For many years, I was a competitive person. This manifested through my musical studies as a child and young adult. I wanted nothing more than to play "better than everyone else."
Yet I had a thin skin. Right from my beginning group classes with the other little children...
"Neesa! Look, I can play better than you!"
This kid would scratch out a tune no better than I. I was very struck by his stubby, wrinkly hands, and his insult left me crestfallen. I started believing that "I sucked."
My thin skin only got thinner as I aged. Instead of simply experiencing sheer joy from music making, it became almost impossible for me to practice without emotional pain. The only reason I put up with this pain was because I wanted to be “the best.” Whenever I would take my viola and go into my bedroom, ready to tackle scales, an etude and a piece...
You suck. Give up forever.
I couldn't practice without being driven to tears. Even though I continued with lessons, I made it by the skin of my teeth, barely preparing each time. I felt incredibly guilty because I could not practice without feeling depression. I felt like a weak loser. I thought I was lazy and a musical fraud.
As I got older, new musical opportunities presented themselves. I was thirteen when I started doing auditions for orchestras and other events.
The first was for LISFA, the Long Island String Festival. All students invited to play hailed from schools across Nassau, the county located just east of New York City's borough of Queens. The event was a four-day festival, with rehearsals culminating into a final performance.
We all students received our orchestral music in advance for practicing. I avoided it as much as possible, only cramming practice in the night before. On the first day of rehearsals, all students completed an audition for seating placements. Despite my lack of preparedness, I was awarded first chair of the viola section! My ego swelled with pride, and I got a first taste of that success and recognition I had wanted for so long.
Later that year, there was another event called "All County," similar to LISFA. Again, I was awarded first chair. Then at the end of the school year, I participated in a juried evaluation organized by NYSSMA (New York State School Music Association), a state-wide organization that served to organize classical music education in schools. I remember walking in to that room where a single juror sat, hoping for the best. I played the last movement of Karl Stamitz's viola concerto, a piece graded at the highest level of six. How happy I was when I received the grade of 100!
That summer, I auditioned for a scholarship to participate at a three-week music festival at Long Island University's C. W. Post campus in Greenvale. I was accepted and earned free tuition. The orchestra performed Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony, the "Italian," and also smatterings of concerti movements featuring members of the orchestra as soloists. Many participants in the festival were adults, and I was a bit scared to be playing amongst professionals.
There was chamber music also. Sometimes I was paired with adults, and other times I was paired with people my age. Pieces I played were Mozart's "Kegelstadt" trio, Mozart's Piano Quartet in G minor and Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat Major. And then there was some banal Haydn quartet not worth remembering, yet it was still fun. Our wonderfully silly cellist, Annika, turned Haydn’s music into a narrative about a protagonist named "Paco the Bull," who mostly ran around in circles.
This summer festival abated my musical miseries temporarily, give that this felt much like camp. But when I started ninth grade, the depression returned. It got so bad...
"Mom...I want to die. I hate my life. Nobody likes me. I'm a freak."
She took me to the Emergency Room, and I was evaluated to be a danger to myself. They admitted me to their adolescent impatient unit, which I enjoyed immensely. Here, there was no musical responsibility or pressure. There were just lounge chairs in the day room, with a radio blaring Sean Paul, Mr. Vegas and tracks from the Reggae Gold '99 album. The Caribbean beats and timbres were soothing to my soul. This was the first time I ever allowed myself to like non-classical music.
By the end of two weeks, I felt refreshed. I began singing songs on the unit, which included bits from Disney's Pocahontas and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The other kids enjoyed my operatic style of singing, which helped me to feel more confident. With the point of a ballpoint pen, I scratched out a large heart on the side of my wardrobe. Inside it, I wrote, “I will always sing for LIJ.”
Yet upon discharge, the thought of returning to "viola prison" made me shake in my shoes.
"Ma...I don't want to play anymore. I hate it."
I renounced the instrument for more than a year, but at the end of tenth grade I crawled back to it. It was one afternoon, right after the school year had ended, when I visited a classmate named Sarah in Syosset. She was housing an exchange student from Sweden named Anja, and this girl had been an amateur violinist in our school's orchestra. Incidentally, the instrument was precariously placed on Sarah's dresser, not snuggled safe in its case. Memories of past successes flooded my mind...
"Hey! That violin! Can I play it? I used to play..."
"Sure!”
And as I played, the dreams of success returned to me. I realized that music was a talent that set me apart from others. It made me special. Respectable. Something to be envied.
