I was a great musician but a terrible artist. In the sixteen years in which I trained as a flutist, from early private lessons through prestigious conservatory training, I developed technical skills on my instrument but could not claim that I was anywhere close to developing artistry. Most of my performing involved simply “wishing” for results to happen because I felt ill-equipped to implement my desired artistic end. Unsurprisingly, my “successes” (as perceived by myself back then and still by the musical world now) were nonexistent. Disillusioned with this lack of success and frustrated with the nepotism and classism that exists within classical music, I concluded that art contributed nothing useful to society anyway. I questioned the worth of my education and stopped playing altogether. During my stint as a “non-musician,” I lived abroad, trekked across a large swath of Europe, began a training program in the Alexander Technique, and joined the global populace in suffering through a pandemic. Consequently, I had a lot of time away from music to think about music. After nearly three years of barely touching my instrument, I determined that the source of my disillusionment was my inability to think like an artist. A more pressing question emerged: what does it mean to think artistically, and why, in my eight years of higher education, was the subject of thinking like an artist barely addressed? Was everyone else around me also unable to think artistically, or was the art of teaching how to think like an artist simply bypassed for the development of more tangible skills, like technique and tone, which more immediately paved the way for “musical success”?
In this essay, I aim to explore the meaning of artistry, the issues within higher education that prevent musicians from becoming “true artists,” and ways to incorporate artistic thought into the curriculum. These solutions are based on explorations I have made within my own teaching and are not intended to be a formula for all, as it is important to develop individual curiosity and awareness. Lastly, I will explore the benefits of prioritizing artistic thought over monetary success; that is, if more individuals were able to access the elitist and stringent world of classical music (which should emphasize artistic thought but often falls short of doing so), then consciously and critically thinking individuals would emerge in both music and society.
The Meaning of Artistry
I believe the foundation of artistry lies in how we think about music. Or, in a broader sense, artistry is how one thinks, regardless of profession. This seems an obvious statement. You are what you think; if you can think artistically, you can perform artistically, and then you can be an artist. Yet, “artistic thinking” is a vague label that conveys different meanings to different individuals. In the past few years, I have come to believe that artistic thinking, reasoned thinking, and critical thinking are actually one and the same. Just as we hone technical skills to produce facility (which then leads to technical mastery), we must also hone our thoughts to unlock artistic thinking. This process requires us to address our distracted mindset — to practice attention and intention with our thoughts and surroundings, to critically observe the systems in which we move, and to enact these thoughts and reactions in constructive and tangible ways.
But this is incredibly difficult in application. I know I am not alone in my tendency to follow thoughts down the rabbit hole, and even after years of intentionally practicing how to think, I find that I can still walk three miles without observing any of the beautiful New England autumn foliage by which I have passed. No wonder, then, that in my pre-hiatus years, my practicing and performing were often devoid of meaningful thinking. Rather than thinking of what I wanted to express musically and critically engaging my technical and physical tools to execute this, I instead mechanically pressed keys and would think about what to eat for dinner, whether my teacher would like my playing or not, or what would happen if a wardrobe malfunction occurred during a performance. Naturally, my playing was devoid of artistry, despite having the technical skillset to execute my artistic intentions.
Because artistic development is fueled by cultivating technical skills, musicians must build an efficient practice routine that encourages continual mastery of the instrument. Artistic expression, however, must be the marriage of a highly developed skillset and a highly developed thought process. Despite this, artistic thinking was rarely addressed in my higher education experience. In fact, I would not have been able to tell you what constituted artistic thinking and had no obvious tools to guide myself. This lack of thought-guidance persists throughout different sectors of society and is not limited to the field of music.
End-gaining and Lack of Critical Thinking in Music Higher Education
Here’s why music education is a natural route to being able to think artistically: its extraordinary and tangible benefits include improved cognition, reduced stress and depression, development of complex motor and auditory skills, enhanced neurogenesis (the ability to produce neurons), and greater development of brain areas related to emotional and psychological responses. In a 2003 article in the Journal of Neuroscience, neuroscientists Christian Gaser and Gottfried Schlaug concluded that musicians have more gray matter (areas responsible for seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision-making, and self-control) within their brains than non-musicians.
