Self-Doubt

          I am feeling very humbled tonight after listening to a short recording of myself from about one year ago.  I was pretty proud of it at the time.  In fact, I used it to get my current job in the Sarajevo Philharmonic!  Now this recording sounds absolutely terrible to me.  I hear so many lumps and bumps in my playing.  Ugh.

            I’m surprised that my perception of my playing has changed so much.  I thought that after starting to play professionally, I would feel more confident.  It’s true that I am proud of all that I’ve accomplished, but I am realizing more and more how far I am from playing as well as my mentors and idols.

            I also wonder whether and how I am improving from my experiences here.  (As an oboist.  In other ways, I feel reassured that I am growing quite a lot.)  Since arriving in Sarajevo, I am often forced to learn music very quickly, and play through pieces without doing much analysis. Also, it is my first year of not having regular lessons, so I have to make decisions on my own, rather than consulting with my teacher.  I’m sure that I am learning from playing a lot of repertoire and having to be completely independent.  However, I don’t want to become thoughtless or arrogant just because I’m not consistently being critiqued.

            I am bothered by my recording partially because it sounds rather disjointed.  I play each note and phrase in the way that I’ve been taught, but they don’t sound connected to each other.  I try to play with perfect intonation and rhythm.  My phrasing and articulation are dictated solely by what is printed and what my teachers have told me to do.  As a result, my playing sounds very heavy and unoriginal.  I am perplexed…how do I balance “correctness” and “creativity”?  It is often hard to play “originally” without sounding bizarre.

            Of course, feeling dissatisfied with my oboe playing leads to a more general sense of self-doubt.  Do I really have what it takes to succeed in a field that is so competitive?  It’s one thing to be mediocre in a field in which competence is all that is required to make a living.  It is another thing to be merely satisfactory in a field where 99 out of 100 people fail to find work.  I think most people who believe that they can have careers in top American orchestras are delusional.  How can I avoid being delusional without being defeatist? 

            At least I am comforted by the fact that all of my hard work on the oboe has led to an amazing opportunity to move across the world, see new places, and meet new people.  Whether or not being a professional oboist is my lifetime career, I won’t regret the time and effort I’ve put into my training.  Also, living in Sarajevo has reminded me that we make music in order to enjoy it.  It is not life or death.  If I don’t play well, I may feel disappointed in myself, and I may even disappoint my colleagues or my teachers, but I can always try to do better the next time.