Maybe music isn't for everyone- should I quit forever?

College Majors Music Major
1

So I think I need some advice.

I am a sophomore in High School (10th grade).
I have been learning classical guitar for almost 2 years.

This is LONG, so read just #6, or the summary at the bottom.

Lately I’ve been really stressed out.

  1. In my life, people have always said I have no talent- when I was 5,6,7 years old, my mom always said "If you had any musical talent, you would've shown it by now." I was always insecure concerning music. I never listened to music at all until I was 10 or 11. I also struggled with depression during this time, since I felt I had no purpose in life.
  2. Sooo almost 2 years ago, I managed to convince my parents to get me classical guitar lessons in the city, 90 miles away. We live in a small farm town with no art scene or music programs at all. After a rocky start, I suddenly felt like I had a purpose in life, through learning this instrument. Music invaded every corner of my life. I checked out CDs, videos, and books about guitar music. I bought recordings. At the high point of my life I practiced 6 hours a day, waking up at 6 a.m.

Now after 2 years my teacher gave me stuff like Grade 8 Level stuff. (Suite Del Recuerdo)

  1. I admired some players so much, I would dream about being like them. I had fantasies, about buying a quality instrument, being a music major, and playing fabulously well. And yes, winning competitions and stuff was part of the fantasy. (I am aware now this was pretty delusional, haha.)
  2. However, during this whole time, I was plagued with doubt and stress. My parents had always told me that 'classical music was for privileged, fancy wealthy people.' They said that 'this was not their dream for me.' So I worried that I started too old, I did not have enough privilege, or a nice instrument. There was always an undercurrent of frustration and stress to everything I did. I would often have nervous breakdowns in the night. But I thought, if I practice enough, I could accomplish anything. At this time I was certain I was going to be a musician.
  3. Lately I really dug in, researched stuff on the internet and read the bio's of a bunch of players. And my discovery was that, of course, the top-level players started young, had all kinds of privilege, programs, master classes, master teachers, etc. In fact most players who I ever heard about had these things. In fact I developed the impression that most people who play an instrument at all started young and just had more opportunities.

Of course this was no surprise, but I just fully realized the sheer number of people who play an instrument, the amount of time and money their parents spend on them, all the pre-college programs and classes and stuff.

  1. I figured- I have none of those things, only lessons. Even the best I could do- maybe get into a conservatory for undergrad or something- would it be worth it? Because honestly there are so many musicians, my life doesn't fit in with the mold. I would never be able to make much of an impact on the music world, never really accomplish anything, never play anything uniquely or do anything original. Those things would be done by the people who had the resources, teachers, and programs.

I honestly think music is not a meritocracy that I thought it was. Sure, practice counts, but the people with the most supportive environments, parents, and opportunities will always shine brightest. And that is frustrating.

  1. Anyway I really have no idea, I like my lessons and teacher a lot. However, I don't really think I am going to be a musician anymore. (I don't want to be a teacher anyways.) My time would probably be better spent on something I could be good at, really good at- because I always wanted to really make an impact, and say something to the world. I have other interests like art, I could spend the day studying art- maybe take art lessons- because art is something I would have no problem studying in college.

Most of my day is consumed by practicing, but I am thinking maybe it would be best if I quit- completely.

Summary: I am thinking about quitting classical guitar for good, since it consumes so much of my day, and I don’t think I have the opportunities to become very good. Privileged people who started young and had support, teachers, etc. do those things, so in comparison I’ll be mediocre at best. The time spent practicing might be better spent on something else.

2

Have you talked to your teacher about this? He or she might be able to give you some guidance.

3

No, I haven’t, but I haven’t a lesson this week yet either.

Anyway, what kind of guidance could he possibly give, honestly? I can predict what he’s say, something like ‘welll you can quit if you want, but music can be a fulfulling hobby etc etc’

Sorry the OP was so long, my point was, playing an instrument stresses me out so much, maybe it would be better if I quit. I just typed to organize my thoughts.

4

If you love it. Do it. At some point you have to stand up for yourself and what you believe in and pursue music if that’s what you want. Privilege doesn’t make you practice or give you talent. Many people go to conservatories without X amount of master classes or camps.

