THE WAY OF PIANO • MIND • BODY • SOUL
Written by ANDREW EALES
In an interview in International Piano, January 2014, the marvellous concert pianist Maria João Pires suggested:,
“To compete always damages your soul.
If you compete you are not a musician any more.
We old musicians should perhaps give the new generation alternatives. I think our mission is to transmit what has been transmitted to us. This competitive world, this marketing world, has destroyed a lot of that transmission.
Competitions are not the way, that’s for sure!”
We are frequently presented with the spectacle of competing pianists pitted against one another by an industry that would have us all believe that there is no other way to launch a career. But like Pires, I have long felt uneasy about this competitive spirit, and the toxicity that too often accompanies it. And like Pires, I believe there has to be a better way, for sure!
The climax of any competition is of course the victory of the winner. Everyone knows what the opposite of a winner is, and competitions usually produce lots of them, too. There are far too many bright, aspiring pianists for whom these events prove to be a truly crushing experience.
Mitigating this perhaps, multiple medals and accolades are sometimes awarded. But when players are divided up into good, better and best, they have still fundamentally been divided. Ironically, professional success actually depends on forming creative partnerships with others.
I am confident that we could find many more positive ways to support and promote pianists. But if we determine to change performance culture for the better, I believe that we will need to start by rethinking the events we put on for children.
Damaged souls
Around the world, even beginners are encouraged to compete against each other, and from a very young age. Their parents and teachers enter them for local, regional, and national competitions, and often these are characterised by their rather arcane, ritualistic settings.
Ushers in drab uniforms escort players to their place, where they await their turn to play for a small, nervous audience of parents, presided over by a judge behind a large desk, scribbling criticisms on a form that will soon be announced to the entire audience. It’s a strange, intimidating, and fundamentally inappropriate introduction to the potential of live music.
However broad children’s smiles are as they compliantly try to fit in, competition always leaves its mark, and this can often lead to a loss of motivation, crippling anxiety, and chronically low self-esteem.
“To compete always damages your soul.”
In the piano-loving community, we need to ask ourselves whether it is any wonder that young performers’ souls are quietly damaged, or that our outlook in later life can be critically distorted by this legacy.
Frequently, I meet adults who tell me they had piano lessons as children, but that they weren’t very good at it. But good compared to whom?
With more creative thinking, collaboration, and compassion, we could do and be so much better. But some will object: surely competition is natural, part of the real world that children should be rigorously prepared for?
Competition in Nature
Whether the sibling rivalry of Cain and Abel set the tone for the entire human race, or the ‘survival of the fittest’ determined who we have collectively become, the point is often made that we are hard-wired to compete.
I have read several scientific definitions of competition as it exists in nature, all of which go something like this:
“Competition is most typically considered the interaction of individuals that vie for a common resource that is in limited supply.”
In the case of the big international piano competitions, that “common resource” amounts to prize money, and a promotional boost. But these can hardly be considered life-or-death resources.
And in the case of local festivals and children’s events, it’s honestly difficult to identify any commendable reason that encouragement or affirmation should be wilfully limited or withheld.
Clearly, there has been a shift towards an artificial construct of competition, one which is not found in nature. To put it bluntly, the human ego seems to have taken over where evolutionary progress left off.
While examples of individuated competition exist in nature, they can usually be understood in the context of the wider needs of the herd. Not only so, but we see plenty of species whose very survival depends on cooperation, teamwork and socialisation.
Human beings would seem to be among their number: conflict ultimately presents an existential threat. Nature demands empathy, cooperation, and collaboration to meet the challenges we collectively face.
Most of us deplore the endless battles that develop between individuals and people groups as opportunities dwindle or egos inflate. We shake our heads sadly, and wonder how such conflict was ever allowed to develop. By nature, we understand at a very deeply intuitive level that competition is to blame.
Beyond Competition
Overcoming the competitive spirit can seem to be an uphill struggle. We might conclude that avoiding competition is unrealistic, an idealistic delusion, or even a smokescreen for weakness. We join our peers in agreement that competition is the normal state. We redouble our efforts to prevail.
Perhaps none of us can individually change the world, but we can change ourselves. We can make space to process our experiences, practise qigong, and seek any necessary professional support, and our deeper insecurities and swirling thoughts will start to settle and clear.
Making peace with ourselves, we understand:
We don’t need to beat others to have personal value.
The anxiety caused by the competitiveness of others, their ceaseless self-promotion and petty conflicts, starts to exercise less of a pull on us, too. Our natural empathy can reawaken, along with our ability to more sincerely support others, rather than viewing them as rivals.
A commitment to regularly playing our active repertoire for our own personal enjoyment, with no need to impress others or compare, can be the dynamic catalyst that unlocks years of imprisonment to negative self-talk.
Finally, looking beyond ourselves to our local piano community, we can be ambitious to promote a more healthy performance environment: one which welcomes players of all ages, levels and abilities without public judgment or comparison.
Beyond Conflict
As caring parents, humane teachers, and community musicians, we have an important role to play in helping the next generation of piano players to have a more healthy, less competitive attitude.
I believe we can be winners together by being the best that we can collectively be, through cooperation, teamwork, collaboration and mutual respect. Between us, we surely have the creative imagination to develop far more positive opportunities and pathways into a lifetime of music-making.
Let’s keep our eyes on the real prize: a world less driven by conflict, and more in love with the transformative power of shared music.
PIANODAO includes 700+ FREE articles.
Please DONATE HERE to support the site.
For FREE email notifications SUBSCRIBE HERE.
