the side with scrutinizing contemplation. I can tell he detests the silence and fills his contemplation with the occasional ‘um’ or the stuttered beginnings of a sentence. At last, he looks back, and answers the question. He admits to his assumed cheesiness of the answer but continues in a way that surprises me.

“The thing people always say about, you know, value the moment and be present in the moment” he said, as he holds this air of irresistible calmness. “Value this time that we have. It makes you kind of want to do everything to make that the best possible moment.”

My hands pause on the keyboard, as his answer slowly pulls me away from my meticulous notes. Before I have time to recover the notes I’ve failed to record, I find myself leaning forward in my chair, hanging on to his every word.

His syntax is jumpy, and as he starts one sentence he dances around the conclusion, finalizing the thought after inserting an additional one. “I always find…” he begins, before faltering into a hypothetical. “Like you’re sitting around the house. You know what would make this moment better? A little music.”

I can’t help but smile and suddenly, I’m back and sitting with John at my dining room table during one of the several annual visits he and his wife, my aunt, make to our home. Cards splayed out on the table, he’s fiddling around with the music queue, asking for the players opinions, and creating the perfect moment with song. The mental scene changes, and I’m sitting in my room, he right across from me, guitars stark in our hands as we play music to the beat of appreciation. Appreciation of each other’s presence, the appreciation of the art in which we share a common tongue. I’m reminded of every instance in which he asks for music requests, or an audio speaker. Where he brings up random music trivia and creates drumbeats with his extremities during a dull moment. I am struck by the gravity of his admiration.

To grasp a more scientific view of this stark musical admiration John has experienced since childhood, we can find his though process in “Investigating the Dynamics of the Brain Response to Music: A Central Role to of the Ventral Striatum/Nucleus” were authors Muller, Fritz, and others refer more to the brain’s activity when listening to music.  Specifically, “the authors suggested a causal relationship between dopamine release in the VTA and the NAc…” (Mueller et al.)

The act of listening to music creates a high interaction between the brains reward and pleasure centers, especially in the hippocampus.

This look at a more scientific perspective in music-based listening opens a different point of view when compared to what has been primarily discussed. The release of dopamine within the brain while listening to music shows the scientific reasoning behind John’s infatuating love of music that has been prevalent since childhood. The brain is automatically hardwired to release rewarding chemicals, meaning the love of musical art in an innate enjoyment across the spectrum. This love of listening to music most likely transfers to what is experienced when John plays music as well. A scientific revelation truly aids in revealing John’s intimacy of the art.

John continues to spark my emotions as he says, “the reverse is true too where you can let it spoil.” And again, he presents a hypothetical “You’re out a restaurant, you think, this is great, you know I’m out with family, people I love, and the atmosphere is nice, and we have a nice table, the servers nice, but they’re playing the wrong music. And it can spoil it, so you really try and like, you know, stay in this great moment.”

I’m suddenly struck with the maturity of his love. Like an artist with his lifelong passion project, a child with a parent, he talks about this passion with such stark familiarity. He is able to recognize the profundity in which this love prospers, yet also able to recognize how the love significantly impacts what he values most.

He continues with magnificent reflection. “Music enhances what I value, which is time with people and, you know, enjoying the time you have. All moments involve music.”

His answers to past questions rise to my consciousness with a profound significance. Earlier, when answering a question about growth, and how music impacts that growth, he gives an answer that perfectly fits the growing narrative.

“In the band before we used to play a lot of clubs with a bunch of other bands from all over, you know, and I think meeting new people is growth.”

I was instantly afflicted with a sense of finality, and simultaneous wonder. His relationships with others gave him his purpose, and his sense of self. And music has always been his way to make and strengthen these relationships. His two loves intertwined to produce a beautiful song of purpose. As he develops new relationships, he develops within himself. It was an exquisite formula to John’s testament of selflessness, and it truly embodied his values.

Rising out of my mesmerized stupor, I manage to inject some semblance of relatability. “Yeah, I can totally understand”, I say.

Robert Sapolsky’s “Friendship Is Good For You --Unless it is Strained” delves deeper into the scientific emotions behind the friendship aspect that we see John hold so dearly. It is shown that “beginning in adolescence, more social connections predicted less hypertension, inflammation, obesity, and other signs of bad health at later times of life” (Sapolsky). Emotionally involved relationships are scientifically proven to be vital to the wellbeing of human development and existence. In turn, if one is shown to prioritize their relationships, they would observe drastic improvements opposed to those who find less prevalence in healthy relationships.