Think about this in the context of orchestral work, for example, as this level of playing requires highly attuned skills in seeing (music, conductor, surroundings), hearing (tone, timbre, intonation, phrasing), memory (awareness of upcoming passages), emotions (expressing musical intention), decision-making (how and when to execute your technique effectively and appropriately), and self-control (understanding of your part within the whole). This level of cognition is happening simultaneously, which, as far as human development goes, is astounding — perhaps even more impressive than winning an orchestral job! Imagine the application of this level of cognition in our daily lives. Even for those who choose not to pursue music professionally, the brain’s heightened connectivity as the result of musical training may still be instrumental in leading a high-quality life guided by artistic thought.
In higher level music education, however, these benefits alone are prized less for their inherent value and more for their ability to achieve a desired end goal — which, ironically, means these benefits are often sacrificed entirely. The prioritization of an end-gaining mindset (such as winning jobs, auditions, and competitions) over the development of artistry, makes sense in many ways; winning a job is a tangible measurement of success and everyone needs money to survive in a capitalistic environment. As this pressure forces institutions, programs, and teachers to conform to a rigid educational system, artistic thought, which does not yield a tangible measure of skill-acquisition or assessment, cannot realistically always be addressed. So, we feel we have no choice but to continue facilitating this end-gaining mindset.
The risk, however, is that prioritizing a tangible result often comes at the loss of true artistic expression and of broader human and social development. Taking “shortcuts” to achieve our desired personal ends, we become fixated on personal gains and successes without using conscious reasoning to guide us towards long-term, universally beneficial societal goals. On a broader level, this situation reflects current global issues. While communities generally understand the catastrophes wrought by racism and environmental injustice, current structures make it nearly impossible to overcome these issues; thus, we tend to further focus inward on personal goals because we feel we cannot contribute to any meaningful change. Furthermore, shortcuts taken in infrastructure, health care, education, and politics sooner or later result in a systems breakdown, which can take generations to rectify. What starts as a quick fix “for now” becomes an even longer, more grueling obstacle to attaining a real solution.
In career terms, our worth is determined by the kind of job we win or the trajectory of our educational pedigree. The two main options presented to aspiring classical musicians include playing in an orchestra or teaching at a university. Running a private music studio or teaching in a public school is mentioned as a quasi-lucrative “back-up” option, should the others fall through. This is extremely limiting, as many young musicians initially do not consider creative freelancing options because they are worried about financial stability. It also reinforces the idea that musicians who must pursue additional income streams to supplement their musical careers have “failed” at music. While being a tenured orchestral musician or applied instrumental faculty is stable work and often generates more income than freelancing, there is an issue of supply and demand — it is simply not possible for everyone to find these positions, no matter how skilled they are.
According to the 2010 U.S. Bureau of the Census, only 27% of total college graduates have a job related to their degrees. On the contrary, another 2010 study, conducted by the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), found that over 50% of music majors (performance and education) were working in a music-related industry. While this shows that musicians are statistically more likely to have work related to their field compared with most other majors, many of these jobs may not be full time work. Most musicians with orchestral or university jobs still often supplement their income with side gigs. Statistics vary based on the source, but according to Glassdoor, an applied professor of music makes on average $54,220 per year. Interestingly, a freelance private music instructor can make comparable income. This is not to deter people from pursing high-level orchestral or academic careers, but these should not be presented as the only options simply because they are often considered “the cream of the crop” jobs. This closed-minded mentality fails to encourage musicians to think creatively about what could fulfill them outside of these two options and, in pursuing these careers, they may accrue more educational debt than necessary.
