The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: runner
Date: 2007-11-29 16:46
How do you all keep a positive self image with all the competitiveness in the music world.
There are so many good players and only a few get that "plum" gig. Some good players never seem to get that opportunity.
This is most prevelant amongst pianists. I never was that good that it directly affected me. What do you all think.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2007-11-29 23:30
Find your own style and your own way of working at things.
I had the good fortune of having some teachers that started me on a bunch of concepts that can be worked at for a lifetime. Since I'm always working on that, and I know it is something of high quality to work at, self-image isn't something that I care to worry about.
If you get to the point where you know how something sounds when it's right and how to make what you do sound more like that ideal, the focus changes from "they're doing it better/worse than me" to "they're doing it right/wrong." When they do it right, I'm happy for them, because I get to hear it done right. When they do it wrong, I'm upset because I had to hear it done wrong, and even if I really really dislike that person, I would *much* rather hear them play it right than be smugly schadenfreuding at their butchery of music, and, if anything, I want to run in there and shout "you're doing it wrong!!!"
Granted, right/wrong are not entirely objective, but still...
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-11-30 14:16
I took an interesting survey during college that was about this. There were about 2-3 pages of questions about self-image. It all seemed a normal set of questions, but the last page had one question that turned it all around- 'What is your current Grade Point Average?'
Every time I think of that I wonder more and more what the result of the study was. Do those with good self image succed more? Or, Does a bad self image make one want to get better and better?
Maybe I will never know...
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