Shame And Holistic Musicianship

The journey of musicianship is a journey into your own emotional complexities. Performing can reveal you to yourself in new ways, and that can sometimes be scary and embarrassing. Learning anything can be a powerful mirror that helps you see different parts of yourself more clearly. No one likes feeling like a fool or a newbie.

In this video I discuss the idea of shame in musicianship. Present shame is the feeling of "I need to play this perfectly" or "I need to know everything about this concept before I use it to write music" or "I need to have this technique down before I can call myself a real musician." These are all varieties of present shame.

Retroactive shame is the feeling that "wow I was so confident about that performance a few years ago, but I didn't know how melodic minor works and I did it wrong"  or "I didn't realize I was playing the wrong chord in that spot" or even "wow I wasn't singing in tune when I thought I was back then." These are all examples of times when you didn't feel shame in the moment, but you do now after you've learned more.

These are complicated feelings and I'm not going to say "DON'T HAVE THESE FEELINGS" because, well, how is that a request you can possibly consider? These feelings are often uncontrollable.

What I can offer is an opportunity to consider that this shame is a small facet of the whole person and the whole musician. Every musician can look back and cringe at certain aspects of their musicianship or even feel shame or embarrassment about a current lack of skill or understanding.

But the positive feedback loop looks like this: the more you accept this feeling as a normal part of musicianship development, the less power it will have over you. The more you see it as an aspect of musicianship that shouldn't be removed, but nestled in alongside all the other variety feelings you have, the less you'll focus on it as a negative thing and the less it will take over.

Essentially, thinking "I shouldn't be having this feeling" can cause the biggest feedback loop. Acknowledge that feeling AND all the other feelings that shame is blocking - be proud of your progress, your increased finesse of your songs or your technique, your greater awareness of how to play your instrument and write music, and so on. Because musicianship is a journey, you will never stop learning as long as you keep trying and being mindful.