I feel bad I have 5 kids and can’t give my music major son an expensive cello, expensive Conservatory and camps But I’m not telling him to quit. He will forge his way in spite of it. And we are in that privilege category btw. But having 5 kids evens things out a bit.

5

@cellomom6 Thanks for replying, I guess I don’t know if I love it or not anymore. I am bogged down by stress, beating myself up, and sometimes I feel like I have nothing.

Doesn’t your cellist son ever feel discouraged thinking about all the cello prodigies out there? x.x

6

I created an account just to respond to you, sushidog.

I am a music parent. Years ago, I could have been you. My parents told me my career goals were silly or worthless, or I was not smart enough or talented enough to succeed in this field or that field.

Save your future self the pain and bitterness of regret. Hang on to your dreams, and go after them – hard. Start NOW – right now, this very instant – telling yourself positive things to drown out those negative voices. If you don’t, those negatives will follow you throughout your life and plague you.

My further advice to you, advice that I wish I could give to my younger self, is to find people who will tell you encouraging things. Surround yourself with a supportive community. And, I am sorry to say this, but you will need to think about putting some distance between yourself and your parents. Your life belongs to you, not to your parents, not to a boyfriend or girlfriend, to you. You get to make your own choices, celebrate your own successes, own and learn from your own mistakes. Living your life to please others or to fulfill their dreams for you will leave you feeling lost, empty and inadequate.

If you want to be a musician, be a musician. I doubt it will be easy – many things aren’t – and odds are you will not be a multimillionaire international superstar – most people aren’t. But do you think you will be happy as an accountant or a computer programmer, or will you wake up one day, thirty years from, wishing you had stuck with your original dream? If you need music to be the focal point of your life, make it the focal point, one way or another.

You sound so unhappy. I recognize that unhappiness. Believe me, it will not just go away on its own. Know yourself, be yourself; it’s really okay to do that.

7

Definitely talk to your music teacher about how you feel.

First - how do you know you’re mediocre compare to others? Maybe you think that because you are comparing yourself to someone with more experience, and you just aren’t there yet.

Many musicians hit that plateau - think they aren’t good enough, that music life is all about practice to get better (it sort of is) and can’t keep pushing through. Maybe you need more challenges? My daughter started playing during lunch at school, eventually the school administrators noticed and asked if she wanted to play at lunch on the outdoor stage every Friday.

Coming from a privileged background does not make the musician, though it can help. The extra practice, passion will take you further than instruction. Master classes, yes it helps, but sometimes those do not come until later in life. Our family has two kinds of musicians - professional and hobbyist. The professional ones love love love playing, and many opportunities did not come to them until college years and after… One retired to be a music teacher at a university in another country and another is a musician in a major city’s philharmonic and also private teaches. A few more all went to school for music and work as session musicians, part time instructors. What separates them from the family hobbyist musician is that they had the dedication and desire to keep going with practice and passion whereas others has chosen music to be a hobby.

I don’t know if my family story helps, but I do hate to see someone love music and give it up. Passion and practice really make a difference, that cannot be given to a child of privilege.

Read about Jewell, while it’s a different kind of music, she started late and didn’t give up. And many people start classical guitar in their teen years - Jim Ferguson for one.

Reach out to those in your local music community. Find people who share your passion and reevaluate if you need to quit. Find a way to stay involved in music, record yourself, start a YouTube channel or just to chart your progress. Check and see if there are places near you that you can busk - which will give yourself more practice at performing. Do what you can to keep yourself performing so that you get more feedback from just your parents.

Good luck to you.

8

You sound very frustrated. It may be that there’s more “shades of gray” than the choice you present of either going to a conservatory or quitting music altogether. If music is truly your passion, there are ways for you to make it an important part of your life, either as a career or as an amateur. Not all working musicians - indeed, not even most of them - are at that top tier, but they juggle performing and teaching and often other kinds of paid work to make it happen. And then there are those folks who spend part of their day getting paid to be IT people or doctors or janitors or whatever but come alive at 5:00 when they join their adult ensemble or sit down with their instrument.

If you stopped practicing, would your life be enhanced or kind of empty?

