Discovery Essay
In my dreams, I am a guitar hero…. Music has always had a large impact on my life. I have come to understand music as a skillful form of self-expression and have often times attempted to learn how to play the guitar , much to my frustration. Many times over the last few years I quit or created a reason to stop trying altogether. I’m open minded enough to know that the excuses I make are due to the fact that I can’t come to terms with struggling more than others at learning how to express myself via music which only serves to frustrate me further. I feel as though I have plateaued in my lifelong adventures with music and the only way to escape a dead end is to reach inside myself and figure out why I am having trouble committing to something that I love. How did my failure to learn a musical instrument, despite my deep appreciation for the subject, reflect my fixed mindset?
I consciously began appreciating music at a very young age and as I grew older and grew with experience so did the music I listened to and my understanding of it. My first experience with music was when I was in elementary school. My mother, who had recently only listened to Russian music, brought home an album by Don Mclean. I was immediately drawn in by what I can only describe abstractly as the feel of his music.I invested my saved up birthday money into a CD player. I would buy blank discs on which I could place music on through my computer so my friends and I could listen to the music on school trips.
As I grew older and more experienced my appreciation for music took a different path. I became just as interested in the meaning of songs as I was in their instrumentals. I was drawn specifically to Pink Floyd because I found their prevalent themes of alienation, resistance, and paternal intrusion relatable. I realized music to be a form of self-expression and I wanted to become a part of it. If I loved so music so much, how perfect would it be for me to play it? I decided to take guitar lessons but playing music came a lot harder to me than enjoying it.
When I came in to meet my tutor the whole session learning the basic mechanics of a guitar. The next session he began teaching me music theory. The basics bored me so I asked him when I could start learning how to play. He played me a solo from Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. The difficulty and precision was made apparent to me in that moment and the proximity I believed I shared to my dream of playing the guitar vanished. I was farther away than I had ever expected. A month later, I quit lessons. Several years later I still have the guitar hanging on my wall.
Perhaps I felt too much pressure learning from a tutor. Maybe the guitar wasn’t my instrument and all I had to do was try and pick up something else. Or maybe I just needed to learn on my own time and at my own pace. Regardless of all these open-minded options, my initial failure to play well had pushed me into a corner. I forced myself to reject all forms and paces of learning music, claiming that I wasn’t naturally talented and could never learn to play even if I wanted to.
Carol Dweck would reprimand my fixed-mindset behavior. Dweck is an accomplished professor of Psychology at Stanford University and the author of ‘Mindsets: The New Psychology of Success’, a book exploring the fears of failure and the effect it has on the problem-solving development of children. Dwecker conducted experiments with children in which she had them solve an array of puzzles that increased in difficulty. To her surprise she found that certain children enjoyed the obstacles and one even stated “I love a challenge!”(5) revealing people existed that “loved failure”(5). Failure, to the children, is temporary and holds no heavy handed negative connotation. In contrast, those that have already been made to avoid failure at all costs do not pursue challenges because they believe that an inability to complete an obstacle the first time is a reflection of personal incompetence.
The general consensus, as Dweck argues, in the fixed-mindset is that there is nothing one can do to improve their situation. “What is there to do?”(8) is the driving hopeless question of people who feel they have no choice but to accept their misfortunes. In contrast, those who have the “growth mindset” do not view things like a bad grade or an accident as misfortunes but rather as obstacles which can be overcome through critical thinking. Not only does a growth mindset make people smarter and more successful, but it makes life more interesting.
I realized, after reading an excerpt from the Dweck’s book, that I had adopted a fixed mindset to learning a guitar. The fixed-mindset was a result of my fear of failure. My deep appreciation for music and the ease with which I was able to enjoyed it clashed with the trouble I had learning how to play. Because music was so important to me, I feared that I be a great disappointment if I couldn’t learn how to play well; so I never even let myself try. Everytime the strenuous effort required of me to properly play a few chords was distant, I would pick up my guitar in the hopes of learning again only to be discouraged every time. I wast able to come to terms recently that I had failed myself in much more personal way than I feared when I quit playing guitar.
Although learning music does come harder to me than it does to other people naturally, I should not let it discourage me if I wish to play. In fact, I should appreciate the obstacle because I know if I succeed after trying it will be all the more rewarding. However, If I don’t succeed I won’t be any worse off than I am now and maybe I’ll learn a few things anyway. In order for me to adopt a ‘growth’ mindset I would have to take learning an instrument heads on. I just have to jump right in, and learn the basics first. I shouldn’t let myself be bored by it because it is the essentials that all musicians learn, especially the ones I listen to. I should be relieved that music isn’t as easy as I thought it would be because then everybody would be doing it. I have to respect the art for what it is: complicated and beautiful. It is best for me to learn how to get past obstacles so they never block me from doing things I love in my life ever again. The ‘growth’ mindset, of course, is not only limited to learning an instrument. It is a method that should be applied to all obstacles in life.
The idea of growth is not a novel one but it is one that must be re-introduced. People,like me, need to explore their surroundings and find things that they are interested in or passionate about. And if one does find their passion, they should pursue it no matter how arduous it may be because there is no reward greater than being able to express yourself through something you love. I have taken positive steps towards exploring my appreciation for music. I recently went out and bought a tuner in order to make all my strings in tune and I have began to take online lessons from Youtube. I don’t get to play everyday, and I don’t always want to play everyday, but I am having a much more pleasant experience slowly learning the instrument because I am allowing myself to work at my own pace and within my own field of enjoyment. In addition, I’m no longer beating myself up if I don’t learn how to properly play a chord or riff right away, and that has made the process a great deal more enjoyable.
