Do less. Do it better
Quick question: when you first started lessons, how proficient did you think you needed to be in order to consider yourself an accomplished pianist?
Each of us has an answer to that question. Mine was to be able to play Scott Joplin’s “Entertainer”. It wasn’t until years after I’d accomplished that goal that I realized the bar had not only moved, but that it kept moving. I’d reach a new milestone I’d set for myself and inevitably the accomplishment wasn’t enough. The sense of satisfaction never stayed, and the need for more, more, more prodded me forward with an urgency that pulled the joy out of learning.
My story isn’t unique. There’s so much gorgeous music out there, and so many pianists who play better than we do, that things we once viewed as accomplishments when we first conceived them fade in significance once they’re accomplished. At times it’s as if we’ve climbed a mountain only to discover on reaching the top that it was only a foothill and that taller, steeper heights wait for us.
This is the beauty and the curse of being in the arts. Beauty in that we’ll never truly conquer the piano because there’s always something more to learn. Curse because unless we learn to be content with milestones, we risk never granting ourselves the glow of accomplishment that we deserve. It took me decades to ask why I (and others like me) created art in an atmosphere of constant striving and wishful thinking. Few of us knew contentment. We simply knew that a sense of accomplishment never existed in the present tense. It lived in the future.
This bears examination. Why do so many of us feel we’re not doing enough? I know artists who are playing concerts, releasing recordings, or composing pieces that have won awards who still can’t accept that they’re successful. My mother wrote (and published) 50 books and was a public speaker, but she died feeling like she never got the recognition she craved. Prodded on by self-described experts who tell us to find our passion, live for work, and worship at the feet of fame, we ignore the accomplishments that make for a rich life. We dismiss ourselves and our work and we suffer for it.
What if we’re already doing enough? What if we’re doing what we’re meant to do? What if our purpose is to play beautiful music that brings us and those around us joy? Does this need to be optimized, publicized, and monetized in order to matter? What if our choice to make music is part of how we build a beautiful life, not fulfill an agenda? What if loving the people in our lives, being of use in our communities, and creating beautiful music is worthwhile in and of itself, not because it gets us acclaim?
Most of us won’t grace the world’s top concert stages. Even those who do will eventually face retirement. But we’ve learned some lovely music. We’ve spent hours enriching our lives through our time at the piano. These things count. They count a great deal. In fact, happiness and a sense of satisfaction in music is found in acknowledging these things, and congratulating ourselves for what we’ve done rather than feeling defeated by what we haven’t done.
More isn’t more. Sometimes more is too much. Sometimes the best thing we can do as musicians is to find our enough point—the point where we feel rich, fulfilled, and worthy at the piano. When we do this we’re free to settle into the gratitude of what makes practicing the piano meaningful for us. We’re free to do less, perhaps, but to do it better and do it with no other goal than the joy of doing it.
Photo by Sarah Dorweiler, courtesy of UpSplash