It’s been a  long time since I’ve written anything.  I hope that will change, since I’ve decided that these utterances are for me, primarily; thus, I’m giving myself a certain latitude toward self-indulgence in expressing my thoughts. 

The first issue, or course, has to do with music, that dismal lover who has broken my heart more times than I can quantify.  And yet, not unlike the proverbial drug addict, or perhaps more accurately, the abused spouse, I keep grovelling back in hopes that maybe, just maybe, things will improve.  But, of course they don’t.  

The music world, especially the world of classical music, exemplifies the fallacy of the bootstraps to success scenario that we all, Americans in particular, love.  The legend of the self-made successful person continues to give false hopes to thousands of young aspiring people, who actually believe that, by simply working diligently, and getting to be really, really good at what one does the world will eventually come knocking at your door.  Of course, it’s a myth.  Self-made successes rarely ever happen.  For every self-made successful person I can guarantee that there was another successful someone who happened to be at the right point in the novice’s life who opened the right door at the right time, usually by means of introduction, whether to another influential person, or group of people (often via academia), or a publisher.  In short, if you don’t have someone “going to bat” for you early in your career, you’re out of luck.  Of course meeting the right person is only part of it.  The other aspect is being at the right place at the right time; and yes, that is, more often than not, simple luck; i.e, again, a rarity.  

Then there is the matter of unfortunate decision making.  When a young person doesn’t have the good fortune of a mentor, or have academic standing one is left only to one’s devices; and that, often leads to unfortunate consequences at best.  When left to one’s own devices, without some sort of guidance, a person has no clear path to achievement, even if the person knows what that ultimate goal is.  Now, on the journey one may digress, or even diverge from the path; one will have setbacks, sometimes serious ones.  Nevertheless, the person who ultimately succeeds manages to get back on track because of the good fortune of having had that person or those persons earlier in life who supplied the necessary skills, and — more importantly — network of support to help right the ship, so to speak.  

Many (I dare say most) “self-made” people often do not realise, or are unwilling to recognise, that their success has been built on the foundation of knowing the right person or people, being at the place at the right time (nowadays for the artist it’s usually academia).  Frequently this is the result of misunderstanding what it means to be successful.  

One of the biggest misconceptions regarding the achievement of success is talent.  As we habitually see in our current popularity saturated cultural environment one does not require talent to become successful.  The concept of success has been construed as having achieved some pinnacle of recognition by one’s peers, even fame.  All one need’s to do is observe television shows such as “The Voice” or “America’s Got Talent,” to see what passes for talent in our present culture.  That, of course doesn’t include the insurmountable amount of dreck that permeates the various social media platforms.

Howbeit, success doesn’t have to go that far.  Success comes in many layers.  It all depends on what goals one has set for oneself.  They can be the achievement of fame and acclaim by one’s peers in the profession of one’s choice; or, it could be something much more modest such as developing a fruitful music programme at a church, or seeing one’s students become proficient; or, having one’s ideas accepted and implemented and seeing the positive effects of those ideas. 

So, what about failure?  Now it becomes personal.