
My failed music career - pseudolus
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2020/09/personal-story-my-failed-music-career
======
8bitsrule
Performing 'serious' music -- the physical expression of (an often well-known
body of) notes and their interrelationships -- is not only highly technical,
but also highly artistic.

The technical - given enough attention, the right physiology, the right brain-
wiring - really has to be finished ... completely 'automated'. Missing or
wrong notes ... I was reading yesterday that Tom Robbins sometimes spent the
whole day writing one or two sentences ... that kind of fanaticism required.

The artistic, on the other hand, is much more subjective, and demands much of
the performer's attention. And then, Worse yet, there's the game. There are
'standards' of 'musicianship' ... vaguer still, but people 'know it when they
hear it'. 'Maverick' interpretations won't cut it with conventional listeners.
Etc. etc. Being well-established in the conventional repertoire might be
defined as 'literate' enough to allow occasional 'peccadillos'.

That kind of 'career' is only one of many ... there's improv, jazz, pleasuring
(in lounges, at home), composing, teaching. To fail at feeding utterly
conventional (however learn-ed) expectations doesn't have to be the end.

------
atopos
Non specialists are totally unaware of the extreme difficulty of performing
solo live music, particularly with polyphonic instruments like piano or
classical guitar.

As a music teacher I have assessed many students at that level, and as a
performer I know pretty well what stage fright is. So I completely understand
these feelings.

Some of my best students suffer from stage fright more than the rest of them.

My hypothesis is that the richer and deeper the message one can and want to
express, the clearer her awareness of being far from her intention and,
therefore, the bigger the chance to make mistakes.

The is certainly unfair. Better students may fail more than average students
because they are better in their musical thought and musical capabilities.

Other ways of evaluating musical performance would be more adequate. One would
be to collect recordings (with no post-processing) that students could prepare
outside the stage with professional recording tools. The live performance
assessment is still necessary, but not the only measure.

The gap between playing excellently and doing so at the stage is huge, and
extra musical factors play an important role.

For doing well in live concerts you need specific preparation, you need to
know and play by heart and fluently everything, of course. Then, you need to
train on different stressing scenarios particularly designed to test that you
can keep playing so. Finally, you need self-confidence on your own skill. Some
people find useful to nurture their self-esteem; others (me among them) prefer
to cultivate humility: what matters most is the music I'm playing, not me. The
ideal is to become completely transparent at the stage so that the musical
essence passes through me as it should sound.

------
optimalsolver
Something I've always wondered is why musicians peak so young, especially in
comparison with other creative types.

First, let's qualify that statement. Is music, like mathematics, a young
person's game?

Musicians tend to release their classic albums, i.e. what general consensus
agrees is their best work, in their early years, not when they're 40+. Look at
the biggest, long-running music acts today, such as The Rolling Stones. No one
is going to their concerts to hear their latest material. They want to hear
Jumpin' Jack Flash (released ~1968).

The early deaths of legends like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain etc.
are tragic, sure, but does anyone really believe these guys would have put out
their best work at 40? The people lamenting wasted potential are perhaps
misunderstanding how musical creativity works.

In contrast, writers tend to put out their best work after their formative
years. If you think of your favorite writer, I'm willing to bet their magnum
opus wasn't released before 30.

Why is this? What accounts for the difference?

~~~
fiblye
Some musicians also refine their style and grow with age.

David Bowie's got great music lineup spanning every decade of his career from
the 1960s to the day he died. I think people who enjoy his music can easily
pick out a definite classic from every decade and everyone has their own
favorite period.

Tom Waits started out as an okay musician, and he grew into his own sort of
music with age. He's known for his grit and grime, and it's much more profound
in his later work than his earliest stuff. A song about being a worn out old
drunk on the side of the road hits harder when you hear it from a rugged
middle-aged man than a young 20-something.

With these two, Bowie constantly updated his image and tried new things. Tom
Waits simply advanced the atmosphere he built up in his earlier work. I think
a lot of other popular musicians put more energy and liveliness into their
earlier works and can't keep up with it as they get older, or they end up
following some music trend that they think will get them pop success instead
of just doing their own music.

Virtually every indie band does the latter as they start to get fame, and it
often turns off their old fans immensely when they see them become just
another soulless pop band.

~~~
rikroots
I want to add Kate Bush to this list. She's always seemed fearless to me, both
in her exploration of music and in her visual interpretation and performance
of that music.

Kate Bush homepage -
[http://www.katebush.com/home](http://www.katebush.com/home)

Completely unrelated, but does anyone else get the impulse to open the
inspector when they visit an interesting website for the first time? KB's site
is built using Drupal (according to Wappalyzer), but there's some fascinating
stuff going on in that page - it's been a while since I've come across an
image <map> element used on a production site. There's also a lovely old-style
carousel on the 'discography' page, using both <img> and <canvas> (for the img
reflection) elements. Strange choices for 2020, but I was kinda happy to see
them.

