“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” -Maya Angelou
Even though this quote isn’t from a musician, it resonated with me because I strongly agree with it and disagree with it at the same time. The idea can be applied to both the person working the nine to five desk job and anyone wanting to create something.
The idea is simple. Of course if you truly believe in yourself and like yourself, you’ll more than likely try to go for that job promotion or be willing to take more risks and experiment when either practicing or performing. You won’t let what others say or do (or how well another musician might be playing) keep you from doing things that you want to do. This concept can easily be applied to a regular job, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to creativity (musicians especially), you are never really happy or satisfied with yourself, whether it comes to how you practice or execute your craft. Musicians are notorious for this; we constantly strive to be the best, sacrificing time, money, personal relationships, and even everyday necessities or comforts to write that perfect song, play that difficult lick, tackle a solo, or performance. And because a lot of us constantly doubt our abilities, it is harder to bounce back emotionally when someone criticizes the work we produce or treats us in a way we don’t like.
When you enjoy what you do, you will most likely want to do more of it. True. However, with music, it can be more of a love-hate relationship, especially when first learning how to play an instrument or sing. You want to master your instrument so bad, yet it takes time and countless failures to get to an intermediate or acceptable level of playing. Many times you feel like quitting and taking breaks is probably a good idea, because when you don’t, frustration turns to anger and confusion, which ultimately leads to more slip-ups. This process never gets easier, by the way–the more you learn and the more advanced you become on your instrument, the more you want to achieve. I will say, in my case though, that I love singing. Once I learned the basics of singing technique and how to sing without straining your vocal chords, I couldn’t stop. Now when I practice, I find myself singing for hours, when I had only intended to sing for 45 minutes! Singing doesn’t feel like work to me anymore, so that is why I can agree with this aspect of the quote above. When you love what you do, you’ll want to do more of it, producing things (or music) more genuine and authentic to you.
Liking this whole process of doing what you love is probably the hardest part when it comes to being a musician. We write and write and write only to abandon or throw out completely a song that we spent days working on. A lot of the time, if we don’t like how something sounds or how something is being played, we change it completely, and because of this, I have a hard time agreeing with Angelou. Musicians constantly change how we do things all the time. In an office, sending out mail or sending emails is the same day after day. There isn’t a need to change how you do things if it works. Music is dynamic and as such will always changes in some aspect or another. Musicians have to be sure enough in themselves to commit to these changes when they happen otherwise music can’t evolve. One thing is for sure: because of how difficult it is to create music and be a musician, this is something you can’t do if you don’t love it.