I consciously began appreciating music at a very young age and as I grew older and grew with experience so did the music I listened to and my understanding of it. My first experience with music was when I was in elementary school. My mother, who had recently only listened to Russian music, brought home an album by Don Mclean. I was immediately drawn in by what I can only describe abstractly as the feel of his music.I invested my saved up birthday money into a CD player. I would buy blank discs on which I could place music on through my computer so my friends and I could listen to the music on school trips.
As I grew older and more experienced my appreciation for music took a different path. I became just as interested in the meaning of songs as I was in their instrumentals. I was drawn specifically to Pink Floyd because I found their prevalent themes of alienation, resistance, and paternal intrusion relatable. I realized music to be a form of self-expression and I wanted to become a part of it. If I loved so music so much, how perfect would it be for me to play it? I decided to take guitar lessons but playing music came a lot harder to me than enjoying it.
When I came in to meet my tutor the whole session learning the basic mechanics of a guitar. The next session he began teaching me music theory. The basics bored me so I asked him when I could start learning how to play. He played me a solo from Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. The difficulty and precision was made apparent to me in that moment and the proximity I believed I shared to my dream of playing the guitar vanished. I was farther away than I had ever expected. A month later, I quit lessons. Several years later I still have the guitar hanging on my wall.
Perhaps I felt too much pressure learning from a tutor. Maybe the guitar wasn’t my instrument and all I had to do was try and pick up something else. Or maybe I just needed to learn on my own time and at my own pace. Regardless of all these open-minded options, my initial failure to play well had pushed me into a corner. I forced myself to reject all forms and paces of learning music, claiming that I wasn’t naturally talented and could never learn to play even if I wanted to.
Carol Dweck would reprimand my fixed-mindset behavior. Dweck is an accomplished professor of Psychology at Stanford University and the author of ‘Mindsets: The New Psychology of Success’, a book exploring the fears of failure and the effect it has on the problem-solving development of children. Dwecker conducted experiments with children in which she had them solve an array of puzzles that increased in difficulty. To her surprise she found that certain children enjoyed the obstacles and one even stated “I love a challenge!”(5) revealing people existed that “loved failure”(5). Failure, to the children, is temporary and holds no heavy handed negative connotation. In contrast, those that have already been made to avoid failure at all costs do not pursue challenges because they believe that an inability to complete an obstacle the first time is a reflection of personal incompetence.
The general consensus, as Dweck argues, in the fixed-mindset is that there is nothing one can do to improve their situation. “What is there to do?”(8) is the driving hopeless question of people who feel they have no choice but to accept their misfortunes. In contrast, those who have the “growth mindset” do not view things like a bad grade or an accident as misfortunes but rather as obstacles which can be overcome through critical thinking. Not only does a growth mindset make people smarter and more successful, but it makes life more interesting.
I realized, after reading an excerpt from the Dweck’s book, that I had adopted a fixed mindset to learning a guitar. The fixed-mindset was a result of my fear of failure. My deep appreciation for music and the ease with which I was able to enjoyed it clashed with the trouble I had learning how to play. Because music was so important to me, I feared that I be a great disappointment if I couldn’t learn how to play well; so I never even let myself try. Everytime the strenuous effort required of me to properly play a few chords was distant, I would pick up my guitar in the hopes of learning again only to be discouraged every time. I wast able to come to terms recently that I had failed myself in much more personal way than I feared when I quit playing guitar.
Although learning music does come harder to me than it does to other people naturally, I should not let it discourage me if I wish to play. In fact, I should appreciate the obstacle because I know if I succeed after trying it will be all the more rewarding. However, If I don’t succeed I won’t be any worse off than I am now and maybe I’ll learn a few things anyway. In order for me to adopt a ‘growth’ mindset I would have to take learning an instrument heads on. I just have to jump right in, and learn the basics first. I shouldn’t let myself be bored by it because it is the essentials that all musicians learn, especially the ones I listen to. I should be relieved that music isn’t as easy as I thought it would be because then everybody would be doing it. I have to respect the art for what it is: complicated and beautiful. It is best for me to learn how to get past obstacles so they never block me from doing things I love in my life ever again. The ‘growth’ mindset, of course, is not only limited to learning an instrument. It is a method that should be applied to all obstacles in life.
The idea of growth is not a novel one but it is one that must be re-introduced. People,like me, need to explore their surroundings and find things that they are interested in or passionate about. And if one does find their passion, they should pursue it no matter how arduous it may be because there is no reward greater than being able to express yourself through something you love. I have taken positive steps towards exploring my appreciation for music. I recently went out and bought a tuner in order to make all my strings in tune and I have began to take online lessons from Youtube. I don’t get to play everyday, and I don’t always want to play everyday, but I am having a much more pleasant experience slowly learning the instrument because I am allowing myself to work at my own pace and within my own field of enjoyment. In addition, I’m no longer beating myself up if I don’t learn how to properly play a chord or riff right away, and that has made the process a great deal more enjoyable.
Works Cited
Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House, 2006. Print.