"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
– Michael Jordan This is one of my favorite quotes. I love the reminder that arguably the greatest basketball player of all time has failed time and time again. We all fail. In my opinion, this is one of the most important lessons that music has to teach. Every musician has failed in someway, and it hurts. It’s really devastating to spend months practicing for an audition, giving up time with family and friends, and spending hours per day perfecting your craft only to go to an audition, play for 5 minutes, and go home with nothing but a bruised ego. It’s embarrassing to have a memory lapse on stage during a competition, even though you had performed the piece flawlessly hundreds of other times. I always felt failure in music was so personal. It felt like it wasn’t just that my playing wasn’t good enough; it was that I wasn’t good enough. I thought I failed because I hadn’t worked hard enough, or everyone else was more talented than me. But as I went on in my musical career, and especially now that I’ve left music as a career, I see that repeated failure is one of the best things that I experienced. Each time I got rejected from a summer festival, a competition, or a job, I got better at dealing with that rejection. I mourned for less time and moved on quicker. I learned to use failure as motivation. Eventually, I got better (though it’s still something I am working on) to be okay with myself, even when I’d failed. To know how to fail, and handle failure, is incredibly important in any area of life. If you’re able to accept failure, you’re able to try a lot more things. And guess what? You’ll probably have more success the more things you try. So, keep practicing, keep trying, and keep failing. Good luck!
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AuthorLaura Lanier is the creator of bassoonsolos.com Archives
June 2020
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