Do you think hardships make us grow as musicians?

[pianowolfi]

This question came up in a private discussion recently and since then I think about it and it doesn't let me go. I have no particular opinion about it yet. So I'd like to know your thoughts and experiences. Thank you for contributing

[pianistimo]

try as i might to not mention the bible or the saints of the bible (adam, abraham, joseph, daniel, job) - i  find it odd that God Himself allows things to happen in our lives but never gives us more than we can bear with Jesus Christ's sacrifice and atonement made for us.  if we are FREE from sin - and the penalty of sin - we can live a fairly peaceful life no matter the problems that inevitably come along.  i think the peace of mind comes from knowing that whether we live or die - we are in God's almighty caring and loving hands.  there is noone who can care so deeply as God.

if you think about how the center of the universe seems to be the earth (when looking at earth from outer space) - as we have exactly the right atmosphere, temperature (the proxmity of the sun is neither too close or too far) - the planets to look at and wonder about - as some of them rotate backwards to others.  i think saturn?  to see the moon and stars and realize that they are in such a position as to be almost insanely precise for the moon to cover the sun in an eclipse as though they were spheres of an equal size.  also, what caused all of these planets to start spinning in the first place and have satellite moons.  if everything was a big bang - wouldn't it be like asteroids everywhere - continually propelling through space?  the planets are SET.  they are not going anywhere excepting their designated orbits.

from all of this - the love of God comes through to me.  from walking in nature and hearing the birds sing.  watching animals.  understanding more about little details that God could have forgotten but didn't.  to make our lives challenging and certainly not boring.  He could have told us everything - but knew we would want to search out things for ourselves.  He is a Master teacher.

so - to make a long story short - if the goal is to be a worshipper of the true Creator - everything will fall into place no matter how difficult it is.  music, family, etc.  'commit your works to the Lord and He will direct your path....'  that is my motto. 

[pita bread]

bible here, bible there, bible everywhere

[ahinton]

bible here, bible there, bible everywhere

Yes, I'm afraid so - well, not everywhere, exactly, to be fair, but recourse to it in Susan's posts is undeniably of sufficient frequency to give it the status of recurring decimal, it would seem.

The problem in this instance is that the thread initiator asks whether unspecified hardships make people grow as musicians but includes nothing in the question to suggest that it is intended to be confined only to Christian musicians; furthermore, I rather doubt that the answers, whatever they may be would be definably different for Christian musicians to what they would be for non-Christian ones in any case, so all the more reason why this particular Biblical interpolation seems to be largely off topic.

I blame it all on jelly beans, myself...

Best,

Alistair

[counterpoint]

This question came up in a private discussion recently and since then I think about it and it doesn't let me go. I have no particular opinion about it yet. So I'd like to know your thoughts and experiences. Thank you for contributing

I know this theory, but I don't like it. Why must art always have this fatal touch?
If life is hard, that is bad, and one can only hope, that it will get more positive as soon as possible. The arts are a mirror of life, and the more agreeable life is, the more agreeable  the arts will be. At least I hope so.

[thalberg]

 I think the number one thing that makes us grow as musicians is practice.  All harships just make us practice less.

That said, hardships are never optional.  So it's not like we need to come to a conclusion here so we can decide to opt for hardship or not.

[rc]

I sometimes reflect on how I live my life in comparison to others... and I've decided I would prefer to be the artist who ISN'T completely unbalanced.

I don't believe I need to lead a miserable life in order to feel and express emotions.

[goldentone]

I think it would be hard to deny that the loneliness, the encroaching deafness, and the eventual isolation from deafness that Beethoven suffered didn't affect the music he gave us.  And so for the question, did Beethoven's sufferings make him a better composer?  Did what Beethoven learned or gained give him an edge?

J.W.N. Sullivan wrote, "One of the most significant facts, for the understanding of Beethoven, is that his work shows an organic development up till the very end.  The older Beethoven lived, the more and more profound was what he had to say. . . Such sustained development, in the case of an artist who reaches years of maturity, is a rare and important phenomenon." 

I know that good can come out of suffering and that we can learn from it.  Nevertheless, I will not share my bed with it.  The suffering that I have experienced has only made me aware of who I am; I do not see that it contributed anything, but only revealed.

 

[pianistimo]

that's a good analogy.  beethoven's 'new way.'  instead of giving up - he decides that as long as he can do some good (compose and take care of Carl and care for his mother and enjoy friendships) for mankind, he will.  occasionally, you see in his music extreme emotions - but his music seemed to relieve him of pent up frustrations.  also, it provided an outlet for his soul.  the growth is exposed.  the more deaf he becomes - the less he worries about relating to people and becomes in a sense aware of the timelessness of eternity.  no form, no worries about restrictions of the human soul on earth.