One of the largest themes throughout the profile is John’s value on relationships. Whether it’s with his wife, his coworkers, or his bandmates, John prioritizes his friendships at an impressive level. As John values his friendships, he simultaneously values his physical and mental health as well. His love of music greatly aids him in this respect as he loves to speak about how the art form opens doors to so many relationship opportunities. Whether these opportunities come in the form of making new friends, or expanding upon a previously established friendship, music is the foundation of many of his relationships. For an alternative view, Berna Güroğlu’s “The Power of Friendship: The developmental Significance of Friendships form a Neuroscience Perspective” discusses the subject of relationships in a similar prose to the pervious source. It is shown that “supportive and high‐quality friendships have been related to positive developmental outcomes and mental health, both concurrently and in the long term. Friendships also protect against negative effects of adverse experiences, such as peer victimization and internalizing behaviors” (Güroğlu). John’s past experiences of relationships created and fostered through music has given him ample opportunity to put him on the right track from adolescence through the rest of his life. He discusses with me about Friday Night Lights in his high school years and his bandmates that he shared those memories with. His ability to work with music to create such founded relationships aided in his further mental development. He also talks about positive peer pressure from band members to expand his musical prowess, which led to John becoming a better musician as he is now able to sing and drum at the same time.

            These two conceptual based sources are very similar in perspective but differ slightly. Sapolsky discusses the various physical health benefits from the overarching act of social connection, whereas Güroğlu discusses both the mental and physical benefits pertaining to friendships specifically. The physical benefits in both works suggest changes that can start as early as adolescence, and lead to positive developmental outcomes. As opposed to Sapolsky, Güroğlu also mentions the adverse experiences a lack of friendships can bring such as the dangers of peer victimization and peer pressure. Both of these sources, however, are vital to the understanding of John’s world. We saw him experience a positive peer pressure to improve his musical prowess from his bandmates, and how his ability to wield music in a way that gravitates toward friendships set him up for early success. Because he values relationships so extravagantly, we see no effects to the degree Sapolsky or Güroğlu discuss. This helps us to understand John on an even deeper level, as we see what could have been if not for the adoration of his most longstanding friendship. Music.

John moves his hands wildly, his comfortable grey sweater shifting with the movement, his voice a song within itself as I watch him marvel about music and its ability to enhance what he values most. I scramble to record my thoughts that I realize with a start I did not record in detail.

A thoughtful air injects my tone as I say, “I love that”, and give him a grin. I can’t help but revel in the moment and commend myself for choosing such a fantastic interview candidate. My inner dialogue shoots into an anticipatory frenzy. I have so much content for this project, this is so fantastic.

At last, we come around to the idea of nostalgia, and we begin to talk about his earliest experiences with music. In the fourth grade, his small school had gotten the funds to start a school band. He describes to me that one by one, they sent him and his classmates down to the gym to select an instrument on a first come first serve basis. I marvel at fate with what he tells me next.

He recalls the memory with a distant fondness. “By the time I picked, I’m pretty sure, the only thing left was drums… I was sorry for a while that I picked it because I had to haul it around.”

I laugh at his transparency and listen in disbelief as I try to comprehend the kismet of his beginnings. He goes on to recall to me his fond memories of Friday Night Lights playing in the school band with his friends, and even how at one point, the temperatures reached so low they broke the drums.

            John puts a lot of feeling behind his nostalgia, an emotion I can connect with as well. We get a glimpse into why nostalgia can be such a moving feeling in the journal of happiness studies, were Bin Li, Quin Zhu, and others explore the depths of nostalgia in their article ‘Can Good Memories of the Past Instill Happiness? Nostalgia Improves Subjective Well-Being by Increasing Gratitude’. The authors discuss the origins of nostalgia characterizing the complex emotion into its distinct genesis in an attempt to create a more digestible concept.  Nostalgia is “…originated from the combination of nostoc (returning home) and algos (pain) in Greek” (Li et al.). This dissection, which translates to ‘the pain of homesickness’, contributes to the gravity of the study’s results. The study showed clear evidence that when participants think of a nostalgic memory, feelings of gratitude become present in the participants. This is clearly also the case when it comes to John.

The dissected version of the word becomes vital to the comprehension of the study and shows the gravity of an emotion that has become so prevalent in John’s world. Its emotionally jarring definition coupled with scientific evidence uncovered in the study gives it a severe importance when it comes to understanding why John is so compelled to be drawn to this emotionally. The studies ability to show that the conjuring of a nostalgic memory leads to gratitude aids greatly to the question behind this essay and contributes to the discovery of Johns personality.

After our interview, we can’t seem to end the conversation. We converse about music, and I become so enthralled with his passion for the art, I find my own passion growing tenfold. The conversation flows and ebbs like the infinity of time. Its precious finality makes the exchange that much more valuable. The sun continues to stream through his office, enlightening his mannerisms, contaminating my idiosyncrasy.

Continuing to be nothing but considerate he asks me, “How’s the guitar going?”

“Good!” I laugh with a genuine smile. “John Mayer is a jerk though he makes things so much harder than they need to be. His Hendrix influences aren’t helping either.”

He laughs back at my complaint, eyes squinting with the smile that warms his entire face. Always the optimist, I think to myself. “Every guitarist has their weird little things it seems like. Like ‘oh he plays the G chord’ but he puts his finger right here.”

“I know” I say back with an amused, yet exasperated sigh.

He continues on the heels of my surfaced frustration. “It makes such a huge difference in the tone, that you have to learn that, or you’ll never be happy with how it sounds.”

