Note: I’ve been drafting this post for close to two weeks. This was NOT due to being a recovering perfectionist!
There is a insidious and prevalent trope of artistic life that boils down to this: to create (great) art, one must suffer. I don’t think that this is true – but I only make pretty good art. But the notion that art requires suffering in order to be good has been around for a long time. It may contain a kernel of truth, but I think the reason that it has lasted for so long is that it makes the basis for some really good fictional content. No one is going to make a biopic about Felix Mendelssohn – he didn’t suffer enough, his music is too ‘happy’ and ‘facile’. (But let’s not mention the fact that his family were baptized into Christianity to try to ameliorate the effects of rampant antisemitism.)
There are many well-documented instances of composers and artists writing music or making art that is completely at odds with what is going on in their personal lives. Mozart wrote some of his sunniest music at the lowest emotional ebbs of his life, for example. But this doesn’t make for good storytelling.
I was recently listening to the Hidden Brain podcast episode Escaping Perfectionism, which talks about how perfectionism is on the rise in our society and, seemingly paradoxically, does little to make us more successful. As a recovering perfectionist myself, I can attest to this. But we are so conditioned to take perfection as a de facto expectation – even if it is a wildly unrealistic one. I’ve suffered a lot (mostly mentally) for my art, and I don’t think it’s done much for me.
There’s a crucial difference between the drive to work hard to achieve a goal and a drive to execute perfectly. But this is what is driven into us almost from the beginning (or at least it was when I was seriously studying to become a professional musician): if you are not striving for perfection, the person the next practice room over is. If you are not practicing 6 hours a day, someone else is. If you don’t play your audition excerpts as close to perfectly as possible, someone else will.
So much is lost with this mindset. Joy. Artistry. Love. Storytelling.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few months. I’ve been trying to reconnect with what drove me to take on music as a career instead of as an avocation. I’ve been trying to quiet my inner critic. I’m very much trying to recover a sense of curiosity about music – something which I’ve noticed in musicians that I have a ton of respect for – as it seems to be a key for longevity in the often repetitive world of an orchestral musician.
I recently read a newsletter by the viola professor and neuroscientist Molly Gebrian which said to put up a sign in your practice room that says “Mistakes are an opportunity to get curious!” This is such a brilliant thing to say! It takes one’s brain out of the mode of self-judgement and puts it into a mode of discovery. I can’t tell you how many times a mistake in the practice room results in a lot of negative self-talk. That also translates into negative voices in the act of performing, which is pretty harmful to a successful and enjoyable performance!
Another discovery was through violin teacher and psychologist Noa Kageyama, who on his podcast Bulletproof Musician noted a clinical study in which practicing musicians who had a failure rate of 30 percent actually learned difficult passages faster than those who had a lower rate of failure. Perhaps the better way to frame it is to say that a 70 percent success rate during practice sessions will lead to the most rapid progression of skills.
So that’s what’s been on my mind (along with a family visit, starting a new season with the orchestra, and getting back from a vacation in the northeast) and I’ll let you know how my personal journey goes as the season progresses.