A New Adventure
For a little while after I finished grad school I played around with having a blog - I collected little snippets of ideas and things that inspired me in one place. It was fun but didn't feel like it had a greater purpose, so I let it go as I built up my "real career" (freelancing, building and designing my teaching approach through my private studio - the stuff that "pays the bills").
Essentially I was buying in to the idea we learn as music students that anything that distracts us from the work of being a musician is not valuable and limits our ability to be proficient. If we face the reality of the current world, it's no longer enough to just be an amazing flutist or a pretty good orchestral musician. This is the age of the hyphenated career, and musicians aren't (and shouldn't be) an exception!
Getting back to the original direction of this conversation, as I focused only on the "right" aspects of my career, inevitably, I would always end up feeling bored. Bored when the challenge of a new group to play with isn't there, or bored when I've explored my latest idea for a project or event with my students through to completion. Maybe it's a lack of willingness to follow things through to the next much larger iteration of an idea, or it's the absence of feedback on a greater level. Whatever it is, I often create things from ideas that I love and then end up feeling unfulfilled afterwards.
Some of what I've learned is that no one will probably ever get as excited about my crazy teaching ideas as I do. It's up to me to be excited about them. The other thing I've learned is that removing the creative outlets not directly attached to my performance or teaching career limits my creativity in exactly those things. Without somewhere to explore the crazy ideas or outside interests I have there's nowhere to connect the dots, and nothing that leads you to the next "aha" moment.
We need the stimulation of the things that give us enjoyment to give us the energy for our main gig and to be our best creative selves.
Maybe this is relatable to you - have you ever noticed yourself feeling drained when all you are doing is focusing on your instrument and "playing well"? Or maybe you're a student and all you are doing is homework and stressing about your grades.
It probably feels like you can't make time for anything other than the important stuff, when really, if you're willing to give a few more minutes to designing your schedule ahead of time you can create pockets of your time to do whatever you enjoy most - maybe drawing, playing a secondary instrument, doing yoga or going for a run. Whatever it is that frees your mind and allows you to just enjoy the moment.
WIth all of that in mind, and the time I have spent recently exploring some of my other interests, I figured why not give a blog a shot again. Even if no one ever reads this, at least I can explore the far reaches of whatever crazy ideas come to mind.