Failure is hard. When you have put a lot of
effort into something and the results don’t pan out the way you wanted, you
experience a little twinge of frustration. If you keep working at it and still
don’t succeed, those little twinges can add up into entire arms and legs
spastically flailing. It can be even more discouraging if you see others around
you winning competitions or getting performances, and without much apparent effort
on their part. What’s their secret, you wonder?
I’ve wondered about that all the way through
school and into my early professional life. I believe it comes down to three
things:
1. Stop comparing yourself to others. Over
the years, I’ve had several students who cannot resist the urge to compare the
works they’re writing to those of firmly established, older composers. The end
result usually involves a few tears and some Kleenex, along with my pointing
out that those firmly established, older composers were students once themselves
who, like my students, probably had no idea of what magnificent musical concept
they would discover five, ten, or fifteen years in the future. (I then have my students study early vocal
works of Elliott Carter and George Crumb; neither composer showed many hints
early on of what they’d later compose - students usually settle down after
that.) Once we learn to stop trying to measure ourselves against other people’s
achievements, we get more comfortable with exploring our own unique ideas and abilities.
2. People all around us are not succeeding
the first time they try something, and perhaps not the second, third, or fourth
time either. We just tend to hear about the time that they do succeed, without
knowing how many attempts it took. You probably don’t want
to announce when you lose a competition, but when
you win one, that’s the time to proclaim it to the world. Use social media, emails, and face-to-face
conversations to spread the good news to your family, friends, and colleagues.
3. If you don't do anything at all, you will
definitely fail. But if you try, you might succeed. If you don't
succeed all the way, you'll keep learning how to be more successful next time.
There are two great quotes attributed to
Winston Churchill. The first: “Success consists of going from failure to failure
without loss of enthusiasm.” The second: “Success is not final, failure is not
fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Both quotes perfectly
capture what is necessary to persevere in a musical career: unending enthusiasm, a strong work ethic, belief in yourself, and the ability to pick yourself up when you
fail, brush yourself off, and try again.
