Unrealistic Expectations for Musicians

It can be difficult to be a musician. There are expectations on all sides that can be impossible to manage.

I always hope to play all the right notes on the piano but that never seems to happen, no matter how much I’ve practiced. I forget that the piano in the church needs fighting and never really sounds nice. After our church rehearsal some of the children asked me why I was covering up the piano. I told him that it needed its sleep or it got grumpy. They gave it a little stroke, knowing how it felt to be cold and grumpy, having just walked in the rain to sit on a cold stone floor for an hour. Their sympathy helped. The beast was in a better mood the next day.

Beginner musicians of all ages often unrealistically expect to be able to play pieces that are too difficult. I am often shocked by drummers who can’t can’t to four, yet think they are ready to play in a band. I find all of this really funny. It was the adult music school’s Easter concert last night and the conductor had an unrealistic hope. It wasn’t an expectation, just a wish. She looked at me, my other bass clarinet pal and the bari-sax player and said, “Can I trust you three to sit together? Last time I was so excited to have a big bottom and I looked up and you were all corpsing.”
We remembered the fart noise from the tuba before. “It’ll be fine,” me and my big bottomed pals laughed. It’s never fine. There is always so much to laugh at. The Long Suffering Husband had resisted the urge to stuff cheese in his ears but had drunk half a bottle of wine and was accurate in his praise at the end. “I thought Les Mis was really good..... Yes, excellent.....It just went downhill from there.”

As a teacher, I sometimes worry that I encourage unrealistic expectations in my music students. This week, six took music exams. They all passed with scores significantly over the pass mark and they were all disappointed. I’m sure that I’ve never expected them to get distinctions but that’s what they all wanted. Maybe they deserved them but some examiners are harsh markers. Music is subjective, which is why Drake earns more than Alexandre Desplat.

It is universally accepted that classical musicians will have more (costly) training than pop musicians but will be paid significantly less.  Even bad guitarists and drummers seem to be able to make a living. Musicians, like many other people doing creative work, are not as well rewarded as they should be. People assume that because they are doing work that is creative, they must enjoy it and therefore don’t need to be paid well. Musicians like to eat and pay their rent and this can be an unrealistic expectation.

In the church I fuelled some unrealistic expectations.
“Miss, did you really give the flute players 50 housepoints each?” an indignant boy asked me.
Unapologeticically, I agreed that I had.
“It’s not fair,” he said.
“Oh, what did you do that should have earned you that many housepoints?” I was genuinely curious.
“Well nothing,” he shrugged, “but they don’t deserve 50.”
I arched my eyebrow at him. He flustered and tried to back away.
“When you can stand in a cold church with both arms held out to the right at shoulder height for two sessions of nearly half an hour each without putting your flute in the ear of the the person next to you, read a code that most humans can’t comprehend, not lose concentration while people walk past or talk or drink coffee, make beautiful music that people can’t be bothered to listen to, keep going when someone knocks your paper with the incomprehensible code on to the floor, remember to breath in while constantly blowing out without getting faint or dizzy and do all that while smiling and pretending that it’s not work and that you are so grateful for the chance to do it that you don’t need any reward then I’ll give you fifty housepoints!”

He goldfished at me for a while and I considered whether I had gone too far and finally lost the plot.
 In the end, I just agreed with him. “You’re right, it’s not fair.”