For anyone who might be listening:
I am now certain that Hope is no longer my friend. I wait, breath no longer abated, for Dignity to be quietly whisked away. Conversing with Dispair I find that it is my only companion, Sorrow my only refuge.
Many of you know that I have been working on my music degree for 13 years now on and off. Last year I was told not to expect to graduate this year and was ok with adding another year. A couple of weeks ago I found out my program co-ordinator was requiring another 3 years, solely for piano lessons. She told me to take solace in the fact that these lessons could be taken during the spring and summer to expedite the process, but they were necessary nonetheless. My husband and I have already spent $75,000 on this degree and I have given 13 years of my life to it both inside and out of the classroom. We decided before the year began that this would be my last year regardless of whether I graduated or not. We have already sacrificed the priviledge of owning our own house and buying our own car for this, and now we have reached the limit of what we are willing to sacrifice.
I set out this year to prove that I have overcome my performance anxiety, officially the only thing stopping me from graduating. I had hoped to change the minds of the administration and convince them I am really ready. I kind of understand them wanting me to be able to perform in public before they will give me a performance degree so I faced the mountain before me and said to it, "before this year is out, I will look back and you will be a mole hill, regardless of whether I graduate or not." I have pursued that goal with a vengence. I spend somewhere in the neighbourhood of 8-9 hours a day on the piano on the weekends. I thoroughly enjoy playing that much and I feel like I am making way better progress than I ever did before. I have already pretty much mastered an exercise given to me the first week of class this year and am trying to work through the one that has been my greatest challenge since day 1.
This is all well and good, but nowhere near worthy of the reaction you saw today. The impetus for that came from a conversation I had with my piano teacher today. I have been concerned with my progress in piano lessons as I know I will be years getting to a level of mastery the school is comfortable with at the rate I am going. I asked my piano teacher today whether I have viable skills as a musician, citing my composition and arranging skills and increased momentum in my lessons as evidence. He said they are awesome skills but you don't need a degree to do that and you won't make a living off it. He said that at the rate I'm going I shouldn't expect to be able to make any kind of decent living in the music industry either.
Please note that I long ago abandoned any ideas of making a "decent" living. My inability to keep the easiest of jobs and my frustration in the classroom have basically proven to me that I am not a bread-winner. That's my husband's job. I am just doing my best to find a place in this world that will give my existence some meaning and purpose. Something that will give some sense to the muck and mire that has been my life. There are MANY things in my life I have been told I can't do: be a secretary, be a shipping clerk, teach music for someone else's academy. The only thing that I have never been told I can't do is music. It is what I turn to when I am dispairing and when I am joyful. It is what gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. It is the last shred of hope I have before I sit down and listen to the voice in my head that screams loudly on a regular basis that I am a waste of human flesh and I should just crawl under a rock and die. I am grasping desperately to hold onto that hope as I am not convinced that my school sees the entire picture, but the intense respect and reverence I have for the musicians I am learning from gives their voice quite a bit of credibility in my mind. If they were to tell me the sky was green, I might just believe them for a little while.
Please know that all I have ever wanted to do with my life is to make music, whether I am composing my own or reproducing someone else's. The moment when I can forget about the mechanical side of reading the music and give myself to God's inspiration within the melodies and rhythms is sheer ecstasy to me. I feel like I am at home with God and we are playing around together. I can't leave that feeling behind but the venues where I would like to have explored this require some kind of certification. To work in a church, I have to have a certification that says I know the bible, to market myself as a musician, I need a past history of talent and skill, to join an orchestra, I need either conservatory or university training. I can't help but feel that I should be contributing to my household either by having and raising children or earning some money so we can be comfortable while we cope with not being able to right now and with what my piano teacher said today, I am feeling that door close very firmly in my face.
There are several things going through my heart right now. Most of them are anger directed at different people. Some at the people who told me I had to have a university degree to do anything when I was 19 years old, some at myself for believing them and wasting $75000 of my family's money, some at the education system for being so inflexible, some at the prostitutes who tried to kill me when I was 16 as it is the brain injury I got from that fight that has made it so I have to deal with these challenges. Ultimately there is no one to blame for this unfortunate circumstance and so my heart is broken that by no fault of my own, the thing from which I have drawn all of my value might be taken away from me.
The reason you saw the post you did was because this one hurts enough that I am not able to find the positive. I know it's there. If nothing else, God has taught me in my life that there is always a brighter side. This time I am hurting so bad that I am having trouble even looking for it. I have a meeting this Thursday with the Academic Dean, my program director and my piano teacher to discuss my program and I hope to convince them that there is something I can do, but have already been told there's not much point.
Please pray for me. I know that God's will is ultimately going to prevail whatever it may be and even if it is that I won't be able to graduate, some good will come of it. For today, I am left hurting very badly and feeling very alone. That said, it won't stop me from performing at Rockin' the Pygmy this Thursday, I just don't know exactly what I will be playing. Hopefully it will include Surrender.
3 comments:
I think one of the underlying problems here is your self-perception as a musician. Is it really the music that has pulled you through so many things? or was it artistic expression, and the ability to express yourself and your emotions through art. Music is just a medium for Art, and although art may not need interpretation, Music and performance is about approval. Especially if you want someone/thing to accredit you. It means that unless you fall into their cookie cuttter impression of what a musician is, you don't get accredited. So, when have you ever fallen into someone's cookie cutter? You are a unique individual and an artist through and through. when you sit at the piano, do your drill songs so that you have every technical aspect nailed? or do you feel the music flow through you right from your soul? If it's the later than THAT is the definition of art right there!!
I know that when I sing, I do it because I HAVE TO!! I wake up in the morning and it's usually the first thing I want to do, have I tried to get a degree in voice? HELL NO. Why? because I don't want to lose the satisfaction and joy that singing brings to me. I don't want approval and accreditation from a body that thinks I need to sing a certain way. and I don't want to second guess myself when I let my spirit fly through song. I sing the way I SING. that's my voice, my art, and my soul. God gave me a voice and the passion to use it without reservation.
Just embrace who you are and the music you create. It is your soul, your expression, your rock, your lifeline, and no one is allowed to tell you how it should or shouldn't work.
Seconded.
"The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best." You can't compare yourself to others - like Heath said, if it's in you to do it...do it. That's where the beauty is. Plus, who says who is best? There's far better technical singers than Bono, doesn't mean I'd rather see them in concert. It's about soul. Whatever is in you - give it to the world.
Open yourself to being free from outside criticism. Take it for what it's worth, be humble enough to hear it, but when it comes to the THING that is inside you - just let it out. That's the challenge for everybody. The worth that is in you - in all of us? The struggle is always - ALWAYS - to deny us that. It takes courage and determination to see yourself for everything that you are. The encouraging part is that you have everything you need.
Created with it.
Love yourself. Don't beat yourself up. It will be a mole hill when you look back. Take each day as it comes.
The time when you can't even bring yourself to find the positive? Let go. Just let go. Even for a few minutes.
And the more you can silence the shitty thoughts, and replace them with thoughts of love towards yourself (and your life), your whole perspective will shift.
Working on all of this myself. Keep going.
P.S. I know a lot of that sounds cliche, but it's been truth for me.
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