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

Pallas · 2024-12-10T17:10:26+00:00

I'm back from vacation and trying to find a way to entertain myself while stuffing steel wool into the mouse holes in my ancient house, to disinvite the rode...

ShiroKuro

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.

macuaig

ShiroKuro
Dig up the Harry Chapin song “Mr Tanner”, about a dry cleaner who sang all day until his friends pushed him to perform. “But music was his life, it was not his livelihood.” Harry Chapin is the real stuff.

Animisha

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.

keystring

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.

candela

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.

ShiroKuro

@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. 😠

candela

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)

Animisha

candela Just to say that it was very interesting to read your story about the Swedish music school. I had no idea you were Swedish!

thepianoplayer416

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.

keystring

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?

candela

thepianoplayer416
Interesting. I think there are advantages and drawbacks with all systems. Offering band or ensemble playing during school hours helps out with logistics, but it's only a viable option if the student body of the school is large enough. We moved to the country side in time for my second grade and when I started school there we were 39 students in total across grades 1-6. (There wasn't a sufficient number of children in the area to even offer all grades so my older brother was bussed to the neighboring school.) Most children had no real interest in playing an instrument. 6 out of 14 in my year took recorder or mandolin in grades 2-3. But when they later didn't get to immediately play their first hand choice only I eventually continued, and an additional class mate took piano (which unlike the wind instruments and guitar didn't require recorder or mandolin respectively as a gateway instrument.) Thanks to being a much more popular instrument it reasonably also must have had less fluctuation in the number of beginner applications and graduates/drop-outs from year to year, relatively speaking, and thus a more predictable waiting time. The music school employed maybe two clarinet/sax teachers for the whole city while I think there must have been around ten each for piano and guitar. Nobody would have to wait three years for piano lessons.
Among the things I appreciated with the swedish system were getting access to a specialist teacher for your instrument as well to an orchestra at a suitable level no matter the size of your school.

I was an exchange student in a US high school for a year when I was 17. We had band rehearsals every morning, 130 minutes during marching/football season (starting at 6.45 am🥱) and I think 85 minutes during the rest of the school year when we only had symphonic band. I played and practiced my clarinet a lot that year which I believe made me improve significantly despite not taking lessons. But the band director was a brass (trumpet) player himself and apparently had very little knowledge about the particularities of woodwinds. The vast majority of the students didn't take individual lessons on the side so the woodwind players lacked good instrument-specific guidance. Some of the advice the director gave was outright terrible from a clarinet point of view, such as trying to make the whole clarinet section hold their instruments up at a higher angle to "look better" no matter that it produces an awful sound. Or that time when he (correctly) pointed out to a clarinet player that their high C was flat but when asked how to correct it he just shrugged and said something like "Lip it up or whatever it is you do." Off the top of my head I can think of at least five different pieces of advice a clarinet teacher could have offered that might actually have been helpful for an oblivious student depending on the reason for the flatness. And no, simply "lip it up" is not one of them.

But more on topic for this thread, I think the way my swedish city used a test is wrong on so many levels! It implies to students that aural skills are fixed. Either you have them or not, which is not true. Everybody who's done some serious amount of ear training probably knows that but if you're just being subjected to a test without preparation it signals that there would be no point in practicing and if you "fail" you're not cut out for playing. (We actually didn't receive our test results back and were not told how we compared to other students, but I know I guessed on a few questions.) While inherent abilities undeniably differ, you don't need to be exceptionally talented to progress far on an instrument and have it increase the quality of life even if only as a hobby. Secondly, the music school had already had a teacher come and teach us recorder or mandolin for TWO YEARS! That teacher should have been able to make a much more accurate prediction about who would or would not progress and benefit from further lessons at their current age than any single test could. Emphasizing and encouraging practice and talking to the students and parents in cases of obvious lack thereof would have been a much more proactive approach and fostered what nowadays would be labeled a growth mindset, though obviously that was not how it was spoken about decades ago.

