In a Friday (2/14) post at her blog Neo Classical, Holly Mulcahy, concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, writes, “I’ve been passing on to students and young professionals what I think I would have found useful in music school.… One of the most important things being overlooked at music schools is practicing, maintaining, and cultivating happiness. Happiness is habitually pushed aside until an individual’s ideal goal or job has been achieved. With many musicians … there is often an unspoken ‘law’ that individuals deprive or deny themselves of happiness until they have ‘made it.’ … Here’s the fun kicker: goals change sometimes, and sometimes the new goal becomes the new obstacle of happiness. It’s a vicious cycle…. Happiness is something you need to seek, practice, and cultivate.… Keep track of and write down what made/makes you happy on a day to day basis.… [Artists] want to perpetuate art and have people enjoy it and share it. There can be competition and power struggles along the way, but there is a grand picture many forget to look at…. No matter our position in the process let’s find joy and happiness and let’s exercise our best human qualities.”
Posted February 20, 2014
