How to create a realistic music career

One of the things that I dislike about the classical music system is the drive to turn pianists into cookie-cutter players. Armed with the molds of the past, musical makeover specialists work with students to meet an image of success that may only exist in the past or in a handful living pianists—a formula that rarely applies to the majority of working pianists in the world. At best, it helps a few of us. At worst, it raises student expectations about their abilities and possible career success to an unrealistic level. It offers little middle ground between being the best-of-the best or failing so spectacularly that we leave the profession completely.

Many fine pianists who find that their gifts and abilities don’t fit perfectly with the image they’ve been groomed for either quietly give up on their dreams, or keep striving to force themselves into the mold long past the date when it’s no longer a realistic option for them. The years go by. They harbor the dream that they (or the public) will discover their brilliance, and they dare not stop and ask themselves if the problem isn’t who they are as pianists, but unrealistic expectations.

I know this place, both from personal experience and from conversations with other musicians. Sadly, in a world that tells us to never give up on our dreams (no matter how unattainable), no one has the nerve to tell pianists in their thirties and older the brutal truth—namely that if they were going to be the next Mozart they’d know it by now. No extra hours of practicing or wishful thinking will change any of us into people different than who we are. In fact, adhering too closely to a cookie-cutter model of the “ideal pianist” will lead to either disillusionment and frustration or depriving ourselves and the world of the artistry we could create.

For those of us who worked like mad to meet unrealistic dreams, giving them up can be one of the hardest things to do. It feels like failure. It’s too easy to keep asking ourselves where we failed, or examining the evidence to see if tweaking this one thing might make things work. This is a lie, of course—one we can only see when we’ve put down every false image we’ve been chasing and look instead at the truth of what’s in our own mirrors.

It took me years to shed the unrealistic dreams and expectations I’d adopted for myself and I know from my own experience that letting go of these things is deeply painful. After all, if I’d been able to order up the kind of pianist I wanted to be, I would have been a soloist who specialized in 19th century music. My Chopin would enrapture. My Rachmaninoff would cause listeners to weep. I’d appear with all the best orchestras on all the important stages around the world. And everyone would know my name.

Reality decided otherwise. In university I learned that I played modern music much more naturally than Romantic repertoire. Mid-career I finally admitted to myself that I was much happier appearing on stage with other humans than being a soloist. And those world stages? Well, my more modest talents allowed me to build a sustainable career for myself on a regional level, but very few people know my name.

You’d think from my description that this is something to mourn. As I look back over a lifetime of making music, I can honestly say that it’s something to celebrate. Despite my best efforts to turn myself into something I clearly was not, life kindly directed me to develop into the musician I actually am. Now, rather than being one more striving pianist who seeks to emulate the abilities of others, I’m free to hone my own talents in what I do best.

One of the most thrilling moments in any musician’s life is when we can see and celebrate the truth about who we are and what we have to offer without having to squint at it through our attempts to be someone else. In that moment we can begin to hear the feedback we’re getting from others about what we do well, and to honor our own internal wisdom that’s begging us to listen. This is the moment when we can begin to build our creative homes—not on someone else’s land, but on the fertile bit of ground that belongs to us alone.

How will we know if we’re honoring the truth about who we are as musicians? We’ll hear it, full-voice, from how the rest of the world responds to what we’re offering. Even more importantly, we’ll feel it inside ourselves. When we’re doing exactly what we do best, things feel inevitable and right. There’s a settledness that can’t be mimicked. We just know what to do, and in that ease and knowing, other people sense it as well.

If the music you’re playing or the career you’re struggling to craft feels like an ill-fitting jacket, I encourage you to stop pushing, look at the dreams you’re pursuing, and ask yourself if you’ve been chasing a life of unrealistic expectations and wishful thinking. If you find you are, consider this radical life plan: create from a foundation of who you really are. Stop worrying about what everyone else tells you makes a successful pianist and just be the pianist you are. Create from your truth. Create with humility, not borrowed glory. Create from your simple, perhaps ragged, most likely not what you wanted to be self. Your life, and your music, will be transformed. I guarantee it.

Photo by Brett Jordan, courtesy of UpSplash