I read a post the other day that got me thinking of something really important I’ve been meaning to write about for some time: the idea that not everyone who takes music lessons has to or is meant to become a professional musician, a good musician, or even a functional musician.
Often in my teaching I work with students who are conflicted about learning music and/or a musical instrument versus other things that call to their interests and passions. The student that just can’t seem to bring themself to practice because they’d rather be playing basketball every afternoon, or the person who loves dance class so much that they signed up for classes in every free time spot they have. The student who was excited about the instrument at the outset, but once they learned how much work it would take to be excellent, simply wasn’t interested enough to make the commitment. The student who bangs their head against the wall driving themself crazy because they practice and practice and just aren’t making the kind of progress they want to make in the time frame they think is reasonable and it feels like forever until they’ll be able to play the thing they want and and on balance with the other life responsibilities they have and enjoy, there’s just not enough time.
I also see parents (and students too) who are stuck in the mire of suck-cost fallacy: but we’ve spent so much money, we’ve done this for so long, we can’t quit now.
The saddest of all, I find, are the adults I meet who mourn their time learning an instrument as a personal failure: “I used to play that instrument, but, well, I never practiced,” they say, looking at me with a sheepish and often sadly guilty face.
What I try to say, as often as I can, to all of these people, is that time spent learning something is never a failure. And furthermore, deciding to change your focus to other learning, other practices of excellence that align better with what you want for your life: that can never be a failure either.
I know that what I say next will cause a certain amount of pearl-clutching and fainting on chaise-longues, but here it is: not everyone is meant to pursue a lifetime of skilled music-making. That isn’t a negative vague judgement of ability or commitment, simply a demographic reality that is as true in the mathematics as it is in the aesthetic balance of society. Some of us are meant to be dancers, researchers, builders, managers, writers, and in among the myriad professional definitions, shower-singers and appreciators and toe-tappers and audience members and listeners.
We, as human beings with finite life spans, will never be able to do or know everything we want to do or know, as much as it pains me to admit that fact even to myself. Because of that reality, we have to be judicious in our choices of how we spend our time and realistic about where our capabilities and interests lie. Like beautiful plants, sometimes it’s the pruning that makes way for new, stronger growth. It is beneficial for us to learn to move forward with joy in those decisions, understanding that we are following what is right for ourselves even as we say goodbye, put away, or pause the things we’re choosing to leave behind.
I consider my highest calling as a music teacher to instill a love of music in my students.
Full stop.
If it is their goal to play music at the highest levels with the necessary dedication and commitment to excellence, then I will facilitate that. If that generates, validates, and grows their love.
If their goal is to learn how to play something in particular even if they grow casually, and that is where their love grows, then that is what matters to me.
If their goal is simply to learn about and enjoy music, even if they don’t dedicate the time and effort to mastery of the instrument, but their love grows there, then that also aligns with my purpose.
If, however, I come to understand that their love and time would rather be better focused elsewhere, then that also aligns with my purpose: to have them leave my studio with love of music, and not with guilt for choosing to move in another direction of learning.
With that in mind, I sometimes have to have the hard conversation with the people I teach: it’s okay to stop. You are not a failure. You are choosing what is best for yourself, and that is a cause for joy.
Amanda Palmer wrote a fantastic piece in which she talks about the love and connection inherent in conflict resolution, in which her mantra and message is “I will not allow this chapter in your life to end in self-blame,” and I agree with her further assertion that this practice is “love in spoken form.” In this case, this is a love and resolution we must practice with our students as well as ourselves.
I will not allow this chapter of your life to end in self-blame.
If you, like me, are a teacher, I would encourage you to send your students on their various ways with empathy and with compassion, helping them understand both that they are not a failure for these choices, and that you do not see them as a failure for making these choices.
I will not allow this chapter of my life to end in self-blame.
I encourage everyone I know to examine the things you’ve learned, look at them with joy and a practiced (pun intended) eye. If you chose to put them down to make room for things that better suited your path and interests and passions, then that is not a failure.
It’s room for growth.
(The post above was written after reading this post from the Artidote on Facebook, with thanks to the person over on Tumblr at Counterclockwise Universe that wrote it.)
I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” – or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.