@eh1234 , I know how you feel. My rising 9th grader, earlier this year, decided he wanted to learn the piano. But being the type A that he is, he quickly moved from teaching himself with YouTube videos and books to private lessons, we’ve bought him a decent digital piano to replace his brother’s keyboard that he was using, and he is talking about entering some local competitions next year. While he has made remarkable progress in a short time, I don’t know that he can ever overcome the 8-10 year head start of other piano students. And I am not sure he should major in music anyway in college, as he has numerous other academic and extracurricular interests that capture his time and attention. I am hoping though that he is able to continue to develop this passion and can perhaps minor or keep taking lessons in college.
I had a french horn/piano playing child,who rose to the challenge at his summer music experience. It was gentle but very intense schedule of private lessons, chamber music and orchestral music as well as a required choir. He loved it enough to go back for a second summer. There were few horns and he managed to stand out over time.
He went to college thinking math or maybe music, but once he got into an ensemble with very top horn players, (CIM/CWRU joint ensemble ) he realized right away that he should focus on math and not music. He stuck with two music ensembles for freshman year, both semesters, got to play at Severance Hall in the spring and other great concert venues, but then let music drop completely. Luckily he went to a school where he could study a variety of subjects, including music-- (Case Western Reserve U ).
I was surprised that he never signed on for a piano lesson the entire four years of college, even though I was willing to pay extra for that. He was finding himself academically and really delved into CS, physics, mathematics, and economics. He caught up to his peers and excelled in his chosen field, though, even though he seemed to be a “late bloomer”, although really is age 20 all that late ? NO! He just had broad interests in music, math, writing and physics.
Kids need time to figure out what they want in life. She will know if she should audition for college or if she may want to change majors.
As parents, we need to accept what our children want out of life and what they want to put into it.
I was a little disappointed that my son did not minor in horn at CWRU, but got over it. He needed to explore other interests, and he got very serious about his subject, over his four years in college, and now in a PhD program in that.
He recently inherited a piano in his rental home at grad school, and its still a great hobby for him. I expect him to pick up his horn later maybe, too.
Music is a lifetime pursuit, is the joy of it. He also became an avid listener of music in Cleveland. Cleveland Orchestra
tickets are deeply discounted for CWRU students.
S was in both worlds in the past few weeks, participating in one auditioned and one non-auditioned jazz program. At the former, self-doubt hit him hard on the first day or two, but I’m glad that he ‘survived’ and showed resilience quickly -he shifted his focus to the excitement of having tons to learn, from both the professors and his peers, which enabled him to fully embrace the rare chance to play and make friends with all those talented and like-minded musicians. To him, that was the best part of his summer!
Great thread. Self-doubt is part of the process of … moving through life as a human. I think there’s a word for people without a shred of self-doubt: sociopath, maybe?
For kids this age, the antidote to self-doubt is, as it always has been: practice, preparation, study. The best kind of confidence comes from within; they can feel it, rather than have someone else tell them. With my kids the more musical skills they have developed the less and less stock they have put in external validation, although it’s still nice to get it every once in a while from a source whose opinion you trust and value, let’s not kid ourselves. I think for a lot of the public as a whole, musical ability is akin to magic, so demonstrating it at all can produce a shower of compliments, especially when you’re young. Part of growing through the teen years as a musician is figuring out that that’s not what it’s about, neither is it about being “perfect.” It’s about how to invest your playing or singing with meaning, which again, comes from within, not without.
This is a clever quip, but it’s also true. (And I think there are quite a few sociopaths flourishing in the classical music world…)
Yes, absolutely!
Thank you @NYCMusicDad and @glassharmonica for your helpful, wise, and affirming words, and for the genuine laugh-out-loud moment this morning!
And to add to @NYCMusicDad 's comment: I think the practice, preparation, study…can extend from the instrument to the college search as well to help alleviate self-doubt.
In my D’s jr year, I remember having some real doubts. Not being musical, music acceptances seemed so mysterious and complicated. For my D, she was doing a lot of avoidance in Jr year as I’m sure she too was concerned. But as we started visiting schools, listening to choirs, seeing productions, my D became a lot more confident (and me too!). She also went from an early list of big, impressive names (bc that all she knew) to a much more thoughtful list (with a variety of schools) as she learned more. I think as they engage more with the process, they start to understand the talent-levels and educational options and begin to adjust to “best fit”.
