Wellness Wednesday — January 2022: Notes to My Music Self

Two years ago, I began to transition away from the music field. Doing so has given me perspective on the overwhelming nature of music in training and as a profession. In hindsight, I can see moments as both a student and educator when today’s perspectives would have been helpful, either to me or to one of my students. Though my path diverged from music, it is not my intention to imply that others should do the same. These are simply thoughts that have helped me, and I write them in the hope that they may do the same for others.

LIFE IS FULL OF TEMPORARY SEASONS
Nothing lasts forever: neither the good nor the bad, the easy nor the difficult, the calm nor the chaos, the peaceful nor the stressful. Life, personally and professionally, is one temporary season after another. Some seasons drag on for longer than we’d like while others change before we are ready. Music, from its training to its professional activities, is full of seasons. Every performance presents a new season of challenges, collaborations, and emotions. But perhaps the most difficult season in music is the start of intense training when sacrifices must be made in order to find time to meet expectations and commitments.

If you begin a degree in music and expect that you will have time to practice as much as you should and study as much as you should all while reserving the several hours each day that you want to for your hobbies, you will quickly find that it isn’t possible. Not if you want to be successful in the field. You will have time for those hobbies again in the way you want, but not right now. You may be able to enjoy your hobby one day per week instead of the six or seven you are accustomed to. It’s a temporary sacrifice in this temporary season. It doesn’t last forever.

MUSIC IS A LONG HAUL
It takes years of practice and well over 10,000 hours to begin to feel like you’ve mastered anything about music. The temporary season of training and sacrifice feels really long when you’re in it.

It is worth noting, though, that the first few years are the hardest. Learning the discipline of the sacrificial season is tough, but it’s important to know that each day you have a choice as to whether or not you want to keep doing it. Training is part of your relationship to music, and like any relationship, you get to choose every day if you want to keep working at it. There will likely come a time when you are accustomed to the new distribution of work, school, and hobbies. You will regularly choose practice over other things and won’t worry that you are missing out on something else. This is a very steady place to be.

If that feeling never arrives, it’s okay! There are plenty of fields that don’t require the same discipline and dedication in order to make a living. And choosing one of them is not a failure on your part; perhaps you will actually preserve your love for music by doing so. One of the most brilliant musical minds I’ve ever encountered is French pianist Pierre Hurel. He said that in order to protect the purity of his relationship with music, he chose to earn his living by doing something else. There’s a lot of wisdom in that choice. There’s a sensitive, pure wisdom in his music, too.

DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE A NET-POSITIVE EXPERIENCE
No matter what temporary season you’re in, when you weigh the good and the bad together, life adds up to a net-positive experience. There have been moments when I haven’t totally believed that, but in my heart of hearts I know that it’s true. It’s never all good or all bad. It’s a divine mix.

No matter your age, skill level, or experience, the music field will be overwhelming. You’ll be over-committed or out of your depth. The only way out is through your self-discipline: it’s time to make the temporary sacrifices in order to accomplish all the things. I remember in my younger days wearing sleep deprivation like a badge of honor, as if it said “look how dedicated I am!” I suppose to some extent it did, but sleep deprivation is not a way of life.

No matter how difficult your season of discipline, never lose your net-positive experience. Satisfaction is one of the most powerful positive emotions, but does it outweigh your stress, worry, anxiety, sleep deprivation, crappy diet, and life imbalance? Most of the time that answer is yes! So, keep on doing what you’re doing and enjoy those feelings of satisfaction and pride. But, if the answer becomes “no” more and more, then it’s time for reflection. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate commitments, get honest about time management, or make some difficult decisions.

FIND YOUR SANCTUARY
When the mental pattern of overwhelm descends, you need a sanctuary, a place to decompress and escape. It’s a physical space that “shocks” your nervous system and knocks you out of your thought patterns. My sanctuaries have included the Knoxville Botanical Garden, the courtyards at the Boston Public Library and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and even yoga class. Your sanctuary is just for you. When you’re overwhelmed, go there. You can journal, walk, people watch, or sit in silence; do whatever you want and need to do in order to change your headspace.

It’s important that your sanctuary stay just for you. If you take people there you will inevitably talk about your stress, and then it won’t be a sanctuary anymore. It will just be another place where you talk about stress. Protect your sanctuary once you find it. 

FIND YOUR PEOPLE
Your people are the ones who care about your best interests and want the best for you regardless of any ideas they have about your life. Your relationship with them is not contingent on circumstance such as profession, field of study, or social group. Your people hold space for you. They encourage you to always advocate for your own wellbeing. They wish you joy and peace in your life. They deliver the hard truths with compassion and hold you up when life smacks you in the face with challenges. They may be friends, teachers, family members, or colleagues. I was fortunate to find this kind of support in my primary teacher in undergrad, but not all educators are the same. Your people may be hard to find but I promise they’re out there. I think we get only a couple of them at a time, which is why they are so precious.

PATHS OFTEN TURN
A straight path is not inherently more successful than one that turns, though it can seem that way in our professional lives. A change of direction can happen within the field of music, or it can lead outside of it. Neither is a failure. Always seek the path that leads to a net-positive life. Not an easy life—nobody has one—but a life that, even when challenging, is net-positive. The net-positive path may be straight or it may not. Not all of us are meant for straight paths, but we all are meant for net-positive paths.

When I decided to leave music, I dealt with feelings of failure, shame, and guilt. I get it if you feel like your path is diverging from where you thought it would be and it’s freaking you out. It’s emotional, but it’s temporary. It takes courage to change your mind and take the turn when it shows up. Life is not short enough to fearfully and stubbornly stay on a path that does not serve you anymore.

APPEARANCE AND TRUTH ARE NOT THE SAME THING
It is human nature to make false assumptions about people we don’t really know. I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and despite our best efforts we will continue to do it. Sometimes these false assumptions lead us to self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy when we compare ourselves to others. Other times we have to be mindful about the energy we put into the world as we, in error, make our own false assumptions.

People that don’t know you will make judgments about you and your path without knowing the truth about why you made certain choices. They are not your people. If your choices are well-considered in the direction of the net-positive then they are right for you, and that’s what matters. 

LIFE IS LONGER THAN YOU THINK; SOMETIMES YOU JUST PICK SOMETHING FIRST
My primary teacher in undergrad, Mark Douglass, said this to me during my last year of study. It resonates more with me now than it ever has. Professionally, those of us with many interests know that the pull of other directions never fully goes away. The thing we do is choose something first and get to the rest of it as it comes. If a new direction presents itself, it’s important to acknowledge that the first direction is not wrong because it didn’t serve forever. It was simply not meant to serve forever.

My path turned me away from the music field after over 15 years of dedication to it, but that’s just me. That’s my path. You are not me, and you have a different path to run. I am reminded of a line from Schiller’s poem “An die Freunde,” which Beethoven sets in Symphony No. 9. There’s a line that translates to this: “Run, brothers, your path, Joyful, like a hero to victory.” Your path. Not the path of some successful person you have modeled your choices after, or some person you are afraid to disappoint. Your path, chosen everyday by you. Running your path and following your intuitions about a net-positive life only need to be right by you, and your relationship to music is allowed to look however you want it to look. 

Laurel Black enjoys that music now occupies a space that it did many years ago: it’s something she does, that she cares very much to be good at, and simply does for herself. To her, that is a definition of wellness. She will complete a doctorate in physical therapy in 2023. This article is her last contribution to the Percussive Arts Society, and she wishes everyone joyful running along their own paths, however they may or may not turn.