Being a musician is so difficult.
This year has brought me many things... Challenges, successes, and failures. Things that I never wanted to happen and yet, it did. It includes: financial stress, inability to achieve the work-life-school balance, impostor syndrome, pressure, and the inescapable feeling of loneliness and doubt. Even so, I am writing today because as I reflect on the past year, I overcame these 'things' and I am forever proud of myself for surviving such a difficult year.
Even I wonder how I am still standing lol.
When the year began, I had a single goal in mind. To pursue orchestral percussion felt so right. I wanted to be an amazing percussionist. One of the very few female orchestral percussionists. Over summer, I worked hard on my ensemble placement excerpts and my technique on some of the core orchestral instruments such as tambourine. As I sat in my teacher's office, I was set on auditioning to performance certificate programs to make myself better. My music education route became my plan B. I was quite ambitious for someone who is not in a performance degree. After such a successful and productive year with my local youth orchestra, I was so inspired to become an orchestral player. It was not because I wanted to be the best, but because I truly loved orchestral music.
Being an orchestral percussionist meant that I would get to perform music that I love for the rest of my life, on top of premiering various pieces and getting to learn more about classical music. Studying the scores, marking my part, listening to multiple recordings of the same piece and falling in love with the writing sounded like the dream.
I was, in fact, dreaming.
Life got in the way.
When applications came around, I was struggling financially. I could not even pay the application fees. At times, my balance was so low that I was unable to commute to school to practice. I was behind in researching the universities I wanted to apply to, insanely busy learning audition repertoire and NYO excerpts, school work, student association work, commuting, and work. I found myself struggling to keep track of everything I had to do even if I kept a daily agenda. I was showing up to lessons unprepared and extremely nervous. At this point, I was beginning to think that maybe my dream was not meant to be achieved yet. Life seriously hit me like a truck.
My dreams were crushed. I was unable to pick myself back up again until one fateful lesson where I cried in front of my teacher. I was in a pathetic state. My body hurt from a taiko drumming concert, I was unprepared for a lesson I rescheduled, hungry because I had no money for food, and mentally exhausted. This is where my teacher encouraged me to take teaching into consideration. When I had thought about it, I actually did not hate the idea. My teacher supported me full-heartedly with this idea of being "practical" to get to where I need to be. For example, if I wanted to become a performer, then I would have to become a teacher and make money before I pursue that side of my journey as a life-long musician. I had never thought about it that way until that lesson which ended with my teacher feeding me dates and miso soup.
From there, I began to refine my teaching abilities. I took everything in my music ed courses seriously and began my application. I had made enough money for one application and so I did everything I could to get this application in. Sooner than later, I began to see myself as a teacher, the one I dreamt of being in grade 12.
How did my NYO audition go? Well... I got a recording, however, my audio recording from my microphone got deleted. It is quite the long story. Note to self: never delete a "project" on final cut pro, it will delete EVERY SINGLE FILE attached to it. I was left with a recording with 0 dynamic differences and peaking audio. I was sobbing trying to retrieve my lost file and showed up to rehearsal looking disheveled. Anyway, now I know for next time :)!
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It was very difficult to balance wanting to be the best player I could be and wanting to succeed as a music teacher. I did not even live near campus and the commute took up 90% of my time to practice. I stayed later just to get some extra hours in. I picked difficult repertoire and struggled an insane amount in my winter term because of how I overloaded my course load. I was beginning to feel hopeless. Ultimately, I prioritized my school work because I did not want to fail my courses. I practiced whenever I possibly could.
When it came to my jury, everything went as expected, however, my multi-percussion piece did not go very well. I was unable to prepare the entire piece which might have cost me some marks.. At least I was honest to my panel I guess. I blamed myself a lot for this but just reading what I have written so far is crazy! CRAZY!!!
Feeling unfulfilled earlier in April, I thought about having a music education recital. It was a dream of mine since my TA spoke about how they had a music education recital and how each of the ed majors played secondary instruments. It sounded like such a good time. My 2h Friday 9am music ed class has inspired me throughout the year and I knew they loved performing. To see each of them grow was so touching and I had wished to see them perform on a stage that is just for the music education majors.
The recital was in protest to the norms that were developed by others at the faculty of music. I disliked the way people thought that we did not care and did not take our instruments seriously. If we did not take our instruments seriously, we would not be at the faculty and we most definitely would not be pursuing music. I disliked how entitled people felt to say these things about us and wanted to put it to a stop. Therefore, I began to put this recital together without any hesitation. I deeply cared for my colleagues and wanted to celebrate them--each and every music education student.
First, I posted on Instagram to gather interest and once I received interest, I began to gather potential performer information. This was a tough moment because I tried to find a day that was best for everyone to perform. It was also very difficult to find performers because not everyone in 4th year music education wanted to perform and so I opened it up to everyone. The weekend before the recital was a tough one because I tried pushing for details to confirm which date the recital would be on. Miraculously, everyone was available on the 22nd of April and I texted my friend ASAP to get the room booked.
The room was booked and from there, I was learning how to live stream concerts and relearning the piece I performed.
To briefly describe how it went down:
I conducted Mackey's Sheltering Sky and played Orion Constellation Theory!
Livestream was MUTED until the end of the first half
Camera DIED
Had to get the student association camera
Settings are visible
Camera turning off from time to time
Last resort: use my phone, get a tripod & portable charger, and place it by the performance area.
LOOL it was such a funny experience but at least I know for next time and... I now know how to livestream! A random skill I gained! Woot!
Anyway, through everything, I suffered pressure, doubts, and the feelings of being alone and a total failure at life but... that is just how life goes. Constantly, life will fail you but these failures are opportunities for growth. I was on my own financially, and had to make many tough decisions on my own this year. I doubted my abilities as a percussionist and as a teacher. I was under the pressure of being the perfect percussionist in the youth orchestra. I was in such a terrible place this year and I came out of it feeling successful. I love everyone who made me feel less alone and supported me throughout everything. Thank you from the deepest depths of my heart.
No matter where life takes you, see it through with your head up.
Congratulations for making it through, me.
-ea
