Dear Alma, I’m a violinist and I’m having doubts
Daily Comfort ZoneFrom out agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma,
I am a violinist in my first year at music conservatory. My mother was (and still is) very involved in my life, practicing with me and attending lessons until just this year. I have been looking forward to going to college for a couple of years to finally feel my independence. But she comes to all of my concerts, and is constantly pushing me to do competitions and any extra violin opportunities. The problem is that I am starting to realize that I think I don’t even want to be a violinist. I love some of my other classes, and want a chance to explore. I don’t know how to tell her or if she will even let me try something else. It was very stressful growing up with so much practice and competition. I know she has spent so much time and money and worry and so much more to make me what I am today. But I don’t want to do it anymore.
Craving Freedom
Dear Craving Freedom,
The answer is clear. The path is not. You are now an adult. You must use your skills to navigate this and claim your life and your future, something which has not been allowed until this point. This moment is not without danger, because if you navigate incorrectly, you could loose the financial support from your mother and even permanently sever your relationship. That being said, having finances cut can be a liberating (but difficult) event in your life, and not something to be afraid of.
Do you have a second parent, sibling or grandparent with whom you enjoy an open and supportive relationship? If so, this could be a good resource for you. I would take the time to make a diagram of your life, imagining the role that music could or could not play in your future. Do you want to completely and immediately switch courses or rather just re-align priorities to allow for exploration into other fields? To present your case (especially to someone as fixated as your mother) you should be able to make yourself clearly understood. First talk to your advocate of choice before speaking to your mother (alone or with that advocate). Avoid heated conversation and remain logical.
I myself had a break with my family around you age, where I had to make the decision between financial support and my freedom. I chose freedom (and dried beans and three jobs) and I never looked back. I wonder, though, if I had taken my own advice and found a neutral advocate and kept a cool head, if I could have had the best of both worlds. For me, this break made me incredibly fearless, impossibly hard-working, and forced me to become a better musician and person.
Craving Freedom, take this moment to become who you want to be for the rest of your life, not remain the person that someone else wanted you to be. Your mother will, in time, see that this is the right path. Go forward without fear.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
It’s a lot easier to be a viola player.
But it isn’t easier to be a GOOD viola player.
I hope they have the courage to find their own path. Otherwise it could be a very sad life.
This is a scary time for them. A parent can be very controlling.
Tell your Mother you love her and the tell her to mind her own business. I told my Mother (she was a wonderful Mother and I miss her), that when I was 14, she still loved me but kept out of my private life.
You didn’t say what conservatory you’re at but as far as I know majority of conservatives offer programs with their affiliated universities, (Juilliard/Colombia or NEC/Harvard per example) or they are part of universities where you can double major (Yale, Rice, USC, Northwestern..). Your mother shouldn’t be unhappy if you want to take some extra classes as a “backup plan”.
I’m the mother of a talented 11yr old violin player, I encourage her and will ensure she continues to develop her playing until she’s older, I know she could make a career from playing if she chose it.
But I also know that she would have to choose it for herself, she would have to love it enough. And if she didn’t, I would like to think I could support another path also.
This writer needs time to find out if playing can be their own passion.
Independence from their mother and time is the only way to find that out, I can see at times that my passion for my daughter’s beautiful playing can obscure the passion she has for it herself.
I hope that they can both see the beauty in what the player has achieved so far, and that the mother can find that seeing her child explore other potential passions can also be beautiful.
I hope that without the pressure, the player rediscovers the beauty of playing.
Yes, you must explore. The experience will “round” you and probably enhance your musicianship.
Believe I, or not, Fritz Kreisler as a prodigy, genius and prize winner at the Vienna and Paris conservatories was steered into studying medicine as a teenager; but he could not stand the smells of surgery and his professor, the now famous pioneer of internal surgery Theodor Billroth, also a renowned musician advised Fritz to return to violin. Thank heavens! Throughout his life, Fritz retained a keen interest in medical developments.
This is a problem well-known to conservatories. I would guess your school has counselors. This would be a good time to talk to one.
Michael Rabin had the same problem with his mother and spent his short life in a restricted regime of practicing and concertizing. He died, tragically, much too young, from a fall, which some suggested was a “suicide” or caused by drug use. He was a lovely person whom I met when I was 18 after a concert. Accompanied by a Professor, a musician, who had been his neighbor in NY, I was looking forward to spending the evening after the concert with him and the Music Professor and his wife. But, an agent pulled him away to a very wealthy couple of benefactors, and he looked so downcast at the lost opportunity to have a normal reunion with old friends and their young woman companion (me). It was not long after that he died.
Musicians have choices to make about how to make a balance between life and a career. Those with exceptional talent and intelligence can pull it off more easily than those who are conflicted. That takes too much of a toll on ones life. Choose you own life path, and don’t let people pressure you to act against your understanding of yourself.
The only possible reason to embark on a career as a professional musician is that you can’t imagine being as happy doing anything else. If you are disciplined and resourceful enough to make your way in life as a musician, you almost certainly could have been materially a lot better off in another career.
It’s already hard to make it when you want it with every fiber of your being, so it would be much harder (if not impossible) when one is conflicted. Parents can be an enormous problem when it comes to this, making choices for their children without asking them whether this is something they actually want and projecting their own unfulfilled pasts onto their children, which is incredibly selfish and narcissistic. I suggest reading “Producing Excellence” by Izabela Wagner on this topic, which is very informative.
Just because one has already invested a lot of effort into something doesn’t mean one should continue forever. You seem to be at an age where a major change is still possible, but that will become harder and harder as years go by. You are the one who is going to have to live with the consequences of your choices — not your mother. Of course, that is easier said than done, as the pressure here can be enormous. You may have to continue somehow until such time as you become financially independent and develop a Plan B — only then will you have true autonomy and sole decision power over your choices. It seems you have already made a decision, to be honest. However I would mention one proviso: make sure you don’t turn away from the violin in order to rebel against your mother. That, only you can know.
I can say nothing useful to advise this person. I myself decided how much (or little) to practice and take advantage of musical opportunities. Sometimes I wish I’d been pushed just a bit more by my parents especially in those years between 10 and 18 when with more concentration I might have had a chance to really do something with the fiddle.
BUT I can say that my late teacher, who essentially was raised from the crib to be a violinist and clearly was pushed by his father quite a bit, paid the price by way of being hopelessly naive, I hesitate to say ignorant but only because that word suggests actual stupidity, about so much of importance in a normal life. Just about everything he did outside of music ended up being a huge mistake, from a very ill advised and destructive marriage to nearly complete lack of comprehension as to what his doctors were telling him and warning him about and ordering him to do or not do. He had nobody to blame but himself, as the saying goes, but actually there were others to blame. It was just about the most poorly attended funeral I’ve ever been to.
An extreme case I’m sure. I hope.