a.k.a. when you try your best but you don't succeed
Lyrics not that relevant, beyond feeling lonely and saturated with the ennui of life. But it's something I'm listening to right now*
Just spent the better part of the last 4 months preparing a piano concerto for a competition with my university orchestra. Used to be pretty into classical piano, and it's probably the only thing in which I have any semblance of "talent" (though I definitely started early and regular practice was a massive part of it). But I kind of gave it up toward the end of high school to focus on college apps and all that. First couple years of college I also spent mostly just trying to stay afloat in class and picking up stuff career-wise etc. But my last year of college, I kinda just felt in a rut, got out of a breakup, like I didn't have anything to look forward to, and didn't have any genuine passions, and I decided that I didn't want to give up on my dream of one day performing a concerto with an orchestra. Right around now everyone's getting ready to go off into the world and follow their dreams and everything, and I'm just here alone puttering around aimlessly, a tremendously useless sack of shit.
To that end:
Joined the university orchestra, as only music majors and symphony members can participate in the school competition (where winners get to perform with the orchestra)
Learned percussion to join the orchestra since they had no need for any more keyboardists. I've done like a year of mallet percussion in high school, but also picked up all the other stuff to join the orchestra
My university also has very limited practice room access so I spent a lot of time haggling and finagling about access to legitimate practice rooms so I could practice
Bought attenuating earplugs because the rooms are much too loud, and would hurt your ears if you practiced too long haha
Practiced maybe 2-3 hours per day for this entire approximately 15-week period
Every other weekend, I went back home to my childhood piano teacher for lessons (2 hour drive between school and teacher), and took some lessons with teachers around the school as well
In order to find an accompanist, since all of the usual people in the area were unavailable, I jumped through a lot of hoops and mass-emailed people to help
Accompanist and I only can get one practice in, but I take a few pages of notes on ensemble and send it over to him before the competition
Obviously, I scheduled my entire semester around this, taking a lighter courseload etc (though my classes ended up fucking me anyway and being way harder than I anticipated, just barely staying alive)
I know that a lot of the competitors are either majors or otherwise have been practicing throughout college while I've just been struggling to make it through my classes or whatever, so I'm practicing as hard and smart as I can.
Day of the competition comes, everyone gets 12 minutes because time is limited and there are like 15+ people auditioning. My concerto is ~25 mins long, and the first movement alone is like 11-12 mins. Guy before me gets 20 minutes, obviously did very well, also shares my accompanist. I go in, get only 2 minutes for first movement (probably the most interesting and/or difficult movement, I play it the best, practiced it the most) before the judges tell me to skip to the second and third movements. Accompanist clearly doesn't even know the piece I'm playing, and messes up in multiple straightforward passages. I didn't need any help screwing it up since I'm already really nervous, and I make mistakes in these places I've practiced over and over and over and over and over and over again. My entire audition ends up being <10 minutes, and I already know I didn't win. The guy immediately before me was one of the winners.
Super god damn demoralizing. Life's unfair, and sometimes hard work just doesn't pay off. I actually know the dude before me, and he learns extremely quickly, so he barely had to practice. Only saw his name on the practice room sheets a few times, and it was always for an hour or so. Also turns out to be like this super genius dude in my major as well, so it's not like he was just slaving away in the practice rooms every day.
I fucking HATE that I can't help but dream about performing with an orchestra. If my dream were "learn this piece", "enjoy music", or "perform with friends/in small/venue/whatever" that's fine, but instead it has to be something where I'd have to win a competition for the opportunity, because you can't just play a concerto with an entire orchestra arbitrarily. From here on out, it only gets much more difficult since I'm not competing with students, and I'd be competing with adults who'd be even more technically adept, musically deep, and focused on music. So the dream is basically dead. There are a few other competitions in the area but they're over a much larger area and likely to be much more difficult. I'm currently not sure if I even want to do them, as on one hand I'm really upset about not getting a chance to show how I played overall, but on the other, I'm not sure if I can put everything else in my life on the back-burner again in a yet much more competitive environment.
I honestly don't really have a passion for anything else, and the train for this shit's essentially gone. Just sucks that I practiced and prepared so hard for this opportunity and didn't even get what I felt like was a fair shake at it. Right now I'm almost just oscillating between various stages of grief, and alternately just feeling super empty inside and demoralized. I don't think I ever have or ever will be able to invest so much of myself in something again.
The phrase I fucking hate the most is: "at least you tried". Now, on an intellectual level, I totally recognize that you can't go about life expecting or wanting to be a big hit at everything you try, or being a super expert at everything. And if that's how you live your life, you'll almost certainly be bitterly disappointed. However, "trying" does me or you fuck all good if we put our sweat, blood, and tears into something but ultimately fail to capitalize on the only or last chance to achieve the dream. The silver lining is that I got back into piano, but there's still this stupid silly insane dream that I'll never achieve now, and I'm honestly almost sick and tired of piano for the time being if I'm being completely honest. I'll get over it eventually.
