Crumbs of encouragement…

Playing music is a totally personal thing. Even on the most mundane gig it’s very different from another day at the office. Whatever the occasion, musicians are asked to give something of themselves, and it can sometimes be hard to feel appreciated.

Next week I will be playing for an orchestral workshop at a conference for one of the major banking groups. The idea is that the musicians demonstrate various teamwork and interpersonal skills which the corporate world can learn from. The trend for events such as this recognises what I have often felt; that my fellow musicians are some of the most highly skilled and intelligent people in the world. They have administrative, team-working, interpersonal and organisational skills well beyond many highly paid business people. They have talent and dedication. It is right to assume they have skills which are valuable to society in many important ways. So why are many of them struggling for work while the funding for the arts is cut back further and further? Things being as they are, it is unsurprising that many musicians become disillusioned and find work in other fields, and the world is a poorer place for it.

Personally, having discovered that life really is not the same if I don’t play the violin, I’m still having to think of new ways to keep my motivation.

I’ve been on tour for a long time. I’ve been lucky enough to be performing nearly every day. Now I’m back in London at the grimmest time of year, watching money haemorrhaging from my profession and my savings account. The thing is, I don’t subscribe to the view that it’s difficult and therefore we must all be miserable. The music world is not what it was, that’s true, but I believe there are opportunities for those who are able to adapt. I feel I must be open to as many opportunities as possible. Anything could happen next.

Meanwhile I need to keep laying the groundwork.

It can be difficult to motivate my practice day after day, but I find that by just starting I always get somewhere. The only way is to approach everything I do with 100% commitment, viewing nothing as a waste of time. I find a lot of value in practicing badly because then I can see that there may be another way of doing it. I record my practice. I sometimes forget to switch the microphone on, but nothing is wasted because I’ve still experienced the sense of the performance.  My lessons are important too. For anyone who needs to perform, the simple act of standing up and playing to another person is invaluable. Performing gets easier the more we do it, so it makes sense to practice it. Last week I played two concerto movements to my teacher. I shook all the way through, but it didn’t seem to matter because I have done so much work on accepting and working with my nerves rather than pointlessly fighting them.

Also, I have begun restoring a sense of fun into my life. I have begun to integrate activities into my day that I used to enjoy as a child. I used to play the violin because I loved the sound and feel of it, I loved learning new music. Perhaps I could practice with this sense of joy and discovery? And then I can go out on my bike, bake some bread or write a story. All the time I am PLAYING, and this is much easier to motivate. It also adds greatly to the sense of confidence I find in my violin playing. By focussing on things that I enjoy I am getting closer every day to what the point of it all was in the first place. By integrating creativity into as many parts of my day as possible, I have more resources to put into my playing. I have more to give. Society may have forgotten that musicians count, but we must as individuals retain the sense of what our contribution is worth: It’s a contribution which makes us worth looking after.

And ultimately I think that may be the way to get through these months when work seems thin on the ground and there isn’t much good news.

So don’t talk to me about cuts in the arts. I’m baking.

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