Unfairness, Competition, and Self-doubt

I really enjoy reading the posts that young musicians put on Reddit. It almost makes up for the lost art of commenting in the blogosphere. The anonymous nature of the posts and replies makes it very different from the other social media forums I know where people discuss musical matters.

Musicians usually do not go onto Reddit looking for praise for the things that they are doing in their musical lives (like they do on Facebook), but many are looking for affirmation of their abilities. Many are young people looking for some kind of support from people outside of their regular musical lives (people other than their peers and teachers). High school can be a competitive musical place. So can college. People are often evaluated unfairly, and everyone is worried about having some kind of future in music, particularly if music is their major.

I remember the unfairness. I remember the competition. I remember the sense of self doubt that permeates during early adulthood and festers throughout later adulthood.

I can't do anything in my adult life about unfairness except to do my best to be fair. And I actually think that competition among students can be a positive thing, so I don't discourage it. Nobody was better, smarter, more fearless, or more imaginative, in my experience, than the musicians I grew up with. I imagine that for most adults nobody looms as large as their contempoary childhood heroes.

When I was young I thought I was the only person who lived with a high degree of self doubt. Everyone at Juilliard seemed confident about how good they were. They talked about it all the time, and they demonstrated it in the way they played. The people who had teachers who berated them rose to the occasion and used the experience as a way to become stronger. I kind of envied those people, because my teacher, Julius Baker, never berated anyone. He also never told me what I needed to do in order to improve. He always said that I needed to find my own way.

When I told my friend Seymour Barab this, he said that he never knew that Julius Baker was such a good teacher. I could not agree. I believe that the job of a teacher of conservatory students is to teach students how to be better at playing their instruments and to help them grow as musicians.

At one point I was considering leaving Juilliard. My friends at Juilliard who had been to regular college seemed so much happier and smarter than I was at the time. My father, having seen my SAT scores, advised me to continue at Juilliard.

One day I asked my teacher if he thought I had any talent. I asked him because he always talked about how talented the other students were, but never seemed to care about what I was doing. The only way I could learn from him was to study the way he played, and try to intuit his thoughts when he taught other students during the lesson time that I thought was meant for me. I had to clear the afternoon to get a lesson, and I spent most of those afternoons listening to other students play.

My teacher's response to my question was, and I can quote, "You will say that Julius Baker gave you the best advice of your life. Go see a psychiatrist."

I took his advice immediately. I hauled myself down to the school's office, and I got a referral to a psychiatrist, one Dr. Richard Kopff (!!!) who saw Juilliard students. I had to have a diagnosis made up so that my father's insurance would cover it, so I was treated under the generic label "anxiety nervosa."

My sessions consisted of me coming in and talking about my teacher not showing up for lessons. Dr. Kopff did ask me about family things occasionally, and, since I was a young person, there was a certain amount of drama in my life to talk about. But I was pretty sure that Dr. Kopff assumed the reason my teacher didn't show up at lessons or teach me was because I didn't have any talent. I know this because I invited Dr. Kopff to come to a recital I played, after which the whole direction of our therapy changed.

I suppose the experience taught me that I did indeed have business staying in music, I didn't need a psychiatrist, and that my teacher's lack of interest in teaching me had nothing to do with my talent or lack of talent. Fortunately, during the course of my therapy (but not as a result of it) I found two friend-teachers (a flutist and a cellist) who were more than willing to make up for my teacher's inadequacy (out of the kindness of their hearts--no money was ever involved).

I believe both of them were "paying forward" musical kindnesses. I know I was extremely fortunate, and I continue to express my gratitude for what they did for me by doing what I can to help other musicians.

I actually have found my own way, but, thanks to Julius Baker, it is as a composer and as a string player who keeps a blog rather than as a flutist. I have found my own way the hard way. I am much happier now than I could ever have imagined being when I was a young adult, but it came as a result of building up my musical life from scratch ten years after graduating from Juilliard.

I did stay in touch with Julius Baker after leaving Juilliard, and I sent a tape of my violin playing to him a year or two after I started playing. He called me up to ask me why I was playing the violin. I explained why, and he said, "But you were such a good flutist." Too little too late, I say.