Music is a sport

I should explain first that I took piano lessons for about 12 years. I played viola for 10 and took a few years of lessons in there. So, this is not coming from someone who doesn't appreciate music or wasn't good at  it.

Given that, I have to say that I really hate the underbelly of the music world. Percussion is a little different from all the others, so I don't know how that is, but I know with singers and other musicians, it's always a competition. "I have to have first chair." "I have to be section leader." "I have to sound better than everyone else."

It's always about comparing and lesson history and practice time. No one really appreciates another, it's all about being better than all of them. Being the best.

I never learned to read music. Piano music is definitely a goner and viola has it's own clef, which I was eventually able to translate into 'the placement of this note means this finger goes there'. I was never able to figure out the time measurements or how much time value notes got. Luckily, I have ears and was able to listen. That's how I got by. I learned to associate this section of what I heard to this section of what may as well have been Chinese (notes). Even better, my memorization for such things was prime.

Some people called it talented, but it was more of a curse. I always knew I could never be as good as I had potential for because I couldn't learn to read music. Musicality was there - many times, by many teachers and audience members, I was called "talented". Many people's favorite aspect was my viola vibrato and my piano flow or "emotion". My college conductor said it was a shame I couldn't take more lessons because I had "raw talent" and he could tell I had been listening to a recording because I was "doing wonderful things with the music".

As I was saying, musicality was there, but as soon as I exploited all that I had, I was done. As soon as I had no one to listen to, I was nothing (other than what I could play from memory, things I'd heard a million times, and things I made up). I eventually reached that point with viola. Professional music was as good as it got but, when I revisited it after not being in school for mere months, some parts of the music were foreign to me. I couldn't remember how those parts went.

I am just one of those many unique players on the basketball court of music. Raw talent, but unable to improve after a point. That's just me, against all these other players with all these other catches of their own. But it is that competitive and I wish we'd all just appreciate all the different musicians for what they bring to the table, rather than eat each other up (or worse, eat ourselves up) over trying to be the best. Be your best and, more importantly, enjoy the music.