There’s No Such Thing as a “Failed” Musician
Real talk on life after music school
I remember being a college music major like I remember being in my first relationship — infatuated, committed, proud. Also: idealistic and completely delusional. I suppose being eighteen and devoting everything to something has that effect on you.
Like most of my fellow music majors, I believed firmly in my own specialness. I played the piano and sang, and on top of that I wrote songs. Obviously I’m going places, I would often think to myself, conveniently ignoring the fact that the world was overflowing with people—many of whom sat within ten feet of me every Monday and Wednesday during Theory — who also played the piano and sang and wrote songs.
There’s a lazy comfort involved in rejecting the reality of how utterly common it is to love music. It enables you to wholeheartedly listen to everyone who encourages you to dream big!—which in and of itself is a great thing, but all too often becomes problematic when those dreams fail to materialize. After you’ve developed a sense of entitlement to their fulfillment, no less.
This is the point for many music majors where a disease called Stage Five Pop Star Resentment may begin to set in.
For me, inexplicably, hilariously, the catalyst was Rihanna. I remember just waking up one day and wondering how it was fair that I had to master every intricacy of the language — struggling to get through sight singing, arranging, conducting, auditions, whatever — while she got to enjoy the auto-tuned success of “Umbrella” without even having to sing on key.
Didn’t the music success gods know that Rihanna and I had the same dreams? Didn’t they know that I was classically trained? And that I sang and played piano and wrote songs? How could they look at someone who took lessons and studied music history and got a ninety on his last Ear Training exam (which included transcription!) and pass it all up for Rihanna?
In retrospect, of course, the answer is obvious:
Because Rihanna is a badass bitch with a unique voice, hot body, magnetic persona, and—most importantly—horseshoes up her ass. She got lucky. Her journey was unlikely and easy, and there’s no use begrudging her that. There is only use in accepting it and admiring it (and listening to it at the gym).
The second answer is perhaps even more obvious:
The music success gods do not exist. Or, if they do, they don’t have any interest in rewarding musicians on any kind of scale proportionate to technical skill. If that were the case, thousands of socially awkward band teachers across the country would suddenly become millionaires, and Chris Brown would be busking. (Beyoncé would still be Beyoncé, though.)
And so it’s no surprise that my classmates and I have spent the past five years since graduation coming to terms with the paycheck-demanding realities of Life After Music School. Some still gently pursue the dream, some have redefined the dream, some have moved on altogether. Some teach, some tour, some release music independently, and some work desk jobs while playing in cover bands on the weekends. Others, like me, have let music descend into hobby-status while pursuing more personally authentic creative goals altogether.
Whatever your music major story is, chances are you’re not selling out arenas and furnishing Thank You shout-outs for your liner notes right now, and that’s okay. You’re not alone; you’re not a failure.
Regardless of how not-special your love of music has come to feel, regardless of the Best New Artist Grammy you’ve given up on being nominated for, regardless of how you feel about Taylor Swift, regardless of your friends or family members who still stress you out with their adorable beliefs about how exceptional talent automatically leads to exceptional success (spoiler alert, Uncle Paul at Thanksgiving: it doesn’t!), you. Are. Not. A. Failure.
Rather, you’re a human being whose passion led you to spend four blissfully sheltered years completely immersed in something you loved as a kid. You got to do that. You got to do that!
And that alone is really something.
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Follow Nicolas DiDomizio at thenicolasblog.com and on Twitter @ctnicolas.