Just felt like I needed to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading.
*Fun fact, the piano part is from the Andante sostenuto movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, which is what the piano winner of the competition played
Yea, it really sucks when stuff like that happens. I spent almost all of my last months winter build putting in 15-20 hour weeks on the bike to get ready for Tour of the Gila...and then I get sick with 103 fever for 3 days just before the event starts. Ugh.
It happens though. That's just a part of anything that's highly competitive I think. Makes sense and is often necessary to grieve/be pissed off by/etc. when that kind of shit gets in the way.
Only thing I'm a little confused on is the "dream is dead" attitude. Was this like the only competition with that opportunity that comes around once every ten years or something? Otherwise if these competitions happen with some level of frequency wouldn't you just keep on practicing and be more prepared for the next one?
i was the official #2 choice for 4 out of the 5 steady customers i have in my IT consulting business.
i did a giant presentation. put forth all kinds of proposals.. etc etc. demonstrated some of my best work.. and was always told they are "going in another direction".
something stupid happens.. i get called in.. pull off 1 miracle.. and i'm in. now i've got 5 customers and i'm rejecting work i find boring and only doing the really interesting projects.
keep on .. keepin' on.
no one in their right mind would've published any of Ayn Rand's "crazy intellectual novels". she was rejected by a dozen publishers. never, ever did she play the "its bias against women" card. she kept on going.
This year, 44 years after her death she will sell OVER ONE MILLION BOOKS.
keep on .. keepin' on.
Terry Fox, ran half way across Canada on 1 leg. the other leg was amputated due to cancer. he got cancer again in his lungs and died a hero that will live on forever in the hearts and minds of every Canadian.
none of us knows how much time we've got left on this planet.
practice/dedication cannot guarantee success. It can only increase its probability.
Thompson could have been the best 3 point shooter in the NBA last year, except he just happened to play in the same season as Curry. Point is: a lot of things need to align for you to come out on top.
Some of those things you can influence, others you can't. One of my rules of life is: if you did everything in your power and truly tried, then the outcome no longer depends on you and therefore you're not to blame in case of failure. If however you could have done more, go back and try harder next time.
See, maybe you could have practiced more, but maybe you did the most reasonable trade-off of studying for your degree and practicing the piano. The fact you had to compete with some genius is really not your fault. Your next important step has to be to just learn from your mistakes and increase your chance of success even more next time!
On November 13 2016 20:21 iSometric wrote: When you get what you want but not what you need, aye.
Yea mang
On November 14 2016 00:25 Jerubaal wrote: Why wouldn't they have you all perform the same piece?
In a "pure" competition that would probably be the best idea, but at least in this case, there were numerous instruments involved, and the decision was also left up to us what we personally wanted to prepare and perform.
On November 14 2016 01:58 L_Master wrote: Yea, it really sucks when stuff like that happens. I spent almost all of my last months winter build putting in 15-20 hour weeks on the bike to get ready for Tour of the Gila...and then I get sick with 103 fever for 3 days just before the event starts. Ugh.
It happens though. That's just a part of anything that's highly competitive I think. Makes sense and is often necessary to grieve/be pissed off by/etc. when that kind of shit gets in the way.
Only thing I'm a little confused on is the "dream is dead" attitude. Was this like the only competition with that opportunity that comes around once every ten years or something? Otherwise if these competitions happen with some level of frequency wouldn't you just keep on practicing and be more prepared for the next one?
Damn dude, yeah that really sucks. yeah, that kind of competitive environment is just really really difficult.
The whole dream is dead mentality arose because for music (at least this is my impression), the level of competitors really does go up exponentially. So as I become an adult and compete against other adults, it's very very very difficult because you get really dedicated people, even more talented people, even more hard-working people competing. Also, the nature of these things is that there's generally only one or a few winners; if I were preparing for a race, I would be satisfied having participated and having given it a go. But if I want to perform with an orchestra, I need to outperform all of these other people in an "artistic" field.
On November 14 2016 02:05 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i was the official #2 choice for 4 out of the 5 steady customers i have in my IT consulting business.
i did a giant presentation. put forth all kinds of proposals.. etc etc. demonstrated some of my best work.. and was always told they are "going in another direction".
something stupid happens.. i get called in.. pull off 1 miracle.. and i'm in. now i've got 5 customers and i'm rejecting work i find boring and only doing the really interesting projects.
keep on .. keepin' on.
no one in their right mind would've published any of Ayn Rand's "crazy intellectual novels". she was rejected by a dozen publishers. never, ever did she play the "its bias against women" card. she kept on going.
