Mastering Music and Writing

09:45





Last week I sat my eighth grade piano exam, a harrowing experience that I’m sure has left me with more than a few grey hairs. Eighth grade is one of the more advanced music grades, so you’d think I’d know something about music by now. But the truth is, no matter how long I’ve been learning music for, or how many hours I’ve practiced and studied, I still feel like I have a long way to go and much to learn before I can say I’ve mastered my instrument. Compared to my amazing piano teacher, it feels like I know so very little.

I feel the same way about writing sometimes. I’ve been writing seriously for several years now, and I still sit down to write feeling as if I don’t know what I’m doing or how to make my books as amazing as everyone else’s seem to be. Published writers are way better than me. That person who’s only been writing seriously for three days must know more about writing than I do. There is still so much more for me to learn before I have mastered my craft and be confident in my abilities.

But you know something? My music teachers don’t know everything. My singing teacher has two degrees in music and she still has to look things up and questions her knowledge. My piano teacher has been teaching for years and she still has to check facts and listen to recordings so she knows what to do. None of them, no matter how experienced, know everything there is to know about music. And you know something else? I don’t think published writers know everything there is to know about writing either. Even the greatest writer doesn’t know everything.

Music and writing are two things that you can never truly master. You’re never going to know everything about music, and you’re certainly never going to know everything about writing. There’s just too much to learn. There are no masters of writing. So, if that’s true, does that mean that no one is good at writing? Are we all just bumbling about in the dark knowing nothing about what we’re doing, just making things up?

No, it doesn’t.

What it does mean is that everyone is good enough to write. It doesn’t matter that you’re not published, that you’re not the most experienced person, or that you don’t know as much as some other writer does. You have enough skills to be able to write now. You don’t need to know more, to have more experience, or to be older before you are allowed to write.

My piano teacher is always telling me, ‘You can play this. You just have to believe in yourself.’ If I can play, you can write. Sure, you don’t know everything. You’ll be learning new things about writing for the rest of your life. But you need to believe in yourself. No second guessing your abilities. No putting yourself down because you’re not a master yet. You are able to write just as you, with the amount that you know and the experience that you have. You can write. You just need to believe in yourself.

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14 comments

  1. I think I needed to read this tonight... Yeah. Thanks for posting... I'm glad I had a chance to read it.

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    1. I'm glad I was able to encourage you. I need to be reminded of this so often for myself that I thought it might be worth writing a post about.

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  2. PIANO PLAYERS UNITE!! :D

    I nominated you for a blog award!
    http://words-inmysoul.blogspot.com/2014/12/blog-awards.html

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    1. Yay for piano players! Thank you so much for the nomination. I'll hop over to your blog at once.

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  3. As someone who is seriously starting to write a book, I really needed to read this post. Thanks for the boost of confidence :) I'm sure you're an amazing writer and piano player. I will be doing my Grade 8 piano exam next year so I kind of know how you feel. It's very intimidating.

    Looking forward to more posts from you.
    P.S I love the title of your blog "Gossiping with Dragons" :)

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    1. I'm so glad that this post was helpful to you. Good luck with your book and your piano exam. I'm sure you'll do amazingly with both. Why thank you! I love the name of your blog too. 'The Hungry Firefly 'is such a pretty name.

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  4. Aw :3 I agree that we are all learning, even though everybody is at a different stage of their learning process. I guess that's why it's always important to have a goal, so that when you've passed it you can look back and marvel at how much you learned. And also because, if you're anything like me, without goals you just kind of bumble around clueless. c: This post was perfect. I feel really cheered up!

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    1. It's always good to look back occasionally as see how far you've come. I marvel every time at all I've learned, even between books. I agree, goals are really good for focus. I'm so glad that this post cheered you up Ashana.

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  5. Beautiful and encouraging, Imogen :) I love it. Incidentally, I've always wanted to play the piano. lol! I think it's so true, and I know I"m prone to that kind of thinking myself, that I just will never be good enough.

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    1. I'm so glad you liked this post Stephanie. I'm very prone to comparing myself to other people too. I think I needed this post as much as everyone actually.

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  6. Very very true and encouraging. WELL SAID. I often despair of writing wonderfully. *cries in the corner* It. is. so. hard. And then I see how "easily" published books seem to make words sound and how beautiful and amazing and gahhhhh. I feel like never writing again. Although I HAVE learned that if you're traditionally publishing, there's not 1 author behind a book. There's a agents and editors and they are the best critique partners in the world because...well, duh Cait. xD They're professionals. So that does encourage me a bit too, knowing that my books will never be me ALONE.
    Congrats on your piano exam tho!! I got to like heh, grade 6 on piano before I quit. >.> I self taught most of my time so I had horrible horrible piano habits. :P

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    1. That's a really good point Cait. It really is never the author alone. That's something I've really been learning in uni as well while I've been studying editing and the publishing process. I'm sure your book will be just as amazing as the other professional authors when it's publishing. Now you have an agent and all that, you're so much closer to being one of those professionals with their beautifully effortless books. Thanks! You play other instruments though, which is awesome.

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  7. Mastery is sometimes misleading. We tend to think that there's a scale of ability and that's not really true. The best piano players aren't those with technical ability, but rather those that manage to put their heart and soul into the music they produce. I think that's all anyone wants really.

    With writing, I feel the largest hurdle is communicating that passion, communicating those thoughts, ideas and dreams in a way that people can just get. And while it's similar to music, it always feels hobbled in comparison because unlike that form, or say painting, you can't always tell when it's gone wrong or where even.

    But mastery, to me, is just when someone says or does something that manages to touch me. Something that feels like a honest and truthful message from the heart.

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    1. That's actually a really good point. You know you've mastered what you've bee trying to do when your work touches someone. It doesn't really have to be complex, or lyrically written, or anything fancy. As long as it communicates the emotion and truth that you want it to, then you've mastered it. The hardest part is that there's no way to do that consistently except through long, hard hours of work. Thanks for the interesting thought Ix. I might go away and think about this some more now.

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