When returning to the viola, my orchestra teacher at school advised me on further steps:
"Neesa! My husband plays viola in the New York Philharmonic. You should study with him. Also, you need a viola. Why don't you borrow the one here at school? That will hold you over until you can purchase your own instrument."
Mrs. Swenson was a jolly woman with boundless energy. Her husband, Edward, was more of a low-key character. As a music aficionado, he collected historical recordings on CDs, LPs and 78s, mostly gleaned from eBay auctions. It being 2001, online bidding was in its prime, and he too was a seller. He also collected technical gadgets for recording, and had a slew of Beanie Babies littered all over his shelves and tops of cabinets.
Edward was very kind and forgiving, even when it was obvious I did not practice. I guess he was aware that I had my mental illness struggles. He recognized my talent, and so helped me get back into the game. I went back to C. W. Post summer program on scholarship, and then prepared for entrance into a prestigious youth orchestra in Manhattan. For this audition, I prepared the “Romanze” by Max Bruch.
Having only returned to the viola for three months, I was nervous about even being accepted into the orchestra. For the audition, I was terribly nervous as I sat before the orchestra's conductor, an imposing French character whose pores exuded musical excellence. How surprised I was when I received the phone call from the orchestra's coordinator: Maestro wants you to play principal in the orchestra!
Again, the experience of "winning." The dream was mine again. I held my head and viola high at the first rehearsal, where we played music by Schubert and Stravinsky. Shortly into the season, the whole orchestra went on a retreat to a YMCA located in upastate New York. A relaxing event comprised of ice breakers and rehearsals.
During a bit of unscheduled time, I took my viola into the main rehearsal area and began to practice while walking about. Another woman was present, practicing on her alto flute.
Suddenly, the viola slipped from my grasp and fell onto the hard wood floor.
I gasped and sobbed immediately. What a clumsy disaster!
"Are you ok? What happened??"
I bent down to evaluate the damage. The neck and fingerboard had detached from the body, merely now held together by the strings. Absolutely unfixable without the assistance of a luthier.
I packed the pieces back into my viola case and ran back to my cabin. One of my roommates reclined on her bottom bunk bed, nose in a book. She noticed my tears.
"Hey, are you ok?"
"I...I was practicing and I dropped my viola! It's in pieces!!!"
The the girl was remarkably calm. "Can I see it? By the way, my name is Joan."
"I'm Neesa. Here...". I pulled it out, utterly mortified.
She herself was a violinist. "Don't worry, it's not so bad. It can be fixed."
"But what about now? We are rehearsing tonight! Maestro will kill me! I'm principal violist!"
"I think if you tell him, it would be alright. I'll go with you.”
We both stepped out and headed for the cafeteria for dinner. Maestro sat with some of the older orchestra members as I sheepishly approached. Tears were in my throat:
"Maestro..."
Dreadful news, yet he was surprisingly kind. For rehearsal that night, he had the last violist pass his instrument up to me so that I could continue playing. A silver lining to this cloud, this disaster was made into a “winning” situation. Still, being recognized as "best." My need for superiority was fueled again.
I maintained this competitive approach to playing throughout high school, and by twelfth grade began preparing for the next step. So Mrs. Swenson advised.
"You should go to college for music. You can major in viola and probably get scholarships."
It had never occurred to me until this point that one could “major” in music in college, and then pursue a career thereafter. I always just viewed music as a glorious hobby that had no professional implications. But now that the idea was suggested, my desires for grandiosity now only were magnified exponentially.
Edward prepared me well as I applied to seven schools. For five of them, I had to travel to their campuses to do live auditions. This included SUNY Purchase in upstate New York, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the New England in Conservatory in Boston, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Indiana University in Bloomington. I felt like a superstar as I traveled across the country all by myself, at the mere age of seventeen. In the end, I chose Indiana University.
I arrived at college with the same competitive mentality as I had throughout my childhood. I was confident that I was the best, especially after being placed as assistant principal in the freshmen orchestra. The principal was a doctorate student, so essentially I was “highest” placed amongst my peers. It made me feel better than them.
Yet my practicing still was strained. I pushed through the tears and fears with brute mental force. I was determined to be the best, and so I had to draw upon a source of absolute hatred within me to keep going.
During my sophomore year, there occurred the yearly viola concerto competition. My teacher discouraged me from participating despite my enthusiasm, likely because I needed to focus on technical exercises. Another girl my age in my studio disregarded our teacher and entered. She ended up winning, over masters and doctorate students even.