So, we go through our musical lives checking off the boxes of masterclasses, music festivals, and expensive degrees, wishing that these obligatory experiences (and an impressive resume) might magically transform us into artists — even if these may not be the best decisions for us mentally, emotionally, or financially. On more than one occasion, fellow musicians have told me that, based on my educational background, I have “basically made it.” This was perhaps the most crippling compliment I ever received — I could never live up to the expectation of my next great success and in the process of attempting to do so, I took short cuts, skipping over thinking about artistry in order to strengthen my technical facility. I believed that if I was more technically proficient than my peers, I was better than them. This mindset had an adverse effect on both my mental and physical health; I was frantic in my preparation to become “successful,” and the recordings made during my collegiate years reflect a frenetic, chaotic energy. The harder I tried to be successful, the more my technique improved, but the more I seemed to regress artistically. When adjudicators and other faculty commented on my playing as being “impressive” but “a little boring,” I did not know what more they could possibly expect from me. Unable to determine the exact source of my struggle, I continued to assume it was related to inconsistencies in my technique, thus perpetuating the cycle of trying harder but regressing further.
This culminated in a complete psychophysical meltdown. I spent the next five years in and out of therapy while struggling with severe repetitive stress injuries. At one point, I was physically unable to extend my fingers to their fullest length, and for nearly a year my left hand remained in what seemed to me like a curled claw. Ironically, I was unable to perform anywhere near my technical peak during the years of injury (and the many years following my recovery) and have only recently regained the technical capacity I had in my late teens and early twenties.
I wish that my teachers could have spent more time guiding me through their own thought-processes, asking questions that would have further encouraged my thinking about music, such as “what do you want to say?” and “how shall you express it?” But teachers are expected to perform the impossible task of churning out successful musicians within two, three, or four years. More than one of my teachers has lamented that the university degree is “too short” to develop the necessary requisite skills in musicianship. I understand now that they were likely frustrated with and restricted by our current educational model; four years is plenty of time to develop technique, but nowhere near enough time to develop technique and artistic thought. Thus, teachers often must make the choice to simply prepare their students with mechanical skills for auditions and competitions. Additionally, higher educational curricula include rigorous coursework that is driven by holistic educational values but can devolve into the end-gaining mindset of prioritizing workload and assessment.
Widespread performance anxiety is another example of our failure to properly deal with systemic end-gaining. Anxiety is widely accepted as an unfortunate but natural byproduct of performing, which absolves us from addressing it. It also becomes a point of shame for some musicians, who believe that they should love performing and cannot understand why they don’t. If the social, emotional, and financial repercussions of performing were less extreme, I imagine many musicians would feel more comfortable to make mistakes and to use mistakes as learning opportunities. Unfortunately, we are often inculcated to believe that so-called failing in musical performance is no different than being a failure as an individual, all the while fearing the ever-looming “starving artist” future. Even though many teachers adopt encouraging and understanding rhetoric, the underlying problem has yet to be addressed, so we persist in doing what it takes to achieve perfection.
In my early college years, my thought processes were (more or less) rational during my practice sessions, but my mind was in chaos the moment I set foot on stage. To help bridge the gap between “practice room brain” and “on-stage brain, I addressed this in one of my lessons and was directed to read Barry Green’s The Inner Game of Music. My teacher insisted that it would “help my performance anxiety issue,” but I could not apply the excellent theory I read into my practice without guidance (at least in the early stages). The next advice I was given was to perform more often to become accustomed to the anxiety. So, I performed four recitals per year. Rather than alleviating my issues, however, this just reinforced my chaotic thought-process during preparation and performance and increased the severity of my anxiety.
Ultimately, after eight years of higher education, I was never truly able to cultivate a reasoned thought-process while performing and thus could never perform confidently or happily. So, I concluded that I just did not have what it takes to win a job. In retrospect, this was a lost opportunity for my teacher and myself to discuss what I was thinking about, how I should think about my music, and what tools I could develop to better direct my thoughts during practice and performance. Instead, I felt abandoned by the music education model and everyone in it.
After I came to terms with my desire to leave the realm of professional performing, I learned that many of my peers resorted to beta blockers to get through auditions, competitions, and major performances. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, and often helps many musicians perform in a way that they feel best represents their abilities, this approach attests to the nature of performance anxiety as widespread, stigmatized, and tethered to the field’s end-gaining emphasis. Rather than coming together as a community to eradicate our anxieties head on, individual performers end up suffering alone to achieve “successful” performances, perpetuating the very mindset that debilitates our artistic potentials.