9

Sushidog123. To answer your questIon. He doesn’t worry about the cello prodigies at all.lol. I wish he would worry a little more. He is best friends with some amazing musicians and isn’t intimidated at all. He just knows he loves music, breathes music and wants to do it.

He is human. Hearing amazing cellists in the practice rooms right before auditions, he was a little intimidated. But he said he was fine in the green room right before and chit chatted with the other cellists. Of course I feel cellists can be quite friendly with each other so maybe that’s why he was able to relax. There must be an advantage to not caring what other people do. My son focuses on his goals and really doesn’t worry about what other people do. It’s frustrating to me as a parent sometimes but I can see how it has worked for him.

And only quit if that is what you want to do. Music will not be the only thing that will frustrate you or be the only time you will feel inadequate. It happens no matter what you pursue. Set your goal and do it.

10

@ sushidog123-

What you are experiencing is common with music students and those with a passion for it, it kind of comes with the territory. I doubt it will make you feel any better, but I can tell you that the same doubts, same fears, same questions also hit the kids you are calling prodigies (more on that in a bit), the top level music students who have done the summer programs and master classes and so forth. My son’s freshman year he made friends with a fellow violin student who had just come off winning one of the most prestigious international competitions there is, and my son was kind of shocked to hear him sounding a lot like he (my son) does, with the doubts and such. It goes with the territory, so you aren’t alone.

And yes, you are right, there is an element of elitism to the classical music world, the fact is that there are advantages to being near major music centers, to have the resources for private teachers and summer music festivals and parents willing to support that, it isn’t a level playing field, and anyone who tells you it is is quite frankly lying. It ranges from the sublime to the idiotic, believe me, there are Korean girls even today (talking in Korea), from well of families, who basically are ‘bred for battle’, they will do violin lessons several days a week, they have private tutors, and they practice a ridiculous amount each day from the time they are 5 or 6…funny thing is, even with all that,many of them end up not doing much, they achieve a level of technical excellence, but end up not doing much, the kids in Chinese state programs start very young and are expected to practice literally all day and so forth, but much the same thing…

I can’t say if you want to go into music, it will be easy, it never is, that is the point, and quite honestly, while doing the summer programs and the pre college programs and such give advantages, they don’t define everything either. I don’t know how well you play, plus I am not too familiar with classical guitar (it is both very competitive, that I can tell you, and also has a weird place in classical music), but your background doesn’t necessarily limit you, either, and in the end it really depends on your passion and willingness to make a go at it. I agree, you should talk to your teacher and ask, at the very least he probably knows what is out there and the roadblocks and such, and can give you something of an assessment. The key thing you have going for you is the passion, believe me, and the fact that you practice the way you have, and have been listening to music, enveloping yourself in it, and that is huge. I can tell you this, I have been around a lot of high level music students, my son went to one of the best pre college programs around, and so many of the kids there played brilliantly, and quite frankly couldn’t care less about the music itself, they didn’t listen to it, didn’t care about the theory and such, and it showed in their playing.

In terms of the ‘prodigies’, I am sure you are talking about those young kids you see on talk shows and such, playing these incredible pieces, awing everyone with ‘how brilliant they are’…and what I can tell you is that a huge percentage of those prodigies end up throwing the instrument away when they hit the adolescent years, and many of those who do go on don’t achieve much, struggle to really make it. A lot of it is despite what the parents claim, the kids were pushed and put out there like a performing circus animal, and the kids end up resenting it, plus many of them never learn to play properly, and as they get older the old ‘instincts’ fail. The ones that do make it are the exceptions, and they do it because they love the music, too

I am no polyanna, music is rough, but it is rough for everyone, and the thing you have to keep in mind is that if you go forward and try, and it doesn’t work, you still have the music, the love of it, and whether you try to do it professionally, part time or full time, or do it as a side light that drives you forward, it is there, and the idea of ‘studying something else’ because ‘it is practical’ sounds really tempting, but if you quit and do that, you may never know what you are missing. And one piece of advice I can give you, based on personal experience, the time to try out your passion is when you are young, because at least then you know, the worst thing in the world is to get to my age, and look back and wonder “what if I had been able to find my passion?”. I am not complaining, I have had a good life, I have a great family and have a son who is going for his passion and that makes all the hard work I am doing worth it, but there still is that looking back and wondering…and if you go for guitar, and it doesn’t work out, you can look back and say “you know what, I went for it,I loved doing it, and it is a part of me”.

