There is a mantra I try my best to live by.
“You’re an artist when you decide to start calling yourself an artist.”
This is something I’m struggled with for a long time. It’s far easier to question myself than it is to accept myself. I first began formal training in music thirty years ago. I have always kept at least a piano in my home, my entire life, so for thirty years, I have at least played music. But am I musician? From that perspective, it sounds like a resounding and rather simple yes. To me, however? I don’t know. My goal here is not to just sit and complain for paragraphs, but to speak to any other artist out there, whatever your art, and hopefully have my experience help you through yours.
My own standards
I ask a lot of myself. I always have, and I think I always will. Because of that, I can’t have every standard I set for myself be a make it or break it thing. Instead, every standard is a goal. Every standard reached a milestone towards that new goal. Viewing things that way, I’ve managed to hold myself accountable to move forward without feeling the fatigue of discounting progress that’s being made, which is easy to do when all I have is the end in sight.
The standard I set for myself as a musician is to be creating, playing, and bettering myself in my music all the time. Not every day, not even in any specific length of time, but rather to continue to feeling that I’m better than I was before. The activities I do regularly to do that are
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practicing my instruments or learning new instruments
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listening to music
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watching videos about music or musicians that inspire me
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creating music in some form
Over the years, these are the steps I’ve taken to keep that side of my life alive and well. It’s like a pet, it needs to be fed, nurtured, loved, and taken care of. Sounds easy, but it’s not a laundry list. It’s not a list of activities I want to just get through for the sake of getting through. This is my passion, I want to be excited, present, and mindful of each activity. I want to love what I’m doing. That, is not so easy. Balance that with the fact that I know if I’m busy or distracted and I don’t do any of these for any kind of extended period of time, I begin feeling it. I get sluggish, feel down, a sense of sadness follows me around. Having music in my life is a part of me. Doing the task without being excited about it feels wrong and more like a task than a love, not doing the task causes me to be sad.
Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
What do I do, then??
I try to be as accepting of myself as I can. This is where the real struggle lies. I’ve identified all these different scenarios, all these different feelings. rather than try to build a flowchart of guidelines to follow depending on the situation, I let myself feel what I’m feeling. I tell myself it’s okay. It’s okay to not be into it all the time. That doesn’t make me any less of a lover of music. It’s okay to feel sad and miss my art. I can make time for it. It’s okay to question myself some times. I just need to give myself a break. Reflect. Not be so hard on myself.
So, am I a musician?
Yes. I’m a musician. I hold myself to a lot of standards. I get on myself a lot for not creating as much as I’d like or practicing as much as I’d like. I never put anything out because I’m always judging it or don’t feel it’s ready or perfect. My push to be the musician I know I can be causes me to stay in a bubble. That bubble doesn’t make me look like a musician from the outside, sure. But, I don’t care about that. I can’t. It’ll debilitate me if I do.
Are there things I can do better? Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely. Things I need to do better. Just look above about not putting any of my work out there. Does the fact I don’t put anything out stop me from being able to call myself a musician? No. I won’t let it. I am, and will always be, a musician.