The result of fixating on a tangible, successful “end” is a lack of critical thinking, which directly impacts our ability to artistically articulate ideas and causes us to practice, perform, and live our lives repetitiously and mindlessly. While it is possible to live mindlessly (as many do), most tasks become more meaningful the moment critical thinking is applied. Further, because art and ego are so intertwined, and because of the link between art and end-gaining, mental and physical problems are worsened when we do not achieve our desired ends. We become overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and failure and, in the all-consuming desire to be good, often push ourselves beyond our physical and mental limits. When individuals suffer from such stress, the health and state of society is weakened considerably.
Some (Musical) Solutions
Redefine Success
It is easy to be an end-gainer when the culture of our work perpetually reinforces superficial ideas of success. To address this, we must redefine our perception of what even constitutes success. Already, the current generation of classical musicians is making this push. Many embrace the idea that success does not necessarily mean channeling all our energy into a full-time career in music but perhaps, instead, means exploring music’s inherent interdisciplinarity, cultivating a healthy relationship with our instrument and our body, and/or sharing the joy of music with our students from a place of empathy. The possibilities of having an impactful music career are vast. And, when we release ourselves and our art from the obligation to gain a specific end, we are free to consider artistic development on our own terms and for a higher purpose. From this more globalized and personalized awareness, we can begin real artistic exploration.
In my personal teaching, I try to implement a new definition of success by avoiding subjective values-based judgements like “good” or “bad” (as this is usually tied to an emotional desire to be successful) but encourage my students to use the instrument to persevere through difficulties (increasingly difficult in a society that seeks instant gratification) and to use the opportunity to practice reasoned thought.
Develop Awareness
For performers, tonal awareness is one application of practicing reasoned thought. I usually counter the frequent question from my students “Am I making a good sound?” with “I do not know what you mean by ‘a good sound,’ but do you think the sound you are using is appropriate in conveying your musical intention? If not, what can we do to adjust it?” Many of my flute lessons have turned into anatomy sessions (much to my students’ chagrin, I am sure), so that they can develop a better understanding of the mechanism of the actual instrument (the human body) and how the flute is simply a vessel that reflects our psychophysical workings. For example, I spent the majority of one student’s lesson discussing the breathing apparatus of the body (lungs and throat) after we discovered that their tendency for shallow breathing with a closed throat was present not just in flute playing but in everyday life. More oxygen = more fuel for the brain = ability to think more attentively. If this student could be mindful of how to breathe — efficiently and as often as possible — both the flute playing and the quality of life would improve as a natural byproduct. Through this, I hoped to convey the importance of this student’s physical wellbeing over “good playing” because the flute is not the end all be all.
I hope to steer my students away from a mindless, end-gaining mentality towards a genuine curiosity of the flute, themselves, and the world around them. If my student leaves the lesson thinking a little bit more about what they want to express, how they can express it, and how they can use the power of thought outside of their lessons, then I believe they are closer to unlocking their artistic potential — not just developing technique. When enough individuals contribute to this new wave of thought, the current perception of “success in music” can be overturned.
Rethink Practicing
Despite research reinforcing the notion that long practice sessions are not beneficial, many teachers continue to extol the daily eight-hour practice goal; this is likely reinforced by Malcolm Gladwell’s since-debunked bestseller Outliers: The Story of Success, which claims that 10,000 hours of practice can make you a master in any given field.[1] One of my teachers often opened studio classes and lessons by asking how many hours each student had practiced. To meet this eight-hour mark, many students developed poor and aimless practice habits (and, thus, injuries). On the other hand, telling a student that they should practice no more than three or four hours can completely change their perception of how they should organize their practicing. Many teachers will spend their first lessons with new students showing efficient ways in which to practice difficult passages, walking them through how to identify mistakes, how to address the issue in question, and how external tools like the metronome, drone, and tuner can aid in improvement. With this method, students are usually able, within a matter of minutes, to rectify the issue and play the entire passage with confidence. What may initially seem like micro-managing can actually provide students a concrete structure for developing their skills. Even in my early twenties, I had yet to develop an efficient practice technique and distinctly remember being told: “practice some more and you’ll figure it out.” Without careful guidance, and because I equated quantity (not quality) practice with skill-acquisition, it took me several years to “figure it out.”
