Life As A Pianist...

I honestly think the main reason I'm posting this is because I'm avoiding writing my philosophy paper. Nevertheless, I've been contemplating the portion of the life I lead as a pianist as of late...

It's weird: until recently, I haven't really considered it being my "life", but now that I'm having to step it up as a musician, who I am as a person is being forced to mesh with that (not that I mind by any means).

Stress is a big part of it. Lack of sleep. No time to eat. No time to shower (but let's be honest, how often did I really do that before?). Too much to do. Not enough hours in the day. It sounds pretty generic as far as the lifestyle, but being a musician and especially a pianist takes it to a whole new level.

We have to be performers, we have to be accompanists, we have to be collaborators, we have to be coaches, and we have to be prompt, agreeable, on cue, all the time, flexible, available, and meek and mild. We do as we're told.

Well, now, some would disagree.

Although, I like doing what I'm told--I'm very indecisive.

Anyway, in most cases (and in the ever-biased opinion of almost all pianists) the piano-player runs the show. Nothing can happen without it, and everyone else has to follow it. No pressure, right? All the instruments are tuned to the piano, and it's the star of the show. Except that there's little to no appreciation for it in the world outside of a music department or music world. It gets pushed to the background and people either underestimate the capabilities of the piano part itself as well as the person playing it, or make overly generous assumptions based on their ignorance (ie, give us music 3 days before a show, etc.).

That's just me complaining about how under-appreciated we are, and blah blah blah.

Really, it's just hard coping to how much more people expect out of me as a pianist now that I'm studying it at the collegiate level. There's more on my plate, my instructor throws piece after piece at me, the voice teacher does the same so I can "collaborate" with (accompany) her voice student, and now the trumpet instructor is doing the same. I now have to record accompaniment for trumpet, as well as play for a trumpet student's jury (end-of-the-year performance/exam/grade for music majors).

I'm expected to practice a lot. That doesn't happen. I have 20 credit hours because I'm insane, and so when I get time to practice I take it even if it's only 30 minutes--something's better than nothing.

Today I performed pretty poorly in my partner's voice lesson. I feel like I really disappointed the voice teacher because she had us learn a new song that we hadn't practiced until the day before his lesson, and that was the only chance I'd gotten to look at it. She kept saying that it was okay, and we were making progress, and at least we were together, and I play more right notes than she would, but I could tell how frustrated she was that I wasn't more prepared (it kinda sucks because she's giving me a grade too).

Sometimes I let it all get the best of me, and today was one of those days. I hashtag #musicmajorproblems too often, but it's so accurate.

I don't like to make decisions. I like to be told exactly what to do and exactly how to do it, and then do it. I like to do what I'm told. I don't like letting people down. I like doing things right. I don't like making mistakes when it comes to doing things for other people. Apparently I need to get over all of this if I'm ever going to be a good pianist.

Life as a pianist bears a long, hard road and I'm going to walk, run, crawl, trip, roll, and dance my way to the end. But I don't want it to ever end...

Well, I'm still running the race for the goal of THE prize, and fighting that food fight, so that counts for something! And to quote Relient K YET AGAIN: "When the nightmare finally does unfold perspective is a lovely hand to hold."

Goodnight. (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eegDWPtk37c This is the song I'm currently memorizing for applied piano--I just don't play it quite this fast. "Sonata in G" by Mozart.