------
lukeh
I juggled both music and software for many years before deciding to focus on
music (almost!) exclusively. This is a somewhat reductive analysis, but in my
experience a successful performing or composing career doesn't require concert
pianist-level perfection. Curiosity, honesty in one’s artistic expression,
some degree of uniqueness and, finally, a dogged persistence, will suffice.
Granted, it can be difficult to have that dogged persistence particularly
given the economic parameters that musicians are subject to. So it is not for
everyone.

(I never had concert pianist talent or technique, but it still did take me
many years to shed the “louder/faster/denser” ideology of a modern jazz
education. Also known as, lacking taste and maturity in one’s earlier years.)

------
hardmath123
> As children, we do not understand that the things we love do not belong only
> to us. Then, I was not prepared to relinquish music to anyone else’s
> ownership. Now, I have finally loosened my grip.

------
castillar76
I spent my undergrad years on a music scholarship, while quietly taking
computer classes in the background and hanging out in the labs at night
instead of the practice rooms. I had talent, but I think even then I
subconsciously knew I didn't really want to do it. I got into four out of five
of the grad programs I applied to in music--good programs, too!--but I just
didn't have the motivation. A summer of interning as a sysadmin and I was
lost: I deferred grad school for a year and then never went, and I've been in
IT ever since.

The thing it took me a long time (and some therapy) to grasp was that I didn’t
fail. I made a positive decision for the direction I wanted my life to go in,
and took it. And more importantly, I didn't have to give up music just because
I didn't make it my career. I now play multiple instruments and enjoy a much
broader array of music than I ever did as a student, playing and singing
American traditional, Irish, and folk music with my family and other people.
Having let go of feeling obliged to make it a career, I felt free to make it a
passion without feeling like I _had_ to succeed. I wish more people felt like
they could study music in college in order to make it a wonderful part of
their lives, rather than "if I can't be Horowitz, there's no point in
continuing with this".

------
CannisterFlux
I find it amazing that anyone reaches the level of technical skill required to
play a musical instrument while maintaining any kind of artistic drive. I play
guitar for fun, and for me to learn anything that sounds any good takes hours
of repetition to the point that when I can finally play something to a level
that sounds passable, I am so utterly sick of hearing it that I start to
dislike most pieces I've learned!

This sentence resonated with me, maybe it's this feeling that keeps someone
playing: "There were tricky passages I would dread, notes in the middle of
chords I would bluff and hope nobody noticed. But in between attacks of nerves
I felt a thrill, and a sense of harmony, when I managed to make the notes
sparkle; when my mind, my hands and my ears were all in sync."

~~~
sjclemmy
I’m a competent amateur guitarist and I feel your pain. Learning pieces so
they are good enough to perform takes so much practice and I too get sick of
them before I can play them adequately!

------
info781
It seems like concert pianist or nothing? There is lots of work for studio
players or joining a band. Creativity is king , there is only so much room to
play cover tunes many pianists publish on youtube.

~~~
Rochus
> _There is lots of work for studio players or joining a band_

Unfortunately not. There are more and more musicians, since more and more
music colleges are springing up, and fewer and fewer gigs, because it is
easier and usually cheaper to hire a DJ, and people are just as satisfied. One
could get the impression that today musicians are trained primarily to educate
new musicians, a kind of end in itself, as is already known in other non-STEM
studies.

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smitty1e
One wonders if the amount of life satisfaction is negatively correlated with
the amount of personal pronoun on offer.

Unless it starts to get awkward, actively cutting back on the "I" and "me" in
writing, thought, and conversation seems to put the focus back on the topic.

The degree to which this observation applies to TFA is a matter of opinion,
and piling on the author is not the intent.

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codeulike
This is why the modern mantra of 'never give up' is not actually good
unversial advice. Sometimes giving up one target and switching to something
else is the smart thing to do.

~~~
scottious
it's a strange contradiction.

On one hand there's something to be said about persistence and discipline. You
can find loads of stories of people sticking through the hard times and being
rewarded for it.

On the other hand, there's opportunity cost in sticking with a failing
endeavor. I am a hobbyist musician too, I spend a lot of time at the piano but
I sometimes think to myself "what if I just used all of that time to advance
my career instead?"

The real problem is that you don't know what can happen so we're left making
guesses. Maybe the author of the article could have found some niche as a
studio musician and had a long and successful career. Maybe calling it quits
and changing careers while they're young would unlock a new passion that
they're much more successful at.

------
lqet
I re-watched Whiplash recently. It is a marvelous movie for many reasons, but
I always wondered how accurate its depiction of a competitive Jazz band really
is.

~~~
spacechild1
Many jazz musicians (including myself) would say that it's a ridiculous, gross
misrepresentation of what playing in a Jazz band is about. For me it's
infuriating to watch! I could go on for a _long_ rant now, but I'd rather let
an actual jazz drummer speak:
[https://youtu.be/7GfegGYzD1E?t=238](https://youtu.be/7GfegGYzD1E?t=238)