This year, 44 years after her death she will sell OVER ONE MILLION BOOKS.
keep on .. keepin' on.
Terry Fox, ran half way across Canada on 1 leg. the other leg was amputated due to cancer. he got cancer again in his lungs and died a hero that will live on forever in the hearts and minds of every Canadian.
none of us knows how much time we've got left on this planet.
do not feel sorry for yourself.
keep on ... keepin' on.
Damn, thanks for the inspirational words. Ideally I'd be able to live to see through the achievement of any kind of goal or dream I have, but ye, who knows. I don't know if I have that level of determination and grit, and for every heroic figure you have millions upon millions of the teeming masses who died without accomplishing or contributing anything of note. I suspect if I ever have a gravestone, that dash in the middle between my birth year and death year will be similarly meaningless, but indeed you just gotta keep on keeping on. Congrats on making it yourself, that's some good shit.
On November 14 2016 04:10 imp42 wrote: practice/dedication cannot guarantee success. It can only increase its probability.
Thompson could have been the best 3 point shooter in the NBA last year, except he just happened to play in the same season as Curry. Point is: a lot of things need to align for you to come out on top.
Some of those things you can influence, others you can't. One of my rules of life is: if you did everything in your power and truly tried, then the outcome no longer depends on you and therefore you're not to blame in case of failure. If however you could have done more, go back and try harder next time.
See, maybe you could have practiced more, but maybe you did the most reasonable trade-off of studying for your degree and practicing the piano. The fact you had to compete with some genius is really not your fault. Your next important step has to be to just learn from your mistakes and increase your chance of success even more next time!
Yup, I agree with this sentiment as well. Technically you could always have allocated more time to something and less time to everything else (less sleep, less basic human necessities, less of literally everything else in your life) but then at that point it may not be genuinely worth it, you may be hurting yourself in the long-run, etc.
The shitty part as mentioned is that as you grow older, these kinds of competitions tend to be filled with even more genius-like, or ridiculously hard-working individuals, so my chances fall off a cliff, which is pretty demoralizing. Essentially if we're talking about probability of success for a given endeavor, as I get older its graph against time spent is being shifted down. Yesterday, high school students; today, random college students; but tomorrow, adults who may be musicians full-time, geniuses, incredibly hard workers, etc etc etc. But I'll figure out what I want my next steps to be probably.
Thanks for the rational words and thoughts. I think the cone of influence paradigm makes a lot of sense as well.
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
- T.E. Lawrence
Keep dreaming. You may orbit once more towards a chance of joining an orchestra, or you'll discover something you never considered before.
Hey, I really appreciate the encouragement. I've come across that quotation before as well, and it's pretty damn good. I also like Tupac's "The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams." I'll try to keep my head up.
Success doesn't come easily at all. One knockback or multiple knockbacks should not stop you from chasing your dreams. Somewhere, somehow you will get your chance to play in an Orchestra but you have to keep trying, keep learning keep hounding auditions. As you said Auditions are always personal tastes, the guy didn't know the piece of music you were playing it seemed so he sped you up, or he might have known the piece but did not like it. However the next audition you do somewhere down the line they might love that piece and know your talent.
TL;DR - Life is hard, keep fighting, keep battling you wlll succeed. If you fall from 1 knockdown your gonna have a bad time
One thing I think I conveyed a bit unclearly was my specific goal. I was actually already in an orchestra, and it's not particularly difficult to join an orchestra if you practice hard and demonstrate sustained interest. There are usually a good number of them around in most places. I joined the orchestra as a percussionist so I could compete in the competition for piano; winners get to perform as a soloist with the orchestra in concert (which is a much bigger deal, and much more difficult endeavor).
I've come close twice before to performing with an orchestra, where I essentially got into the final round but came up short in the end, so this was the third time, though I've never in my life prepared so hard and sacrificed so much for this goal, whether it be piano or otherwise. Getting to perform as a soloist is incredibly difficult as an adult because it's definitely a strictly competitive kind of scenario, and the degree of talent, dedication, and sample size of participants (as well as prestige of orchestras that will hold competitions etc) only rises exponentially as mentioned.
As a rule of thumb I agree that people shouldn't just give up on their dreams so easily, but it does come down to how much it means and how worth it it is, i.e. the degree to which you put the rest of your life on hold. For instance, maybe I could drop my career to practice to be a musician and have a better probability there, but it might not be worth it because I also have other goals and intentions, and even then it's far from a guarantee.
Hey Aerinsky, mate, look, being a musician means failing, failing and failing again.
When I was a teenager, a famous teacher and soloist told me once that for every success he had had on his life, he could remember twenty defeats.
I always, always remembered that later.