It is important for teachers to be transparent about the reality of “musical mastery.” I attempt to disabuse early on the notion that mastery means graduating from thinking; mastery, to me, means one will have reached a point where they can be attentive to the music, their body, and their thoughts at such a level that any necessary adjustments can be made at a much faster rate. When my own students are particularly frustrated with their inability to “master” something after only a few months, I share that after eighteen years of playing the flute, I still must remind myself to roll my head joint out to produce a clearer sound. This perception of mastery is important for cultivating kinder, more realistic expectations of ourselves in our practicing and to prevent falling back into our end-gaining methods. I now guide my own practice and that of my students with these questions: What do you want to express in this specific phrase? What will you do with your body and the instrument to be able to express it? And, if you do not currently have the skillset to execute this artistic idea, what could you do to develop it? With these three questions, I have become very precise in my thinking, and my artistic expression is conveyed more clearly as a result.
Concluding Thoughts
While this essay specifically addresses the negative impact of an end-gaining mentality within music higher education, its scope extends much further. I believe it is crucial for everyone, regardless of their level of involvement with the arts, to develop artistic, reasoned, and critical thinking. Society’s overall health is reflected via the health of its members, and vice versa. Despite being more educated and more globally connected than any generation before us, we are perpetually witnessing (and contributing to) breakdowns in communication on all levels.
This is particularly apparent in United States politics, where differing factions refuse to compromise and even strive to actively undermine their opponents, not realizing (or not caring) that in their desire to gain a specific end, their poorly reasoned decisions negatively impact all of society. Such large-scale selfishness, I believe, is due, in part, to our collective inability to guide our thoughts in a healthy, conscious way, which I have argued, is not largely cultivated in professions that require it the most. But the reality is this: the stakes have never been higher — the current climate catastrophe is a testament to this, having become so dire that scientists have already deemed that we are in the sixth mass extinction (and the only human-driven one). Yet, we are feeling hopeless, frantic, and disconnected as we have no means by which to achieve our desired end.
So, you might wonder, how is this even related to music? I believe that the profession I once thought contributed nothing to society could be one of our greatest tools. Yes, challenging and restructuring higher education so that musicians are free from unrealistic expectations of success, emphasizing instead music’s capacity to help us grow, would yield healthier relationships with music and with ourselves. But more importantly, this systemic change would empower us to think critically, reasonably, and artistically, and to apply this thinking in all aspects of our lives. We as musicians have a fairly large impact on the rest of society. While most individuals do not have the means or the opportunity to pursue music on a professional level, everyone interacts with music in some capacity, and the number of people who take music lessons as an extracurricular or a hobby is vast. Acknowledging that the cognitive and emotional benefits of music are immense, I suggest that if we focus on making this kind of critical music education more accessible for these reasons alone; we have the chance to contribute to the overall cognitive improvement of society. And who wouldn’t benefit from that?
Even though I am most definitely considered a “failed musician” through the traditional lens of classical music, I believe I am making a greater impact on society now than I would have, had I kept my skills and perceptions strictly within the realm of higher-level music education and performance. I am no longer just a musician, nor am I an artist yet. But I know I am somewhere on the perpetual journey towards artistry and, guided by continual development of my thinking processes, I know I will always strive towards leading an artistic life, with or without any musical instruments.
[1] Taking this arbitrary 10,000 hours as a landmark, if you practice 8 hours every day, you will hit the 10,000 hour mark in 1,250 days or 3.42 years (which would almost perfectly encompass the entirety of your undergraduate education, assuming you took one day off of practice each week). However, psychologist K. Anders Ericcson researched the concept of deliberate practice and learned that, even among the best violinists, half hadn’t even reached this number by the time they were twenty. And assuming you do reach 10,000 hours by the time you are twenty-two years old…what comes next? Is there nothing left to learn?
