"Success" = Don't Compare, Don't Quit

How's this for a summary?

Heh, well, I am living proof that quitting is a survivable option, because I have done it at least a few times now. This time it seems that continuing is the option that makes me happier than quitting sooo... yeah. That's where where it's at.

I'll be playing until that changes - though naturally my happiness level fluctuates from day to day, even from piece to piece because as long as I'm committed to going through the Alfred method book, I have to accept the fact that some pieces are going to be exceptionally dire. At least I'm now at a stage where it's more forgivable to skip/skimp over some pieces. And the blues course is a nice distraction too.

I have to say though that I found that video of "who will fail" particularly grating because I hardly agreed with any of her examples. Plus I don't think that quitting equals failing - that is almost insulting because there is no shame in finding out that one is not enjoying a certain hobby.

I'm probably thinking too deeply about this whole thing, because of course I agree with the bullet points of it not being a race, not a competition, and that it's important to enjoy what you're doing. I just don't agree that not quitting is necessarily the key to either success or happiness... I'd say that depends entirely on the person.

Ok this got kinda deep all of a sudden If you need a pep talk about not quitting, here is mine: don't quit. Piano is fun! And sooo rewarding. And it beats counting geraniums or brainlessly consuming soap operas on tv So. Don't quit!

Pallas Anyone who is happy every day seems suspicious to me.

I try to only pose the question of happiness with prior choices infrequently. If I would second guess myself and judge all decisions made by my previous self on a daily basis I would
1) not get much done
and
2)feel less free and not enjoy life as much.

Just sticking to the plan until it's not working for you any more takes away some stress.

Sophia I am living proof that quitting is a survivable option, because I have done it at least a few times now.

I've quit several hobbies as well and started others throughout life. I also took a more than 15 year hiatus from the clarinet, more due to life changes than having grown tired of it. But then I found out back in my thirties that I missed it too much so like you I know that restarting is also an option.

Yup... exactly. I "quit" guitar twice as well, but any time anyone asks if I gave up on it, my usual reply is that I'm on an extended hiatus, but will go back to it eventually. Once I miss it enough, I will start again, as I did with piano. Other hobbies, let's say something like stamp collecting, I left behind me several decades ago and I know for a fact I'll never be back at it. That doesn't mean I was/am a failure at stamp collecting (ok I totally was, but that's beside the point), it just means I no longer found joy in it. I see no reason to shame anyone for quitting what they're not enjoying (which is what the word "fail" implies).

This woman is basically screaming a message that quitting equals failing, and especially considering that I agree on the "be kind to yourself" message, I find that a more than a little harsh.

The one slide that caught my attention was where she showed the succeed or fail "x-factor":

When I listened to it, I thought yes, sure it's like you can finish the marathon, just don't stop running. You can swim across that lake, just don't stop swimming. You can climb that mountain, just don't stop climbing. So, in a way this "x-factor" sounded to me a bit obvious.

I think one has to look a little deeper to understand why is someone choosing to stop playing piano/keyboard. Was it because of unrealistic expectations, maybe too much comparing with more proficient players, too many hobbies, etc.

I also understand that if one chooses to stop playing because playing piano just does not give any joy any longer, then that is not necessarily a failure. It may actually be good, it depends on the unique situation.

The other thing that comes to mind is that quitting is sometimes not quitting completely. May be it is just a temporary break and one discovers piano again sometime in the future. That can also happen.

In summary I think that reasons for stopping to play piano can be fairly diverse as the circumstances of each person are unique.

candela It's funny. I don't get discouraged by playing music badly like a beginner.

Same here. In fact I embrace it and allow my inner child to thoroughly enjoy those simple tunes. I knew from a very young age that my aspirations were not to be a professional musician. I saw enough of that around me all day long and it wasn't the life for me. Luckily I was allowed that choice, which means I feel no resentment towards any instrument... and right now I'm loving the journey, wherever it takes me remains to be seen. As long as it remains fun, I keep at it!

Pallas And I'm talking to you, Mr. High School Drama Teacher who called my enlisting into the Army a "huge waste of potential." Kiss my b*tt, Sir.

High Five! Let me direct a similar message to my kindergarten teacher, who smugly informed my parents (after hearing my singing in class) that I'd never be a Maria Callas. Phooey to you, Ms Whatever-Your-Name-Was!

Now where is that reaction emoji when you need it

Sophia I see no reason to shame anyone for quitting what they're not enjoying (which is what the word "fail" implies).

I agree with this! Life is short, in our hobby time, should all be doing what we love.