If necessary, it's ok to have students wait in a queue for a while if there are circumstances that eg cause a lack of teachers for a particular instrument or if the old teacher think the student still lacks sufficient maturity and would benefit from a later start. Kids usually understand that if it's properly explained. Making them feel labeled as inherently hopeless, even unintentionally, can stay with them for a long time and might cause resignation to not even try or totally give up on their love for music.

I'm not sure exactly why nobody else in my class ever continued instrumental lessons nor how they reacted to also being initially rejected. I don't know if they stayed in the queue but declined lessons when they were finally offered them or if they just developed other interests (cooler to a teenager?) and dropped out of the waiting list or if there were other reasons. I just hope they don't carry around a scar of failure to this day.

thepianoplayer416

keystring
In the elementary school I attended only had a band group. It's was taught as an extracurricular activity than a class during regular hours. I have 2 friend who both started trumpet at an early age. Guitar was something they learned on their own with a teacher.

When I was in high school (starting Gr. 9 in Canada), there were music classes taught for school credit. On day 1 you'd choose whether you want to be in strings or band class and pick your instrument accordingly. In my senior year we had a joint class with the strings sitting in front and the band instruments at the back. I took violin. My 2 friends continued playing trumpet until graduation.

keystring

thepianoplayer416 In the elementary school I attended only had a band group. It's was taught as an extracurricular activity than a class during regular hours. I have 2 friend who both started trumpet at an early age. Guitar was something they learned on their own with a teacher.

Thanks for the answer. Looks like, same country, different decades - I graduated high school around 1973. There was zero music taught in public school: you sang by rote. I didn't take music in high school; I think there was one teacher - rural area. I actually taught (grade 2) in the early 1980's - for the music slot, we sang songs but I don't think there was anything concrete to teach at all. Certainly I knew next to nothing. My first music lessons were around 2003.

candela

Animisha Just to say that it was very interesting to read your story about the Swedish music school.

Obviously, mine is only a single anecdotal story and likely not representative. There are 290 municipalities in Sweden and while a large majority (270+) have what are now municipal culture schools with a broader scoop than the former municipal music schools, they all go about it slightly differently. Perhaps you find this interesting, Animisha. It's a brief history about the the municipal music/culture schools in Sweden. There's an option to have it machine translated for those not understanding Swedish.
How was it done in the Netherlands when you were young?

Since the swedish private school reform in 1992 many families now also live near a school with a music profile where children can get their compulsory education. This was not what it was like in my childhood when these opportunities were very far apart.

And to get a bit more nuanced: when I said our mandatory music education in the village school was not very good I just meant in comparison to the one we got in the school in town during my first year. The horror stories shared by @Ithaca are on a whole other level. Our village teachers through the years could all play the harmonium (back then present in most every classroom across the country) and/or the guitar and they taught us sheet music, basic music theory and had us sing a lot. Ear training on the other hand was conspicuously absent. In the upper grades from year 7 when we studied in the town with specialist teachers for all subjects, including mandatory music, there might have been some ear training, but most of that was probably supposed to have been done in the years in-between. In addition to singing, the upper years had more music history and theory. Nowadays there is more instrument playing, composition etc included in the syllabus from the very start.

pseudonym58

I see that this thread has morphed a little bit. So...
I started playing around on the piano when I was about three or four, and took lessons starting perhaps around 6:00 or 7:00. I was not a particularly disciplined kid, so even though I was supposed to read the music off the page, I found I learned mostly by ear. Then at around age 10 or so:
"Mom, They are handing out instruments in school. What should I play?"
She recommended cello, as my father played the violin and she played the piano and we could have a "trio".
Well, at the time I felt the cello was not "masculine" enough for me, so I predictably chose the trumpet. Big mistake, as I couldn't stand it.
Switched to the cello, but I didn't start taking private lessons on cello until I was about 13. I was told I had a "natural" talent for the instrument, so I pursued it, and ended up attending Juilliard in the late '70s and early '80s, and then worked as a professional cellist in Belgium, and later in California.
When our daughters were born I decided to be a stay-at-home dad, as my wife was earning enough for me to do so. For about 5 years we lived in South Dakota, and there not being a whole lot of music work out there, I instead starting teaching piano to young students. I also first started practicing piano seriously for the first time in my life (I had briefly studied while I was at Juilliard, but never had much time for it).

