Keeping East on sight - Our musical values

Suppose you set out on a journey to the East. Traveling East is important to you. Along the way you will come across paths that will be easier to travel than others. Your journey to the East can start with something as basic as positioning your body in that direction. Perhaps a part of the trip you can do on foot, while others will need other means of transport such as buses, cars, planes or boats. You may require to put on more effort and wear adequate equipment, if you come across forests or steep trails. You may also need to climb mountains or skirt them. Sometimes the road will be very difficult and you will seek to collaborate with other people who are also interested in traveling East or at least willing to lend you a hand. The paradox is that no matter how much you go East or how much effort and time it takes, you will never reach the East. It is also possible that the difficulties of the trip make you forget that you are going East and change course to any other direction, except the chosen one. We will see that this metaphor will help us understand our values as musicians.

We use the word “value” in different ways. In this context, a value has a very precise meaning. A value is a quality that is displayed in actions. For example, one of my musical values is to learn new repertoire that challenges my current abilities. When I choose a piece that is difficult for me to learn and requires careful practice and preparation time, I will be in touch with that value. This a quality that underlies my choice of repertoire.

Values are different for each person because each individual has a different value system; different qualities of action that motivate each individual. What intrinsically moves someone as a musician will not necessarily be shared by another musician.

A value is never reached. No matter how many challenging pieces I learn, I can always learn another piece that tests my current skills. In addition, a value has the characteristic of being freely chosen and of providing us with a great sensation of vitality when we are in contact with it. It is my choice to continue learning a challenging repertoire because I intrinsically value this quality of my actions and feel great comfort and meaning in behaving in accordance with this value.

Hence, a value is neither an obligation nor a goal. Obligations are usually conditional; They are rules that, if not followed, will have negative consequences for me. While a goal is an action with a concrete result. They are measurable, concrete actions that have a beginning and an end.

Clarifying our values will help us understand what motivates us musically (and also in other spheres of our lives). This understanding is crucial to plan and execute actions that guide us in that chosen and intrinsically valuable direction for us. On the contrary, losing track of our values can cause us great psychological suffering because we lose sight of the purpose of our lives as musicians. Without clarity of values, it's easy to over-identify with an ideal self, uncomfortable mental events, and act without mindfulness. Let's land these concepts in a concrete example.

When I am aligned with the value of learning new repertoire that challenges my current abilities (wanting to go East), I will feel more willing to behave consistently. I can set the goal of setting aside one morning to look for pieces that I think are hard for me to learn. I can print the sheets, sit at the piano, and read them to assess their difficulty. Some days I may be less focused than others, but if I remember my value, I will be able to have more patience and compassion. I may reduce the practice time I set for myself in order to ensure absolute concentration. As I study the piece, I will run into sections that are more complicated than others and feel frustrated. But I will accept that frustration, even if it is unpleasant, because I know that it has a greater meaning. Learning a challenging repertoire can also take the form of playing this piece for my teacher or other classmates. Even though I feel anxious about playing for other people, I understand that it is part of the process of learning challenging new repertoire. So even though the experience of anxiety may be unpleasant, I know that it will be based on a very important personal reason. However, it is perfectly possible that, along the way, the frustration or anxiety is so high that I will focus on controlling these emotions, instead of paying attention to the value that motivated me to learn them. Departing from the path we choose is perfectly human. We can always regain balance and straighten the course in the direction that is intrinsically important to us.

I invite you to inspect what guides your path as a musician. Here is a list of values taken from Juncos and Paiva e Pona (p. 149, 2022):

• Being an emotionally expressive performer
• Executing proper technique
• Practicing and being fully prepared
• Being a leader in my section
• Challenging myself to learn new repertoire
• Growing as an artist
• Connecting with the audience
• Emotionally impacting the audience
• Participating in the beauty of music
• Bonding with fellow musicians
• Effectively teaching music, by explaining & demonstrating proper technique
• Being a bold & daring performer
• Devoting my music performance to others
• Being a humble performer
• Fully engaging with the performance

Notice that all values can guide goals in an infinite number of ways. It will never be possible to reach or exhaust any of these values, but it is always possible to think of different ways in which our actions reflect those values. The shape you want to give your values at any given time is under your control!

I would like to end this text with the poem "Ithaka" by Konstantino Kavafis. This poem can be taken as a beautiful allegory of what I have presented in this text. Read it keeping in mind what you have learned about values:

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

If you want to know more about my work and my consulting services for musicians experiencing anxiety, I invite you to check out my website: alvarochang.com.

Photo by Artem Saranin from Pexels.

References

Cavafy, C. P. (retrieved on 29 July, 2023). Ithaka. Translated by Edmund Keeley. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51296/ithaka-56d22eef917ec

Juncos, D. G. & de Paiva e Pona, E. (2022). ACT for musicians: A guide for using Acceptance and Commitment Training to enhance performance, overcome performance anxiety, and improve well-being. Universal Publishers. 

Praxis (2023). ACT Immersion: An introduction to ACT as a process-based therapy [online course]. Retrieved from https://act.courses/signup/