I do think there are people who quit piano but wish they were still playing, I mean, people say that to me all the time when they learn that I play piano. The question for those situations is, do they really want to play piano? Or is it the idea of piano that appeals to them? For example, the dream of being able to sit down and just play like a pro?

The people who can continue are the people who can enjoy what they’re doing at the piano today. (I’m pretty sure this comment was made in this thread somewhere, maybe not, but it’s a common enough idea). That doesn’t mean you have to love every minute of it, and it’s ok to not love or enjoy some parts of it, and have some of that “delayed gratification” as part of the motivation.

I used to do aikido (a Japanese martial art). I did it for years in the states, and then continued after I moved to Japan. (That’s actually how I met my spouse). I advanced to second degree black belt, I sometimes taught, it was a pretty big part of my life. I started playing piano much later than I started aikido.

But at some point, on my way out to the dojo, I found myself thinking that I’d rather stay home and play my piano. As most of us, I also work full time, so my hobby time is limited. I gradually started staying home more and more often, and eventually stopped going to aikido completely.

Quitting did not mean I failed. It meant I figured out how I wanted to spend my time, and that’s ok.

But if I had truly wanted to continue aikido, or if someone truly wanted to continue piano, then it’s fine to give advice about how to make that possible. I don’t think the woman in the video is trying to shame anyone, but there is an awful lot of pressure these days to “optimize” your life, to incorporate life hacks so you can do more, be more, etc. And that can be a little bit much sometimes…

Oops, I meant to add something about all the jerks who tell people they can’t sing, or shouldn’t sing. I have a friend who is probably the most ardent music lover of anyone I know. And he recently shared with me that when he was in elementary school, a teacher shamed him in front of the whole class for singing too loudly and enthusiastically, and off key. He said he never sang a note again.

There’s a special place in hell for teachers like that.

ShiroKuro Sophia I see no reason to shame anyone for quitting what they're not enjoying (which is what the word "fail" implies).

I agree with this! Life is short, in our hobby time, should all be doing what we love.

I fully agree. I still remember the day when decided to stop painting. I had a dedicated room as my atelier, and every day I felt less and less urge to go there and paint.
I still have my oil paints and brushes, somewhere deep down in a small basement storage, with so many boxes blocking them that to bring them out would take a whole day.
I have never regretted quitting.

No, actually, sometimes there is a fleeting thought that it would be nice to paint again. Some inspiration. Never enough though to go dig for the box with the oil paints.

I wonder if I can get my thoughts across. These were things that came together for me some time back - an initial sudden insight, and then exploring/refining not totally by myself.

When we start learning and practise, what "goal" are we aiming for? Is it to play this whole piece as well as possible, with the right notes, also sounding good? Do the goals involve music we love, hopefully sounding like we heard it or how we picture it musically? Those kinds of goals can lead to feelings of failure, lack of progress, of talent etc.

Music is kind of an oxymoron: unmusical things can lead to musical results in the long run. The polished performance of a pianist was created through other actions, some sleight of hand, to create a final illusion to draw us in. if we aim for the final result, we're missing the point and outside the circle.

Maybe I need to be able to find the notes, before playing them smoothly and on time with a steady rhythm. Maybe doing so for a single measure, and doing that better in a few days, is progress which is achievable. Maybe my uneven playing in this passage is not because I can't count, but because I'm moving poorly: maybe I'm simply sitting too close, jamming up my arm. Maybe my goal for now is to play both hands with the same loudness, until I get the coordination to bring out the notes of melody above the accompaniment. Maybe I can go back to that same piece in a few months, and with new skills, add the voicing. Like ...... what are we aiming for? What is the goal. Is it concrete enough and small enough that we can perceive we've achieved it (concrete) and it is achievable? These mundane simple things are that pathway to that musical sounding passage in the future. And how do you develop a piece in stages?

Succeed at what? What leads to what? Something like that.

Pallas I honestly think the video is for people like me who believe you have to be special in some way, and you have to "succeed" at what you're doing or it's a waste of resources.

The way this mindset has been ingrained by the educational system and society at large in many parts of the world has for sure done a lot of damage and as adults it can take a lot of time and effort to change to another way of thinking.

