5 Things I Wish I Had Known In Music School
Thoughts on creativity and how to make money, ten years post-conservatory
I was fortunate to have my choice of top music conservatories when I began to pursue music professionally.
Still, I spent most of the six years I had in music school engulfed by trepidation and worry.
- What if I can’t win an audition?
- What if I get in a car accident and my face becomes disfigured?
- What if I injure myself or develop one of a myriad of small biological anomalies (carpal tunnel, a frozen muscle) that short circuit a life of expression?
(All of these scenarios came true for at least one of my music school comrades, so they aren’t as exaggerated as you might think.)
The problem I had, and that perhaps many young people studying the arts also have now, was that I thought my craft as the only thing I could ever do to make money or feel fulfilled.
So I shunned the idea of learning other skills for fear that they would distract from my ultimate goal, which was to become a world-class sentinel of French Horn awesomeness.
This righteousness ended up being for naught. By the end of my degrees, I was broke and stressed, and in a massive shame…