In my mid-twenties I started to take orchestra auditions in major european orchestras. Typically you have between 80 and 200 applicants for each job. And auditions take weeks or months to prepare. Well, it took me four years after the end of my studies to make it. I took something like 30 auditions, each of them being an enormous investment in time, effort and money. And I lived at my parents, and it sucked.
But at the end, something clicked and I won two auditions in a row in two european capital cities orchestras. For the job I have now, we were 170 applicants, from all around the world.
Sometimes I reflect to how it worked out, and I always come back to that remark from the famous violinist. Because every time I failed strengthened my will to carry on, and after a failure I would start practicing for the next audition the next morning. I have had two cards in my hand, I am extremely passionate, and I have an unlimited patience with failure. And it was enough to turn a really mediocre student into a successful professional.
But most people I met at that time doing the same thing would get depressed after failing a first round, and lose motivation for a while. Those, in their great majority didn't make it.
It's not to boast I say all of that: the really important thing is: it's not talent that makes you successful. It's not ability to win stuff because you are so damn good. It's how you take your losses(hi IdrA).
You are passionate about piano. You'll have many more opportunities. This time you failed, but in failing you learnt a lot. You practiced, you focused, and you went in front of a panel and played your concerto. You didn't get that one, but you'll get the next one, or the one after, or the one even after. IF you start preparing now, and if every time you fail, you grow stronger.
So, get back to the practice room and make that concerto even better. And enjoy the process. I think you will.
Hey man, thanks so much for taking the time to share that. I think partly since it's coming from you, someone who's actually had a great deal of experience auditioning and trying over and over again before you succeeded, it feels even more personal and more real somehow. It definitely sounds like an unbelievable struggle--I can't imagine four years of rejection before it worked out--and I'm so happy you were able to achieve your dream.
I don't know if I'd be able to do it full-time like you are, but I'm actually really encouraged by your words, and I think it's definitely worth keeping at it, not giving up, and just following your passion while enjoying the process. Thank you so much
Unlucky, man. We share a similar dream, but I don't have the balls (nor what it takes) to go pro. You seem to have the blood lust it takes, so I'd encourage you to pursue. You can't become a master without failing and practice makes perfect...
In the worst case scenario you'll end up being a very good amateur pianist. Which is still great imo!
Your post made me think of something I read 2 days ago: "The pianist’s life is, by necessity, lonely.
One of the main reasons pianists spend so much time alone is that we must practise more than other musicians because we have many more notes and symbols to decode, learn and upkeep. This prolonged solitary process may eventually result in a public performance, at which we exchange the loneliness of the practise room for the solitude of the concert platform." https://pianodao.com/2016/11/10/the-pianists-solitude/
I've been trying to make Chopin Etude Op.25 No.1 my own for weeks now. I'm still continuously hitting wrong keys... Ugh...
On November 15 2016 04:00 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: Aw there there Aerisky. This too will pass. Enjoy the sadness while it lasts :3
mhm @_@
On November 15 2016 05:44 Peeano wrote: Unlucky, man. We share a similar dream, but I don't have the balls (nor what it takes) to go pro. You seem to have the blood lust it takes, so I'd encourage you to pursue. You can't become a master without failing and practice makes perfect...
In the worst case scenario you'll end up being a very good amateur pianist. Which is still great imo!
Your post made me think of something I read 2 days ago: "The pianist’s life is, by necessity, lonely.
One of the main reasons pianists spend so much time alone is that we must practise more than other musicians because we have many more notes and symbols to decode, learn and upkeep. This prolonged solitary process may eventually result in a public performance, at which we exchange the loneliness of the practise room for the solitude of the concert platform." https://pianodao.com/2016/11/10/the-pianists-solitude/
I've been trying to make Chopin Etude Op.25 No.1 my own for weeks now. I'm still continuously hitting wrong keys... Ugh...
Hmm yeah, I guess you can still enjoy it without necessarily becoming a musician by profession. Though it does mean you'll probably end up allocating less time to it. Totally agreed as far as the while loneliness thing. Unlike most other instruments where you generally play in an ensemble, the piano is much more of a solo instrument, yeah. Part of why I enjoy concertos more too, you feel less lonely xD Best of luck with the etude dude.
On November 15 2016 05:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote: being happy is the hardest thing you will ever do.
True that
On November 15 2016 05:48 Blisse wrote: That sucks to hear Hope it turns out better! No other smaller steps to build up for?
Yeah man, just getting over it day by day. After thinking about it some more, and reading Biff's post, I think I'll be continuing to give it a shot. I'm not satisfied with this performance or its circumstances, and it's too early to give up. Who knows, if not with this piece, maybe with another, and maybe one day it'll pay off.
EPT
yeah, that kind of competitive environment is just really really difficult.
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