The passing of Charles Schulz got me thinking about Linus and his security blanket, and then about "transitional objects" in general, such as musical instruments. In his book "Playing and Reality", the child psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott pointed out that blankets, teddy bears, and dolls, are transitional objects: they are the first objects that children use to work their way through the relationship between the inner self and the outer world. The objects are sometimes treated as real persons, sometimes imaginary, sometimes just blankets. They are "played" with: they are actors in little playlets, follow and break child-generated rules. Winnicott argues that these transitional objects occupy (and help create) the transitional space that we call "play". They are part of what helps us learn how to handle, but also play with reality throughout our lives.
Musical instruments must then also be a form of teddy bear. They are things we play with, creating realities, creating fantasies, and hugging them to us. Some people collect them, some people only feel safe when they are behind them, some people speak through them when they are at their therapist (known as a music lesson). Playing and reality.