Feel free to stop striving: learn to relish being an amateur
Xenia Hanusiakis a cultural commentator, essayist and writer whose work has been published by the Financial Times, Music & Literature and The New York Times among others. As an operatic soprano, writer for the stage and curator, she has contributed to festivals from National Sawdust in New York to the Beijing Music Festival.
The role of practice ought to be revised so that striving is replaced by fulfilment, and notions of success and failure are erased
The amateur has always had a rightful place in society
- Plato’s discussion of musical education in Book III of The Republic implies the existence of amateurs as well of professionals
- For Aristotle, skill in performance is to be carried to the point at which it enables the pupil to enjoy good music – and no further
- In his 1779 sonata, C P E Bach dedicated his work ‘für Kenner und Liebhaber’, or to connoisseurs and lovers, expressly excluding professionals
The art of amateurship pivots on knowing our capabilities and realising the boundaries of what we seek
In not aiming to perform a four-part fugue by memory, or looking to debut at Carnegie Hall à la Foster Jenkins, the amateur finds fulfilment by being completely absorbed in the music at hand, and undergoing an immersion journey that, at its best, can act as a metaphor for understanding the preciousness of time and the need for deliberate concentration.
- If we focus on our proactive enjoyment of conquering and luxuriating in a few bars at time or playing a piece of music that truly connects us with our spirit, we enter into dialogue with pleasure.
So, despite not conquering a Chopin waltz, the sense of fulfilment prevails
Taking ownership of your inner amateur doesn’t mean sacrificing your inner aspirations to play a challenging piece of music. It simply means that you become the custodian and narrator of your own experience of striving.
- For so many amateur musicians, the pattern of criticism and the hierarchical relationship of the teacher-pupil relationship can be crushing
- Our inner amateur is therefore self-directed
- Once we appreciate that practice is not an endgame, our ego falls away and we enter the experience with complete commitment
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