Discovering the perceptions that non-professional adult musicians hold regarding their participation in community ensembles may help improve instruction as well as the ability to more fully understand the implications of lifelong music making. Andragogy, or the teaching and learning strategies associated with adult learning, provided the impetus for investigating the various methods that adults use in learning to play music. This research is based on inferences derived from ethnographic research conducted with adult members of the Cosmopolitan Music Society in Edmonton, Alberta, and the New Horizons Band in East Lansing, Michigan. Results from interview data suggested that there are dichotomous effects in music that present themselves to learners as attractive yet unattainable, and reporting several of these mystifying aspects of music learning may aid music teachers and community ensemble directors in facilitating musical empowerment among students and mollifying the often disparate and conflicted relationship between school music and community music.