I am a music student. In the world of music you hear a lot about talent. However, I am not a talented musician. What I want to end up doing in my life is teaching music to middle and high school students. Music for me is fun, it makes me happy, I enjoy doing it, it’s what I spend eighty percent of my time doing now that I’m a music major. Sometimes though, music makes me want to cry, to lay in bed for no reason for hours, makes me feel like I am worth nothing, and reminds me that music isn’t even that practical of a career choice but still every single person who plays an instrument is better than me. These are the times whenever I remember I’m not talented.
One of the times I felt like that the worst was when I received the email that I wasn’t accepted into U of L’s music program. I knew I was keeping my options open to where I wanted to go to school, but I loved the campus and was devastated that five minutes of music I had worked on for months only ended up in rejection. However, the professor of my instrument offered me lessons to work on my music, with the hopes to re-audition. That meant another three months of working on this piece of music I now hated.
But I kept at it, practiced for the next eternity, re-auditioned and now I’m here. I’m not in the top ensemble, I’m not even close to being in the top half of the musicians in my studio, or even the other freshmen, but it’s the end of the semester and I can play things I was scared to even look at four months ago. I’ve been working harder on something I love than I ever have before.
It’s terrifying that in four years I could be standing in front of a classroom of unsure musicians like myself, but I will work hard for them too. I am not talented. I will always have to take extra time to learn a part of music. I will never be instantly great at a piece. I will never have magic fingers that play all the right notes every time.
I am not talented and neither are many people, but I believe that someone can achieve just about anything even after failure, as long as they put in the hard work and determination for it.