Jean Zarate is torn between science and music until a tragic event brings both into perspective.

Jean Mary Zarate is a Senior Editor at Nature Neuroscience and a musician. As a neuroscientist, her research focused on auditory cognition, including the neural correlates of vocal pitch regulation in singing. Her musical endeavors are widespread across multiple bands, genres, and a few albums scattered across the world wide web (unless you are a persistent web searcher or know her stage name).

This story originally aired February 23, 2018 in an episode titled Double Lives.

Story Transcript

When I was eight, I was taking private violin lessons and singing in a children’s choir at the local church for about two years.  One night, my violin teacher surprised me.  He said that he thought I had enough promise to audition for a children’s music program at Julliard.  I got scared at first, but, as our lesson went on, I grew more excited and I'd hoped that my dad would let me audition. 

As I was packing up my violin as the lesson ended, my teacher told him about the opportunity and my dad said we’ll discuss it first. 

After my teacher left, he sat with me on the living room couch and said, “A musician’s life is really hard.  It would be better for you if you picked a more stable career and just keep music as a hobby.” 

I was disappointed, but I knew why he said that.  He didn’t want me to struggle as much as he and my mom did growing up in the Philippines. They worked extremely hard to become medical professionals and they moved to New York for the American Dream.  They worked really long hours to support our family here and back in the Philippines. 

So since they worked a lot, I was left to my own devices to occupy my time outside of school.  They made sure I was surrounded by books so I wouldn’t get bored, but eventually I started reading my dad’s science magazines and those fed my growing curiosity and interest in science and math and helped me do well in those subjects. 

As I got older, of course, my taste started to change.  I'd leave the radio or MTV blaring in the background as I started flipping through those science magazines more quickly to look for any story about the brain, especially the ones about how it changed with musical experience.  And that is until I got distracted and started singing and dancing along to any pop music that came on that my parents really didn’t like.  So as soon as I heard my mom open that front gate, I shut that music off before her key unlocked the front door. 

Sometimes I'd start doing my homework and other times I would crack open my violin case and act like I had just finished practicing a piece for the high school orchestra.  I don't know how I got away with that, though, because the sound of my violin usually traveled across the street so she would have heard if I was actually playing something, but she never said anything.  She’d just tell me about the tapes of old Hollywood musicals or Disney cartoons that she brought home, movies that she never got to see in the Philippines.  So we’d watch them together every week and I grew to love them, those movies and that musical style as much as she did. 

When I started college, my parents were really proud.  I was enrolled as a neuroscience major in the pre-med program.  I planned to get rid of the orchestra and the choirs and focus myself on becoming a neurosurgeon. 

But the appeal of a new youth program at the church was too strong to ignore.  It was aimed at getting kids off the street with sports and pop-infused music and that was something I really wanted to be a part of, so I joined that.  And as exciting as it was, my commitment grew so large that I started to burn out in college and I had to drop out of the pre-med program.  Needless to say, my parents didn’t receive that very well. 

I switched to a research track so I could continue studying neuroscience and work my way to a PhD, but since I didn’t take time to acquire research experience I failed to get into any neuroscience graduate program.  So I worked hard in a couple of labs to make up for my inexperience until I was accepted in a graduate program up in Montreal the next year.  Once I had that chance, I knew I had to focus on my PhD completely and leave the creative side behind.  And I did just that. 

After moving to Montreal, I made sure that I was up to speed in my lab and in all of my classes.  About three months in I decided to go into a class early so I could settle in and eat lunch in the amphitheater before the class started.  In walks this kind, older gentleman sheepishly asking me if he could play the piano off to the side because it was part of his lunchtime routine.  I said yes and he started to play a jazz song that I used to sing. 

Once I admitted that, his eyes lit up as he told me about a group of grad students and postdocs and staff that played music together every week and he asked me to join.  And I politely said no because I didn’t play anymore. 