If my appreciation for him couldn’t get any larger, it did then. Guitar had been such a learning curve, and even after years of playing, I still found progress to be slow, and my motivations to be sometimes sparse. Yet as I listen to him talk about the inconsistencies from artist to artist, I look at him with a grateful expression. The struggle felt wonderful to be recognized. All of a sudden, the Georgia sun makes its long-awaited appearance from behind the clouds. Its light warms my face, the kind of sunlight so purely warm it melts the deepest, most desolate parts of your soul.

After an anecdote from me about John Mayer and his song “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” I can see him form a recognition. “I’m thinking about Dolly Parton and her song Jolene. There’s this great podcast where they get in-depth in Dolly’s life, and there’s a whole episode about Jolene. They have all of these music professors, whatever, of music and famous people like Jack White, and people you know, who have played that song who talk about how difficult and brilliant it is, because she does this minor 7 into you know, a major 5th, and you just don’t do that you know what I mean. These really complicated chords, and then they have Dolly on talking about it and she’s like ‘I don’t know it just sounded good’.”

At that, burst into laughter from the high falsetto voice in which he imitated Dolly Parton.

One of John’s favorite bands, a subject he brought up frequently in the interview, is Rush, which Fusaro talks about in their article “Quirky Band Rush Brings Crowd to its Feet”. The sheer magnitude of the unorthodox Canadian band, Rush can be seen as Fusaro spends a large part of the article boasting about the band’s drummer. He describes the group as being “…anchored by Peart’s powerful but intricate drumming; he is still a god on the skins, exactly the man for whom the eight-minute drum solo was created” (Fusaro). This powerful description Fusaro gives in accordance with the band’s powerhouse instrumentals, specifically in the drumming category, gives reason behind John’s love of the band. It’s rare to find a group so defined by their drummer, and John recognizes the talent it takes to be the defining member of the band as a drummer. With John as a fellow drummer who looks up to Peart, it’s hard not to feel a grandiose sense of idolization.

“Oh my god!” I exclaim. “Have you heard of a band called Polyphia?”

John raises his eyebrows as excitement raids his features.

“No!” he says, quickly swiveling to his computer, typing ferociously into the YouTube search bar.

“Search up the music video for the song ‘Playing God’.” I tell him. After a few beats, I suddenly hear a slight disturbance in the quiet.

Immediately after the start of the video however, he turns to me, and asks “Can you hear that?”

I pause slightly, and blink rapidly to surpass my feelings of intense gratitude. “I can!” I tell him with a smile, as he restarts the video, and gives it his full attention. When he turns his head to me midway through the song, his shocked look makes me exclaim with recognition. “I know right!” I yell. “Their insane. I don’t even know how he writes music it’s crazy.”

It was at this moment that I garnered an intense appreciation for his presence in my life. Our ability to converse so passionately and deeply about something that is so important to us made me incredibly happy. So, as I sit there, watching John gawk at intricacies of math rock, and marvel at the capabilities of the drummer, I feel almost as if I had a newfound understanding of the man I had grown up with. His adoration behaved as a living and breathing organism, almost behaving like the relationship between the brain and the heart. Without the other, these organisms would wither away to nothing. Yet they don’t have to remind each other to function. They function for each other because the only other option is a life not lived. If music forms John’s brain, relationships form his heart. A harmonious, mutually beautiful dance that creates all of whom John is in. Without either, he would exist in a life not lived. I felt like I could not have seen him more than in did at that moment. I felt almost as if I was in his sunny room, sitting at his desk as we dived deeper and deeper into what makes us whole.

Works Cited

Fusaro, Roberta. "Quirky Band Rush Brings Crowd to its Feet: [ALL Edition]." Telegram & Gazette, Jul 14, 2002, pp. B3. ProQuest, proquest.com/newspapers/quirky-band-rush-brings-crowd-feet/docview/268834663/se-2.

Güroğlu, Berna. “The Power of Friendship: The Developmental Significance of Friendships from a Neuroscience Perspective.” Child Development Perspectives, vol. 16, no. 2, 29 Mar. 2022, srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdep.12450, doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12450.

Li, Bin, et al. “Can Good Memories of the Past Instill Happiness? Nostalgia Improves Subjective Well-Being by Increasing Gratitude.” Journal of Happiness Studies, 9 Jan. 2023, doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00616-0.

Mueller, Karsten, et al. “Investigating the Dynamics of the Brain Response to Music: A Central Role of the Ventral Striatum/Nucleus Accumbens.” NeuroImage, vol. 116, Aug. 2015, pp. 68–79, doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.05.006. Accessed 23 Sept. 2022.

Sapolsky, Robert M. “Friendship Is Good For You--Unless It Is Strained; We Know That Friendship Can Benefit Health. What We Don’t Know Is What Kind of Friendships Are Most Beneficial. Robert M. Sapolsky on New Research.” Wall Street Journal (Online), 8 Sept. 2016. Global Newsstream; ProQuest Central, Accessed 7 Apr. 2024.