When I grew up in Sweden, my city - like most - made sure there was affordable instrument education for school pupils. However, either the funding must have been limited or the students' first hand choices were unbalanced and wouldn't have made orchestras possible. Either way, we couldn't just automatically start lessons on our instruments of choice. Instead of employing a simple, transparent queue system there was a test. Perhaps it was just in an effort to make sure that prodigies and the like got access to a teacher early on, but if so that was not made clear. I still don't know how the queue worked exactly. But after having taken group lessons on a mandatory beginner instrument (recorder or mandolin) for two years everybody interested in progressing to individual lessons on another instrument sat an aural exam and filled out an application where we ranked our instruments of interest. In my small village elementary school the compulsory music education was not of a very high quality. We had the same teacher as in all other subjects and not a specialist music teacher like larger schools would have. We didn't get any training that would have prepared us for the aural test. Neither was there any aural education in the strictly sheet music based recorder lessons (as that was probably supposed to be taken care of by the schools.) Nobody in my class got accepted to their first instrument of choice. Of course that felt like having flunked a test and being labeled as not musically talented. I probably carried that feeling with me for several years. In my case I chose to wait for my first hand choice and pass on the opportunity of studying my second hand choice immediately which would have voided my possibility to study my first choice eventually. It turned out to be a three year wait. I've since learnt that this was not how it was usually done in the rest of the country and that it was soon abandoned in my city as well. Fellow musicians in amateur orchestras I've played in have been baffled when I told this. Both about the practice in itself and that I failed. I was committed enough to accept my spot when I finally got it at 13 and with diligent practice I think I made up for my late start over the years. Now I'm a firm believer that simply not giving up goes a very long way, even if we only have average inherent talent for music or not the best coordination.

@candela wow, that's quite a story!

So was piano your first choice, or something else?

Our elementary school had something similar where you could choose an instrument and they would lend it to you, but not everyone got their first choice. I remember being told I couldn't play the drums because I was a girl.

ShiroKuro

ShiroKuro So was piano your first choice, or something else?

No, I wanted to play in an orchestra. My first choice was the clarinet. Second was french horn, but in the end I realized I wasn't that interested in playing a brass instrument and rather waited for a clarinet spot. Also, we had an old clarinet but no horn at home so my parents might have put economic aspects on it. I don't remember. I didn't think the wait would take three years though.

We had a piano at home. My mom had labeled the keys with the corresponding notes and taught me the basics of sheet music from a very early age so I knew the basics even before starting recorder. My brother who's four years older, took piano lessons for a few years. I heard him practice and he often left his method book on the music rest so I had a pretty good idea of what those lessons contained and it didn't speak to me at that age. It also felt discouraging that I couldn't reach to play the music as written. I think even the first book had chords that required a hand span of an octave which I didn't have. If we could have studied multiple instruments I might have signed up for piano lessons as well, but that was not how the system worked back then.

I think instrument rentals were available but I'm not sure. My clarinet teacher took pity on me and sold me his used top-of-the line clarinet for cheap after slightly more than a year of me struggling with my father's old instrument. Well, it was a win-win, because as teachers they received money towards new instruments every seven years so he was getting a new one for himself either way.

Cheap instruments like soprano recorders and mandolins could not be rented and were paid for in full by the families as were the method books, but I think those early group lessons might have been free of charge. Individual lessons cost a relatively small amount which also included weekly rehearsals with one of the four city-wide school orchestras, the one currently at an appropriate level for the student.

The instrumental teachers were employed by the city through the voluntary municipal music school, so not within the normal, compulsory school system. That was pretty much the only employment available for instrument teachers so it wasn't really an option to study privately for somebody else. Unless of course you happened to have a relative or acquaintance who didn't need full time income from teaching.

I don't remember any external pressure about what instrument we could choose. Still there were mostly girls in the flute section and mostly boys on trumpets according to the stereotypes. The city arranged a day where everybody could come and try all the instruments available for lessons but still most went with the most common ones (piano, guitar, trumpet, flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin etc)

Interesting discussion on music learning in public schools. In my school days (30 years ago), the school had 3 music teachers. 2 for the strings instruments (violin, viola, cello & bass). The other for band instruments including flute, clarinet, oboe, saxophone, trumpet, percussion, etc. The music rooms had "portable" instruments for loan to students during the school year. The only exception were the percussion instruments including timpani, bells, mariba that were usually not taken home. Piano was not a portable instrument and therefore not taught in a public school.

When it comes to choosing instruments there are more string players (violin, viola & cello) especially. The other instruments were more or less 1 each. Most people in the group had no experience playing an instrument so choosing one would be a bit of trial & error. The teacher would assign instruments based on availability.

thepianoplayer416 Interesting discussion on music learning in public schools. In my school days (30 years ago), the school had 3 music teachers.

Was that high school or earlier grades?