In the end the decision is yours, but know that your position, the relative disadvantages you have experienced, are not the end of the world and many kids feel like you do, the kids in the top music schools get the same feeling, believe me, it is not unusual when doing something hard. I can’t say it will be easy, I can’t say “if you work hard enough of course you’ll do well”, it doesn’t work like that, what I can tell you, as another poster did, that if you show that committment and passion to do what you are doing, despite your parents not being supportive, despite the odds facing you, and you choose not to go forward there is a fairly good likelyhood you later will look back and regret not trying.

The other thing to keep in mind is you don’t necessarily have to go to a conservatory, you could go to a school with a good guitar department and get a BA degree (which also leaves room, quite honestly, if you feel the guitar doesn’t work out, to switch to something else), there are a lot of paths. Others who know the guitar world may be more solid with specifics, but your teacher is definitely the first step. I am very realistic when it comes to music, it is a harsh muse, probably always has been, and I cannot evaluate how good you are, about how things work in the guitar end of things, where you stack up against other students, but I also don’t like to see someone pulling back without knowing there also is hope. Again, the best starting point is your teacher, if they tell you “look, kid, you love the guitar and you should keep playing it, but realistically, kids are way ahead of you and you won’t be able to get into a decent program”, then it could be time to evaluate, but he/she could also say “You know, you are rough around the edges, but the practicing is paying off, and with the continued hard work, I think you have a shot at getting into a good program”, then it would be foolish to drop it based just on doubts. You have some time, too, if you are a sophomore, by the time you hit next year this time, spring of your junior year, you will know more and things will be clearer, one way or the other.

11

@musicprnt You often say that line about ‘prodigies not accomplishing much,’ why is that?

Doesn’t it seem logical that these people who have multiple lessons, the best teachers, and the most practice are also the best musicians.

By the way, thanks for your reply. I am better today.

12

A lot of kids are pushed very hard by the parents when they are young, for any number of reasons. The parent may be living vicariously through the child, or enjoying the attention of having a little prodigy. Or the parent may genuinely believe that they are doing their best of the child. Or the parent maybe believe that performing music a high level will be the child’s ticket to Harvard. What Musicprnt means is that, if the child’s motivation for music is not intrinsic, then once the child has any agency in his or her life, he or she will push back and may abandon music altogether, or may burn out psychologically. It’s almost a catch-22 sometimes. When my daughter was little I never forced her to practice and I encouraged her to have a lot of outside interests. I knew she would be a musician but I wanted her to be a rounded and educated artist. When she was 17 she said she regretted she was not forced to practice 5 hours a day like the kids she was competing with, who were technically flawless. Of course, the story is not over…who knows which approach was the better one. My instinct is that I was right.

13

I didn’t force my 17 year old son to practice either. And he wishes I did. But I’m sure sure he would rebelled. His friend who was forced to practice and is a great cellist is ditching it in college. And not even minoring in music in college. Perhaps he will change his mind once he gets to decide for himself.

14

Talent vs. the best. My husband was a running coach for a time. When they recruited it would be easy to sit in an office, look at the finishing times (not subjective in athletics) and recruit “the best”. Why not? It’s completely logical.

However this “logic” ignores the human elements of talent, “coachability” and background. It makes huge assumptions that the present situation predicts future success. All a coach would need to do is recruit the fastest kid and they would be the fastest forever. Right? Very logical.

The reality is some kids are talented runners but haven’t come out of top programs. Coaches know this. However these kids are talented and eager and ready to excel with the right coaching. Some kids out of top programs are at their peak and may be arrogant or uncoachable. Or maybe they are losing interest. Or maybe they have pushed too hard and have unseen injuries that will stop their progress. Or they have been a big dog all their life and now at college holy crap they aren’t anymore and they can’t handle psychologically. Coaches through experience have seen all of this. So they recruit based on many things.

Change all this to music and maybe it will be more understandable.