[ahinton]

I suspect that the real question that lies behind this is whether it is necessary actually to experience hardships of various kinds or merely to have a thorough understanding of them in order to enable "growth" as a musician. "An actor in his time plays many parts" tells us that he/she has to be capable of portraying all manner of different situations from a standpoint of comprehension of each of them, but one would not necessarily expect him/her personally to have undergone all the experiences of those people that he/she portrays; in the light of that fact, one might reasonably call into question whether a musician has to undergo hardships in order to develop. That's not, however, to undermine the question of what happens from the other end of the telescope, so to speak - in other words whether and to what extent a musician's personal experiences affect the way in which he/she plays, conducts or, most importantly, composes - but I would say that the only way in which such hardships could possibly impinge positively upon a musician's growth as an artist is in the sense that they broaden his/her more general human understanding.

Best,

Alistair

[matterintospirit]

This question came up in a private discussion recently and since then I think about it and it doesn't let me go. I have no particular opinion about it yet. So I'd like to know your thoughts and experiences. Thank you for contributing

Hardship is a fact of life. Nothing grows without some adversity. A seedling wouldn't struggle towards the sun if it weren't buried beneath the earth. Overcoming hardship makes you grow as a human being. This affects your art, or whatever you do. How can you express the sadness and loss that we so often hear in music, if you have never fully experienced it? I like what Buddha said---"Life is suffering." To me this is not a negative. You can't have real joy without suffering, anymore than you can have night without day.

[pianowolfi]

Interesting contributions.

So far I see hardships as my enemies. At least sort of hypothetically. In my book Beethoven was a great composer in his later life not because of his increasing deafness but despite of it. His personality was strong enough to keep going.

[ahinton]

Interesting contributions.

So far I see hardships as my enemies. At least sort of hypothetically. In my book Beethoven was a great composer in his later life not because of his increasing deafness but despite of it. His personality was strong enough to keep going.

Maybe even more than that - perhaps because he could no longer hear some of the worldly crap that surrounded him, Beethoven became rather better able to concentrate on what mattered and produce the C# minor quartet - a work of such immense power and creative rightness that one does not even need to mention the composer's name in order for people to know whose quartet is being referred to...

Best,

Alistair

[goldentone]

Interesting contributions.

So far I see hardships as my enemies. At least sort of hypothetically. In my book Beethoven was a great composer in his later life not because of his increasing deafness but despite of it. His personality was strong enough to keep going.

I agree, Wolfi.  A hurricane comes to destroy, not to bring growth.  My intent with Beethoven was to "leave the door open" on the question in light of his ever-growing music.  Perhaps Beethoven's musical achievement is a case of Veni, Vidi, Vici. 

[m1469]

Well, I have been thinking about this for a bit .  As with anything else, hardships as it relates to musicianship cannot truly be separated from hardships as it relates to our person in general.  We are people, and how we deal with hardships as people will ultimately effect everything else that we do.

My problem with this concept of hardships making us grow, lay primarily in the attitude that hardships are necessary (in an absolute sense) as the only or most effective means of growth.  Then again, what hardships actually are, are in fact quite personal and subjective.

My main answer to the question right now is both yes and no.  What we grow from as individuals is almost entirely up to us, at least when measured by 'time.'  To get a little more involved in the subject, perhaps we would like to discern whether they are necessary or not ?  My answer would actually still be very much the same on the surface; yes and no.  However, they seem to be necessary only as long as it takes for a person to realize that they are, in fact, not.

Interestingly, hardships serve the sole purpose of destroying themselves (in my observations).

[general disarray]

I think the number one thing that makes us grow as musicians is practice.  All harships just make us practice less.

That said, hardships are never optional.  So it's not like we need to come to a conclusion here so we can decide to opt for hardship or not.

Amen!  Well said.

(Oops.  Hope the response isn't considered rife with religiosity.)

[pianowolfi]

Well, I have been thinking about this for a bit .  As with anything else, hardships as it relates to musicianship cannot truly be separated from hardships as it relates to our person in general.  We are people, and how we deal with hardships as people will ultimately effect everything else that we do.

My problem with this concept of hardships making us grow, lay primarily in the attitude that hardships are necessary (in an absolute sense) as the only or most effective means of growth.  Then again, what hardships actually are, are in fact quite personal and subjective.

My main answer to the question right now is both yes and no.  What we grow from as individuals is almost entirely up to us, at least when measured by 'time.'  To get a little more involved in the subject, perhaps we would like to discern whether they are necessary or not ?  My answer would actually still be very much the same on the surface; yes and no.  However, they seem to be necessary only as long as it takes for a person to realize that they are, in fact, not.

Interestingly, hardships serve the sole purpose of destroying themselves (in my observations).

Hmmm I will think about this for a while. This concept of self-determining hardships makes me smile . Thank you for taking the time to think about this and posting in .