So @MusicNerd2 I think you and your D are right where you should be. In another year, you’ll probably feel a lot more confident…while still worried…as that’s just how it works.
NYCMusicDad, that is the most wonderful post- the whole entire thing.
“Part of growing through the teen years as a musician is figuring out that that’s not what it’s about, neither is it about being “perfect.” It’s about how to invest your playing or singing with meaning, which again, comes from within, not without.”
I would add composing to the last sentence 
More great posts in this thread.
I wanted to correct an error in my post yesterday, where I estimated that my son gets three rejections/no responses for every venue that books him on a tour. That was a total guess. When I asked my son, it turns out I was off by a factor of ten. He says it’s more like 30 to 1. Yikes, that’s a lot of rejection! In fairness, he says that’s mostly no response as opposed to express rejection. It would still be pretty daunting for me, but he seemed to treat it as just coming with the territory. I think maybe all the rejections he got applying to elite music programs in high school prepared him well for the real world. In any event, his attitude was that so long as he got enough positive responses to put together a good tour, he was happy.
@jazzpianodad - my D has never received as much rejection as she has in the “real world”. However she really does brush it off now (which I think is a big accomplishment for my little snowflake). And the “no responses” seem to be common. She can fly to an audition (after being invited), audition…and never hear back. Nothing … even after a follow-up email with an individual at the company that had been working with her to coordinate the visit. That’s for opera. Theater is a better. They do seem to have the courtesy to say “no thanks”. But she knows this is part of the game; and, like your son, she does get enough yeses to always be about 9 months out with work. But the “no responses”, after an invitation and a flight, are obnoxious imho. Just had to let that out!
For any composers suffering from self-doubt as a result of external criticism here is a great little book- which musicians of all stripes will enjoy
https://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Musical-Invective-Composers-Beethovens/dp/039332009X
Many composers who are now part of the classical canon, suffered incredibly nasty insults. One was told that his score, which the writer had in front of him, in the smallest room of his house (aka bathroom), would soon be in back of him!
I believe Beethoven had some tomatoes thrown at him.
Better stick with the internal motivator!
One thing I have noticed is that often (admittedly not always) the smartest and most talented people I know are also the one’s who are modest and the first to tell you they are not that talented or that smart. I don’t like the term “Imposter syndrome” which is often given to this phenomena. Because I think one reason this is the case is that really smart talented people are aware of possibilities that have not yet been attained or see directions they can go forward. They know they have not “arrived” at some magical top of the heap spot, which in way would result in them having no motivation to work harder or push forward. Feelings of over-confidence can lead to a smugness that does not lend itself to change and risk taking and a feeling that one can and should push boundaries and take risks.
Also very talented smart people appreciate talent and intelligence in others and are happy to have them as their peers. So rather than feeling threatened they see potential and collaboration.
My musician son never had been #1. He was at the top in high school but not #1. He did well in conservatory and grad school but was not #1. And yet like Bridgenail his talent and his strength is in his creativity and his desire to create. He has many friends who respect him and like being with him who are at the top and they enjoy working with him because of what he brings to the table (his thinking and ideas and creative imagination) and because he is respectful of their strengths and allows their strengths to shine.
I have a mathematician son who is also not #1 and probably never will be #1 but I could say the same thing about him. His imagination and creativity allow him to bring to collaborations his own unique perspective. But what really comes through and has allowed him to achieve (he just started a post-doctoral fellowship) is his love of what he does and the fact that that love lets him enjoy other’s achievements and discoveries which in turn fuel his imagination and thinking so he can create and explore and do research.
It is scary to create in a truly original way. Like being the first footstep in a field of snow. But fear is different from self-doubt and they can co-exist.
@bridgenail , that is so rude! I see in town no responses, though I don’t like that either. But to have someone fly in from out of town and then just never tell them anything is too much. We have a local theatre group here that never gives any notification when you are not picked for one of their summer shows after auditions, but they have no problem filling up your email with ads and solicitations forever thereafter.
