Have I told you that I’m in a band?

If you talk with me for more than about 30 seconds, you’ll probably get tired of my fascination with Newton’s first law and I’ll interject this fact to add to the conversation. But also, playing in a band is something I truly love.

To most people, the scientist-as-musician is surprising, even unsettling. What’s the physics professor doing in a band? It could be interpreted as a gimmick. There are low expectations.

People who see us play are similarly surprised to know that there’s a couple of scientists on the stage. Introduced in the middle of a set, there’s some surprise that half the band holds down day jobs in labs and lecture halls.

Of course, we all know that our identities and aptitudes span traditional boundaries. No one is singular. Knitters are engineers; astrophysicists ride horses; the school librarian does portrait photography on the weekend; the English major teaches environmental education in the backcountry while carrying along both the backup tourniquet and a field guide on amphibians. I know all these people and more, and so do you. You’re likely one of them.

Behind a piano with any ensemble, the most important thing I’ve learned is to listen. It’s not as easy as you’d think — I’m still working on it. I’ve been playing piano by myself, not paying attention to other musicians, for a lifetime. There’s a solace and anchoring I get at a keyboard. But it’s completely internal and self-serving.

When I’ve had the chance to sit in on a music class or another group, I quickly realize that this solitary playing doesn’t translate to what really has to happen with the ensemble. Bill Evans writes in the liner notes for the iconic Miles Davis album “Kind of Blue” that “there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result.” The bending comes from the sympathy, and it’s only achieved through hearing one another, really paying attention and responding to what’s being called for. I used to think that mastering my craft was about making sure that all of my notes were precisely played, the points of my graph accurately plotted. But that’s all hollow if they aren’t in response to someone else or some greater meaning.

Sitting in with a jazz group or a garage band, there are layers of challenge that aren’t in the key of B flat or the swing rhythm. Members have to realize that there is a collective of others, all playing at the same time, all leaning in and responding to one another. They have to hear the space in which they can play before they know where they should contribute. It’s conversation rather than monologue.

One of my very favorite things in this world is a moment when something I play in the spaces between bass notes then gets echoed by drum hits. The people I play with are not only outstanding musicians, but also some of the very best listeners I know. When you hear someone else respond to something you did, and you in turn have a chance to echo sympathetically, it’s the most fulfillment you can achieve in the time span of 12 bars. And when it happens once, you want to do it again. You work to listen attentively to find that space between a hi-hat and an E-string.

Most of science is a similar interaction, a conversation. It doesn’t take place as often in dive bars, but it’s not restricted to the lab either. We respond to literature, to data, to ideas tossed around over lunch or an analogous idea during a research seminar. It’s inherently interactive and communal.

Of course it is. Humanity in all its forms and with all its endeavors isn’t about what you do on your own, but what you do in response to one another. It’s all about how well you’re listening, lending that sympathetic ear and bending to that common result. Learning piano makes me a better person; but being in the band, like working as a scientist, makes me a better human.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. And he’s in a band.

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