Practice Makes Progress: A Reflection on Imposter Syndrome and the Life of a Music Major
I was 10 years old when I decided (for the first time) that I wanted to pursue music “when I grew up”. Only a few days after I performed in front of an audience for the first time, singing Part of Your World from Disney’s The Little Mermaid in my elementary school’s talent show, I decided that this, singing and stardom, was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I told my mom I wanted to be a singer, and a few months later, when our teachers asked us what we wanted to do for our future jobs one day, it was permanently documented in our school yearbook, right underneath a cringy photo of me smiling with one tooth missing and hair frizzy from recess: Samantha, Third Grade, Singer.
Of course, that decision was far from permanent. A few months later, I discovered my love for reading, and decided I wanted to be an author instead, and this career decision continued to change every year as I found another subject I enjoyed.
Still, as I grew up and took up new interests and career aspirations, music was always a constant in my life. Choir in middle school and high school was where I was always happiest; even though I wasn’t the best in the class at singing and reading music, and certainly not the best at practicing, I loved the process of singing together, working every day in rehearsal to sound a little bit better than we did the day before.
A few years into high school was when I first learned about the career I am now giving everything I have into pursuing: music therapy. Combining my love for music with a drive to help people and a passion for science and mental health, this seemed like the perfect fit for me. Still, I told myself, I wasn’t a skilled sightreader, I had ruthless audition anxiety, and I didn’t have the competitive drive necessary to make it in a college-level music studio, not to mention the fact that I had never learned how to play guitar, one of the essential instruments used as a music therapist. So, upon entering college, I settled on a psychology major and a music minor, telling myself I could pursue clinical therapy as a career and merely encorporate music into aspects of my job.
Fast forward two years or so, and I was very solidly on my way to completing my psychology degree. With only a few psychology classes left to take for my major and a few music classes left for my minor, I decided to sign up for a beginner’s guitar class, reassuring myself that despite the fact that I had never played an instrument before, everyone would be new to it so I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling like an outsider while listening to my classmates play advanced guitar solos in the practice rooms next to mine.
Because I was a student in the honors college of my school, I decided to take up an additional project in the class so that I could get an extra honors credit. The professor and I decided on a goal: I would learn two songs on guitar, and perform them in front of the class, accompanying myself while I sung. I told myself that it would be easy, after all, playing guitar sounded significantly less challenging than writing a 15 page research paper.
Oh, how wrong I was.
I began with the lengthy process of choosing a song. Normally, this process would come naturally to me, as I would just select a song that I knew was a good fit within my vocal range and go with that. Now, I had to think about so many new elements because I was learning everything from scratch: chord structure, level of advancement, strumming pattern, tempo, and most importantly, meaning. If this was to be a project that I really dedicated myself to, I knew that both of the songs I had to perform had to be special. In the end, I decided on two pieces: I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, which was one of my favorite songs growing up, and 18th Floor Balcony by Blue October, one of my mom’s favorite songs, and a song that I had distinct memories of singing along to in the car with my family.
After I decided on my songs, I worked every week in class and on my own to learn guitar, my first instrument ever, for the first time. Just like picking a song, initially I thought this would be a fairly easy task, but learned very quickly that there was so much I needed to learn and practice just to get down the basics: how to play while singing, how to strum properly, where to put my fingers on the fretboard, how to transition between the chords without messing up or pausing in between, and how to make it actually sound musical and expressive. I practiced as much as I could most days until late at night or early in the morning, playing until my fingers started to bleed or crack, or until I had class, whichever came first.
Soon, it came time for me to perform. Though it was just a casual performance in front of my small class, it was still absolutely terrifying. I remember sitting down in my chair, attempting to set up my sheet music, and dropping it on the ground because my hands were shaking so badly. This was probably the first performance that I had actually really worked for, and it was terrifying because I didn’t know if all my hard work was going to pay off. I began to play the first song, I’m Yours, and while I was initially a little shaky, I finished the song while only messing up one or two times. I played the second song much more confidently, though I also recognized as I was performing where I needed to play better.
This performance was not easy by any means, nothing like a dream or a movie where I could zone out and feel the music without effort. Quite the contrary: it was hard, and I had to think consciously and meticulously about every movement of my hands as I played. However, I knew what was coming up next, I knew where my fingers were supposed to go, and what was next to play, and I knew how to fix my mistakes when I made them, and what to practice for the next time I performed these songs. That’s a feeling I’ve never had before, or perhaps never allowed myself to have because I had idealized a fantasy of people in my life being naturally gifted at music, and accepted the fact that I would never be good because I just didn’t have that gift. In my head, I had always told myself that there was no point in pursuing music seriously because I didn’t belong, when in reality I just lacked the self confidence needed to gain the motivation to even try.
This performance taught me a very important lesson:
Just because I am new at something or not the best at it, does not mean I cannot get better. The more I put in the work and really practice, the less out of place I will feel, and the better I will become. Practice makes progress.
With this inkling of hope in my head, I decided that maybe music therapy was something I could actually do, if I only worked hard enough for it. I added a music major a few weeks later and I’ve been working toward that goal ever since. Now, every time I lose confidence in myself and feel like I don’t belong, I think about this performance and the ounce of confidence it gave me, reminding myself that I do belong, and that practice really does make progress.