Usually talent comes from inside you. Not from the outside. You’ll never know you have it bc it feels slippery. But if you love music and play a lot…there’s a good chance you have some talent and should see where it will take you if you enjoy it and don’t try to “figure” it out too much. Any level of musical interest and talent could help you with your college admissions (music degree or not) and future contentment.

15

Glassharmonica hit the nail on the head (more than likely, because she has been around the types I am talking about and has seen these things play out). Child prodigies who make it as adult musicians are pretty rare, and many of them have sad stories, there is one violinist right now who as a child and teen was considered out there, whose career seems to have stalled out…Yehudi Menuhin was probably the prodigy of all prodigies, as a child he literally played like an adult, his recordings stand out, and as an adult while he was a beloved performer, his performances were all over the place, he basically suddenly lost his ability to play when he hit his late teens/20s, and never really gained back what he lost. The Cellist Janos Starker, likewise a ‘child prodigy’, saw Menuhin right after the war and worried he, too, would lose it, and basically retaught himself the cello (and ended up writing a book on technique based on what he did)…it happens. My own theory, besides what GlassHarmonica wrote, is that prodigies tie into something available to kids, probably around learning language, and that natural skill dies when you are about 13 or 14 (it is a well understood fact that kids learn languages like sponges, whereas once you get to be about 13 or 14, your ability to learn languages and speak like a native is all but lost). Prodigies basically operate on instinct, in a sense they bypass the learning process, and I think that ‘natural ability’ goes away and they don’t know what to do…but that is my theory only.

Achieving in music is a weird thing, and there is no set formula. A lot of the ‘prodigies’ you see have achieved tremendous technical achievement because they were pressured into practicing long hours from an early age, it is basically a wrote process, but that doesnt’ necessarily translate into musical achievement. Besides the resentment, many of these prodigies see themselves as soloists, and the thing about being a soloist is technical achievement alone isn’t going to cut it, someone playing a piece perfectly might please context judges and music teachers, but would elicit yawns from audience members. And yes, I have heard the same thing from my son, that he wished he had started the serious practicing earlier (he started doing that at roughly 11 or so), has said we should have forced him, but if we had he probably would have quit the instrument, and we certainly were not going to force him to keep playing it if he didn’t want to, there is nothing sadder than seeing a kid playing who has talent and the technical chops, but it is obvious they are forced to play it…and many of the prodigies I saw were forced by their parents, and while loudly proclaiming ‘it was about the child, their desire to play music’, they would have them on talk shows, and have them performing all over the place, with ads saying “made their carnegie hall debut at 6” (when it was some music school had a recital there and rented out the hall, or some local music competition), you name it…

What I and others were trying to say is that measuring yourself against other people is useful to a certain extent, but that in the end what makes a working musician is not that cut and dried,bridgenail hit the head, with the athletics analogy, there are athletes with tremendous natural talent who never make it as a player, often self destructing, there is a direct analogy there in the effort it takes, the importance of coaching and coachability and so forth. The reality is a lot of the ones I am talking about never end up doing much, where someone without those benefits goes on and find their passion and carves out something in music for themselves. Some of it, quite frankly, is that the prodigy/high performers as hard as they work and have achieved, are difficult to work with, they often eschew ensemble performing, think they are going to be the next great soloist, and have a rude awakening, whereas the kids that have to work hard, who know they have flaws, tend in the end to be easier to work with and end up with being part of ensembles and such because of that. A lot of it comes down to hard work, and also taking every opportunity you have and are given, and using it to the utmost. Glassharmonica’s daughter I think has as good a chance as anyone in terms of making it in music, and is a good prototype of what it takes I think, she has the passion,she has talent, she works her tail off and more importantly, from what I have seen and know of her, she takes any opportunities she is given and runs with them, something to be honest the more ‘superstar’ music students often won’t do, she has from what I can tell persevered through her doubts, worked her way through things (I am sure, not without drama from time to time, as I know only too well with my son lol), and that really, really is important. One of the problems with being one of the prodigies or stars is when suddenly you run into a wall, when suddenly it isn’t all flowing, they don’t really know what to do, it is kind of like the big fish in the small pond issue, when they wake up and realize nothing is handed to you, they may not know what to do.

