I read an article recently about a survey where they asked people what they feared the most. The overwhelming top choice was not death, or heights, or sharks (my personal nightmare), but was in fact the fear of failure. No one enters in to an endeavor not wanting to be successful, despite this we all fail many times in our life. This is particularly true in a competitive field such as music. We lose auditions. We don't get jobs. We miss notes. Despite the regularity with which we fail we still harbor strong negative feelings about failure. There's one thing that's driving this; We are terrified of looking stupid. This ultimately leads to two inevitable issues:
1. We avoid opportunities for failure
We don't take the audition because we might lose. We don't apply for jobs we might not get. We avoid working on aspects of our playing where we are weakest.
2. We develop anxiety about performing
How many books, articles, blogs, and masterclasses address performance anxiety? This is one of the top subjects for discussion about music.
All of this stems from our fear of failure, and ultimately looking stupid. Despite our feeling on the subject I would argue that failure is maybe the most important aspect of our ultimate success. When we succeed we gain perks; we win the gig, get hired at the university, or receive accolades from our peers. When we fail we gain something much more valuable; knowledge. Knowledge through trial and error about how to play better, or how to practice more efficiently. By winning you learn nothing.
Imagine if you could change the way you view failure so that you sought out difficult or competitive situations not to win, but to get better. There is a world where this occurs constantly, where we enjoy the process of learning through failure as opposed to letting it create anxiety. Where is this magical utopia? Video games.
Think about it. If you play a lot of video games you lose, or "die", a lot. Every game is built around learning through your mistakes, and honing your skills in order to reach the next level. How is this different from music? You get better at auditions by taking lots of auditions and losing them. You get better at recitals by giving more recitals. You improve your high range by continuing to work in that range despite not having early success. How is this different than getting killed numerous times playing "Call To Duty" until you're a total bad ass? You must lose auditions to eventually win a job just like you have to fail numerous times before you rescue the Princess. To prove my point I suggest a little experiment.
THE VIDEO GAME CHALLENGE
Take two video games that you're pretty good at (level 2 or 3.) Take one game and play it for a week on the expert level, take the other game and play it for a week on the beginner level. Keep track of what you learn that makes you a better player by playing these games these ways. Another way is take a player vs. player game. Find two people, one who is much better than you at the game, and one that is much worse. Keep track on which ways you learn from the games. Here's what will happen:
1. Against the better player, or expert level, you will lose a lot, but you will get better quickly.
2. Against the lesser player, or lower setting, you will win a lot, but your skills will not improve.
What if we could approach music in this same way? Would we still suffer from performance anxiety or avoid competition? You see, video games are good for you.
1. We avoid opportunities for failure
We don't take the audition because we might lose. We don't apply for jobs we might not get. We avoid working on aspects of our playing where we are weakest.
2. We develop anxiety about performing
How many books, articles, blogs, and masterclasses address performance anxiety? This is one of the top subjects for discussion about music.
All of this stems from our fear of failure, and ultimately looking stupid. Despite our feeling on the subject I would argue that failure is maybe the most important aspect of our ultimate success. When we succeed we gain perks; we win the gig, get hired at the university, or receive accolades from our peers. When we fail we gain something much more valuable; knowledge. Knowledge through trial and error about how to play better, or how to practice more efficiently. By winning you learn nothing.
Imagine if you could change the way you view failure so that you sought out difficult or competitive situations not to win, but to get better. There is a world where this occurs constantly, where we enjoy the process of learning through failure as opposed to letting it create anxiety. Where is this magical utopia? Video games.
Think about it. If you play a lot of video games you lose, or "die", a lot. Every game is built around learning through your mistakes, and honing your skills in order to reach the next level. How is this different from music? You get better at auditions by taking lots of auditions and losing them. You get better at recitals by giving more recitals. You improve your high range by continuing to work in that range despite not having early success. How is this different than getting killed numerous times playing "Call To Duty" until you're a total bad ass? You must lose auditions to eventually win a job just like you have to fail numerous times before you rescue the Princess. To prove my point I suggest a little experiment.
THE VIDEO GAME CHALLENGE
Take two video games that you're pretty good at (level 2 or 3.) Take one game and play it for a week on the expert level, take the other game and play it for a week on the beginner level. Keep track of what you learn that makes you a better player by playing these games these ways. Another way is take a player vs. player game. Find two people, one who is much better than you at the game, and one that is much worse. Keep track on which ways you learn from the games. Here's what will happen:
1. Against the better player, or expert level, you will lose a lot, but you will get better quickly.
2. Against the lesser player, or lower setting, you will win a lot, but your skills will not improve.
What if we could approach music in this same way? Would we still suffer from performance anxiety or avoid competition? You see, video games are good for you.
RSS Feed