Pianists and the Good Student Syndrome
Good students are easy to identify. They’re the ones who finish every assignment they’re given. They’re attentive. They get high marks in school. They’re always prepared. They thrive on structure and external goals and they love the recognition they receive for having met others’ expectations.
Most advanced pianists are good students. While their less-structured compatriots chose not to practice or fail to prepare adequately for lessons or performances, the good student shows up at the piano every day. They arrive at every lesson fully prepared and on time. Recognized for their accomplishments, many choose to pursue music in university, from which they matriculate with high honors. They start their musical careers with diplomas, accolades, and the belief that their hard work and lifelong diligence will be recognized and rewarded. Sadly, it rarely is.
One of the most difficult transitions many musicians must go through is learning how to grow beyond being good students and become mature, self-directed musicians. I know the struggle well, even though I was more of a “good-ish” student. I spent much of my 20s trying to find a formula that would give me the answers to how to make a living in the arts. When I realized there was no rule book it was both frightening and freeing. Some of my pianist friends escaped into academia where they now train new generations of good students. I, like many other pianists, chose to enter a market distressingly free of clearly marked roadmaps.
The reason why so many dedicated and talented pianists struggle to move beyond being good students is easy to find. Most of us were trained in the traditional conservatory model, frequently by very structured and (sometimes) rigid teachers. It made us obsessed with clear directions. In fact, it gave us the false promise that there would always be clear directions. Many times it convinced us that there were only two ways of doing anything—the correct way and the wrong way. For many of us, a world beyond this sort of binary musical thinking was, well, unthinkable.
It’s difficult to overstate just how frightening it is to move beyond this belief. Fear of failure runs deep in good students and because we rarely fail, we don’t understand how to give ourselves permission to do so. Even more crucially, good students have rarely been given tools for creative, independent thought. We’re taught to reproduce, not create. We’re taught that anything less than the rarefied air of narrow musical perfection is failure. Many abandon the profession rather than make the adjustments we need to in order to survive in today’s musical marketplace. Others struggle along, becoming increasingly bleak (and sometimes bitter) that they are surrounded by Philistines who simply cannot appreciate good music.
Those who thrive are usually pianists who are willing to stop being good students and find their way into careers that look nothing like they imagined when they were children.These thrivers are the ones who choose to think beyond right or wrong and find their way in the messy ground that exists between those two extremes. They stop asking what’s correct and start asking what’s possible. They find the strength to look beyond their musical idols and to look inside themselves instead. They learn to seek the possible, not the perfect.
No musical career, regardless of how glittering, is perfect. Pianists who aren’t in the upper echelons of players come to accept that thriving in the arts means having one foot in art and one in the marketplace. They don’t drop their musical standards, but they do find the intersection between what the market wants and what they offer. Eventually they come to realize that “good enough” artists create better music than good students.
Will mistakes be made? Yes. Will the pianist be better for them? Absolutely! In those mistakes and wrong turns maturing artists find the measure of their powers. In the crucible of a society indifferent to them they find things within themselves worth saying. And in the journey of musical and personal discovery, they develop the resilience to find themselves.
Photo by Sam Badmaeva, courtesy of UpSplash