16

Thank you to all the posters for the wise words…you are all so generous and helpful! As a parent, while we want the best for our kids, it really it up to each kid to determine their own path, even when it is a path we may not have envisioned.

17

I agree with Musicprnt: this is the definition of a true prodigy, as distinguished from a naturally talented bright kid who is intensely pressured into extraordinary achievement at a young age. A true prodigy-- like little Sarah Chang, or Menuhin, is rare. Sarah is one of few who seemed to be a fully functioning artist practically from birth, and who continues on an artistic path as an adult. But even Sarah worked hard as a little girl. There was a lot of spin about how little she practice, but I’ve heard insider stories (she’s from my area) that belie the story that she a regular kid who just happened to play as well as she did. She actually worked very hard.

Thanks for your kind words about my daughter, Musicprnt–our kids are fairly alike in this way. Both had normal childhoods, albeit with a bit more discipline than their playground friends, and a joy in music and a tremendous work ethic. They are talented, but not at the Sarah Chang level, or even the level of some of their fantastically gifted peers. They have not had a lot handed to them (other than the extraordinary luck of being born into families able and willing to support their music education, and access to good mentors), which in the end is probably an advantage because they build a lot of survival skills.

18

@ glassharmonica-

I would give you an argument about Sarah Chang, I think she may have run into prodigy burnout as well, I have heard things from musicians who have played in orchestras where she was soloing, and they said that she is struggling, I also have heard from the grapevine that there may be other factors at work there, too, that wouldn’t surprise me…the thing about many of the young kids who display the incredible playing is that their teachers don’t have to do much, other than show them how to hold the fiddle and the bow, it kind of flows from them…and then that well gets cut off. Janos Starker who spent the last X years of his life teaching at Indiana, said that when parents brought in kids to study with him the minute the parent referred to the kid as a prodigy he would get made and yell at them in Hungarian, basically telling them that if they said that word any more around him, he would kick them in the butt…he then went on to say that he yelled at the parents and told them if the kid studied with him, it would be about tv appearances and concerts promoting the kid as a prodigy, it was going to mean the kid worked his tail off, and then would work some more, because Starker was going to make sure they learned how to play the cello, not be a prodigy. One of the violin teachers at Juilliard, when they agree to take on young, talented kids,the first thing they do is tell the parents no tv shows, no concerts promoting the kid as a prodigy, none of that, and if he found out they were doing that, he would stop teaching the child…unfortunately, some teachers, especially the mediocre ones, see a child like that as a chance to some instant fame, rather than a kid who needs serious guidance.

19

You may be right about Sarah. Come to think of it, it’s years since I heard her play or perform with a class A orchestra. I hope she’s okay–she was the real deal prodigy. Maybe Josh Bell is a better example.

20

Coming late to this discussion but I just wanted to give you some food for thought. The world is littered with highly accomplished people in their fields who failed before they ended up succeeding. There are artists who were told they could not paint or draw, scientists who were told they were not smart enough or who failed their classes, people who felt as though they were average and nothing special but who had a passion and poured their time and energy into it only to achieve something great. Our culture has an almost unhealthy obsession with the prodigy and as others have said that obsession prevents people from seeing all the other dimensions that allow somebody to achieve and make a difference in a field. One of the most important dimensions is determination and hard work and a willingness to devote time and focus to something you care about.

Our obsessions with prodigies also ignores brain development. Brains are constantly developing and changing well into young adulthood. Some people are just late-bloomers. As the parent of three late bloomers who are now high achievers I can tell you that it was stressful for them as teens because it felt as though everyone was on this rail-road track they could not get on. Looking back their individual detours gave them insight and perspective and time to sort out what they were truly passionate about it. Their indirect paths provided food for ideas and creative approaches to problems, that somebody who was just a straight out success in their field would not have.

So remember it is OK to TRY and it is OK to FAIL. As our son said when he went off to conservatory, if I decide I do not want to be a musician or if I can not be a musician the things I am learning as a musician have taught me I can learn anything and I am not worried about a future a career change if it is necessary. At the time my non-music oriented mom brain thought, “Oh good…conservatory, post-bac, medical school.” OOPS…didn’t work out that way…he is now going the conservatory, musician route.