Immediately, I took an intense dislike to her. I ended up sitting next to her during orchestral rehearsals, both of us sharing a stand in the middle of the viola section. I hated looking at her when she got up to play her piece in front of the orchestra. Whenever she played, I wanted to squish her like a bug. I hated her success. I wanted it for myself.
The next year's viola concerto competition came along, and this time I entered. I worked hard, slaving away while my volunteering accompanist likely harbored hatred for me. (Pianists have to accompany soloists as part of their degree requirements, although it is common for them to be abused with excessive rehearsing.)
The day before the competition, I came down with a terrible flu and was unable to get out of bed. I grabbed my cell phone from the end table.
"Ma...I feel like shit. I have this competition tomorrow. I’m fucked.”
When I woke up that evening, my mother was by my side. She had flown all the way from New York to be with me in Indiana.
The next morning, she assisted me with taking a bath and making breakfast. She also organized my bedroom, she being a good space organizer and all. She bought a nice vase that resembled a maroon kimono, and put a couple of pink carnations in it. That refreshed my spirit.
I thought about forfeiting the competition due to feeling weak, but I played on anyway. In the end, I didn't win, and I knew it was not my sickness that resulted in my loss. I was faced with the reality that I was not as skilled a player as others who entered the competition. My fingers were slow. My quality of sound was not as rich. I hacked away, playing sloppily at times. Perhaps all resultant of not practicing enough, but this was the best I could do.
It was at this point that I started deconstructing my desire to be “the best.” Why was I torturing myself anyway? Why couldn't I find joy in music like everyone else? Why would I always end up in bitter tears whenever going to an orchestral concert or a solo recital? For me, music was a means to an end. It was a way for me to feel appreciated and special. Yet now I was not special anymore. I was mediocre.
My fierce competitiveness was exhausting. Being hateful and jealous made me hate the world and all of its people. It made me hate music. And yet, I do not attribute my negativity to any fault of my own character. I was suffering from depression, and then Schizoaffective disorder in graduate school. My mental strife was not "my fault." I wanted to work hard, but when I tried, my brain knocked me down. The tragedy of all this was that I felt too afraid to share my griefs with anyone. I was intimidated into silence perhaps. Very often, professors and students alike comment that musicians are “lazy” if they do not practice enough. I did not want to be labeled as such.
I wish the system were different. I wish that musicians could vocalize their mental struggles. If they could, then potential mental illness could be addressed early on, resulting in less trauma. Some professors need to realize that stoic and stringent teaching techniques can be psychologically unhealthy. Favoritism also can devastate students who are neglected.
Another psychological concept is that of practicing itself. Most musicians embrace that practicing is a mental task that requires much discipline and efficient time-management skills. However, when musicians teach others, they are not equipped to really intervene and change a student's pattern of thinking. If you think of it, weekly one-on-one lessons resemble the premise of sessions with a therapist. In talk therapy, a person learns more about themself, while simultaneously trying to develop coping skills that make their lives easier. You could say that the relationship one has with a private music teacher can mirror that of a therapist.
But again with music teachers, they do not have the skill sets of a mental health professional. Music teachers are tragically unequipped to therapeutically intervene when a student experiences difficult emotions and mental blockages. They tend to throw the blame on the student to “fix himself.” The classical community is a place of "don't ask, don't tell." Any expression of emotional strife can make one look weak, which can lead to being less “favored” by a professor.
I hope things change. Perhaps mental health awareness can revitalize the classical music profession as much as has body awareness and kinesthetic training within the past thirty years. In traditional times, centuries before, musicians would not disclose if they had pains in their body from playing. People suffered in silence from repetitive stress injuries such as tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and some even quit their careers due to unaddressed pains. Thankfully, this has changed. Musicians now embrace physical therapy modalities such as the Alexander Technique, Pilates and Feldenkrais to aid with pain management and learn new physical postures more conducive to performing relaxedly.
Perhaps the next step is the acknowledgement of the psychological realm. Understanding that the mind must be healthily managed to ensure proper growth and development. The nature of competitiveness must be examined, and modalities need to be developed that would help musicians remain positive and motivated despite the pressures of elite performing. And perhaps I speak blasphemy, but mental health awareness in the classical music community should also address the ills of favoritism.
But in order for these changes to happen, even the most established of musicians would have to reevaluate their stances. Though difficult, I am optimistic about the future. If for no other reason, these changes would breathe new life into the profession, offering for a renaissance of growth and evolution of current teaching techniques.