I think what you’re describing is simply being a modest, nice person, not imposter syndrome, and also not the kind of spin-doctoring that one sees in the classical music conservatory world. I do agree that people who have a sense of early success can sometimes fear risk-taking.
Some of us seasoned posters come from different perspectives–e.g., @compmom and @SpiritManager come from the composing world; @bridgenail and @“Mezzo’sMama” from the vocalist world; @StacJip from the jazz world (did I get that right?) So we’re coming from different contexts in which there is not always a lot of overlap. I’m speaking from the world of classical players, and even more specifically from strings, so some of what I write might not be applicable to all situations, but I do have a very long perspective on this world.
Imposter syndrome tends to occur when you wind up in a rarefied world (e.g., a top conservatory or a finalist in a competition) and suffer from an internal crisis of confidence (“Do I belong here?”) even when, to others, everything on the exterior indicates that you do. Often it happens when you go from being the big fish to being a normal-size fish in the new pond. This is a feeling college students experience in other (nonmusical) scenarios, of course, and beyond, although people tend not to talk about. I teach at a prominent, and somewhat stressful (students tell me) university and a few years ago one of my favorite students gave the valedictory speech about her feelings of not belonging (imposter syndrome) even though she obviously did quite well enough to graduate with high honors. I met with her for lunch recently and she told me that three years later people are still talking about her speech–strangers, including the school’s elite athletes, a high-achieving graduates in many other disciplines came up to her and told her how much they relate to what she talked about. I think this feeling is more endemic among young people today than it was in my day, as now so much emphasis is placed on striving for admission to elite institutions.
The flip side of imposter syndrome is the spin-doctoring technique that absolutely exists in these competitive world. Students who claim not to study (but have more-than-perfect GPAs), musicians who claim not to practice. The point is to promote an image of oneself as a natural genius (*yes, there are a few ultra-talented people who can get away with almost no practice or almost no studying, but most high-achieving students are actually working pretty hard.) The intended effect, in addition to burnishing one’s image, is to discourage the competition. There’s a huge difference between, “I practiced 8 hours a day and got into the finals” and “Oh, I woke up ten minutes before the audition and sight-read the Strauss, haha. Now that I passed I guess I’ll have to look at the score.” Imagine how it feels to kid #1 to hear kid #2 talking about effortlessly achieving what s/he struggled over.
Love glassharmonica’s take on spin-doctoring, which goes on at places like Harvard all the time. It’s not cool to work hard, but of course it’s not cool to fail either, so the common pose is to succeed without the appearance of working.
I think “imposter syndrome” can happen to people with natural talent . It is almost a guilt thing. If you are born with a talent, of course you have to work hard to make things happen, but at the early stages, success may come too easily. After many years of very hard work, it tends to dissipate.
We really do all come from different contexts. This is an interesting thread though with very different kinds of musical pursuits, so it is true there may not be a lot of overlap. Self doubt in the context of a young musician auditioning or attending a high level music program is very different from the self-doubt of a composer sitting alone wondering if an idea has really worked. So sorry for introducing the topic of apples when oranges were under discussion!
Whatever the musical area of study, I do think that self-doubt eases after many years of work, if the talent is there.
Absolutely–it’s a kind of anxiety, it doesn’t mean the person who feels this way isn’t talented and hardworking.
What I meant is that natural talent feels unearned. Hard work with less talent can also achieve success but feels deserved. So imposters syndrome can be a manifestation of success coming too easily.
I guess that could be true in some cases… but in my experience people seems to value less what comes to them easily. And natural talent is (by definition, I guess, unearned.) “Talent” is a slippery term. I define it as aptitude, but aptitude needs to be developed.
Glassharmonica,
It isn’t just spin-doctoring or imposter syndrome or modesty or just being a nice person. The super smart intelligent people I know have an awareness that being successful is not just about natural talent or hard work but can also be about luck and timing and many other dimensions. Smart intelligent people know success is not achieved by some formula or by checking off all the boxes. A truly thoughtful and intelligent person will have a sense of gratitude that they are allowed to do what they love and that comes through when they talk to others… And they also have a drive to continue to improve and work and inspire.
Oh and FYI my son is a Jazz Bass player but towards the end of his undergraduate career he started studying with a classical professor and then continued to work with a classical Bass player in graduate school.