Before every class after that point he still approached me with the same gentle demeanor asking if I would reconsider and join, even introducing me to another student in that class who was already part of that group.  So by the third week of this I just gave up and I went to a rehearsal. 

The others were just as warm as he was and they wanted to do nothing else but share their music.  I missed being a part of a group of people who had a passion outside of science so I just kept coming to be around them.  And that welcoming environment allowed the group to nearly double in size and every week we just had fun learning each other’s musical styles. 

At some point, I realized that two of the newer members worked in a lab that studied music and the brain then I confessed that I wanted to do that kind of work.  So that kicked off a flurry of insistent requests from my band mates to the professor who ran that labs saying, “You really need to talk to this girl.”  And after one conversation, that professor opened a spot for me in his lab and within months I wrapped up my neuro-psychopharmacology research at the masters level and switched my research focus to study singing in the brain, finally integrating my two halves. 

So music was no longer an overactive hobby for me.  Each half fed into the other.  My musical experience informed my study designs and my musical connections helped me recruit participants for my research.  For the first time, I felt free to let my musical side grow as big as I wanted because I was surrounded by people who understood how important it was to have both science and creativity to make me whole.  So as my PhD work progressed both sides grew with more scientific and musical collaborations outside of my thesis work and that scientist band. 

As my PhD work drew to a close, I looked for a postdoctoral fellowship back in New York because my mom had grown quite ill in the last year.  So I wanted my parents to see just what I could accomplish by having both sides help each other.  I wanted them to know that I was going to be okay and that I could be there for them.  Then my mom died two weeks to the day that I moved home. 

My brain was no longer filled with dozens of thoughts flying through it and my ears could no longer tolerate anything related to music. I felt nothing except dull hunger pains and exhaustion forcing me to sleep and I just went through the motions, snapping to attention only when my dad couldn’t process some details as we planned for her funeral.  And that same muteness shut everything on the day of the funeral until we were sitting in the back of a black car heading to the cemetery. 

One thought popped into my head.  “Your body betrayed you,” and I was stunned for a few moments before another thought popped in.  “Write that down.  You'll use it when you're ready.” 

I slowly eased myself back into the science because I could design a project that had nothing to do with music if I wanted because the creative side hurt too much.  When my friends asked me to sing a song that I used to cover several times over in Montreal, I trembled and nearly bawled at the microphone when I forced myself to do it.  And my chest ached to use my voice for anything besides speaking so I decided right there that I was no longer going to sing in public. 

But a year of only science satisfied my brain and nothing else.  Again, I longed to be around people that were looking for a creative outlet.  But I couldn’t just join a band again in New York so I took a beginner’s acting class since it felt safe to start from scratch with others.  But there was this exercise that required singing a few notes of a song and my stomach twisted.  I nearly let everyone else go up before they realized I hadn’t gone yet.

So when I went up to start singing, I shut my eyes and sang the same song that I forced myself to do for my friends.  When I was done, I slowly opened my eyes and saw the teacher looking at me.  She said, “Wow!  You should be a singer.” 

Then I said, “I am.” 

I started acting and taking acting classes with her for the next few years and those improv exercises and scene work brought me back out, exploring and writing emotions that I couldn’t express.  I learned how to act confidently until I became strong enough to actually feel that way whether it was in trying music again or in job interviews as I looked for the next position after my postdoc. 

My musical performances became stronger and acting and writing became additional creative outlets for me.  And when my creative drive grew strong enough for me to write songs for myself, that phrase that entered my head at the cemetery worked its way into a song which became part of an album which I produce music videos for. 

Since then my science career has changed again.  Just like when I was little I get to read the latest neuroscience findings but now I get to read it before they're published by any research journal or by science magazines.  My creative endeavors have changed too but both sides nourish each other again.  But I’m not going to lie.  I still struggle to find where the balance should be because, more often than not, the science now overtakes the music.  But I’m certain that I shouldn’t prioritize one side just for stability.  I need both. 

Thank you.