To get back to the other part of this thread: I find it really important to have a few things that I'm working on concurrently. At least one of them should have primarily technical challenges that can be divorced from most musical considerations. That way if I'm not feeling particularly inspired on a given day I can just drill at a slow tempo, and be done with it. Otherwise if things seem to be falling in line and somehow magically working with a minimum of errors, and either the expression or my apparent ability to shape a melody seems to be good on that particular day, I'll work on music that I really like.

I guess the trick is not to force anything, but going through the motions at least in a technical sense is better than frequently skipping days because you don't feel inspired or because things don't seem to be going well.

Okay, I've gone on long enough here; sorry!

iternabe

pseudonym58 I guess the trick is not to force anything, but going through the motions at least in a technical sense is better than frequently skipping days because you don't feel inspired or because things don't seem to be going well.

👍️

lilypad

pseudonym58 To get back to the other part of this thread: I find it really important to have a few things that I'm working on concurrently. At least one of them should have primarily technical challenges that can be divorced from most musical considerations. That way if I'm not feeling particularly inspired on a given day I can just drill at a slow tempo, and be done with it. Otherwise if things seem to be falling in line and somehow magically working with a minimum of errors, and either the expression or my apparent ability to shape a melody seems to be good on that particular day, I'll work on music that I really like.

I guess the trick is not to force anything, but going through the motions at least in a technical sense is better than frequently skipping days because you don't feel inspired or because things don't seem to be going well.

That sounds much better than my 'just do a playthrough' when my mental bandwidth doesn't feel equal to a legitimate practice session. I'd like to see a new thread on what to practice when you don't feel like practicing.

pseudonym58

lilypad
"...That sounds much better than my 'just do a playthrough' when my mental bandwidth doesn't feel equal to a legitimate practice session...."

Actually, as I've mentioned elsewhere here, sometimes I deliberately play something under tempo and will deliberately slow down right before a difficult technical passage so that I actually can play it without having to do any corrections afterwards. Sometimes I make a bit of a joke of it, playing as if the passage was meant to be played that way, and it often sounds like some sort of romantic excess. 😁

pseudonym58

I guess the reason I brought up having been a professional on a different instrument is to say that I was obligated to have my part ready, regardless of how I felt about my playing on a particular day. So I got in the habit of sometimes just practicing stuff somewhat mechanically just to make sure I could play a particular part in tune and without straining a muscle, etc.
No reason I can't apply that to my piano playing for my own enjoyment. Then again, I won't beat myself up if I skip a day once in awhile.

thepianoplayer416

keystring
I know this is getting off topic. The past few decades music education funding in public schools has become politicized. In a place like Canada provincial governments often debate whether to cut "the Arts" out of the curriculum and stick to the basics: Reading, Writing & Arithmetic or raise taxes. People pay taxes and they expect music to be taught in school either as a subject or an extracurricular activity.

When it comes to instruments, piano is usually not a choice in public schools since they're not usually taught in a group session and a piano is not a very portable instrument a school can loan to students to take home for practice.

keystring

thepianoplayer416 I know this is getting off topic. The past few decades music education funding in public schools has become politicized. In a place like Canada provincial governments often debate whether to cut "the Arts" out of the curriculum and stick to the basics: Reading, Writing & Arithmetic or raise taxes. People pay taxes and they expect music to be taught in school either as a subject or an extracurricular activity.

Re past few decades: I attended public school from 1960 to 1973. There was not a lick of music taught other than just having us sing by rote. There was one primary school teacher, probably grade 2, who seems to have taught movable Do solfege on her own behest. That had an interesting effect on my skewed perception of music for the next 5 decades or so, but gave me something. In that flavour of solfege, the Tonic of a minor key was called La, which put me into a modal mindset of the old monks I guess. As I understand, that is not how it is taught generally speaking.

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