The tension in the room is palpable as the auditionees (your colleagues, your friends, your competition) all await the results of the competition. You’ve prepared this repertoire for years waiting for the validation of hearing your name called—the validation of me as a musician and artist. In my head, I’ve already composed the post I’ll share declaring myself a winner, and I cannot wait for the likes, comments, and congratulations. Finally, the moment I have been waiting for arrives, and my name is called! The room is spinning, something is off…beep beep beep beep!

I wake up. I’m inside my harp cover hiding for a quick nap in my glorified closet of an office at the hotel. It’s time for the next gig. I sit up, adorned in costume jewelry with full hair and makeup, my sparkly shoes next to me. This is a regular day in my harp life. I’ve earned three music degrees, but no one along the way told me my career would most likely look something like this: cat-napping in concert attire as I keep up a grueling schedule of performing, teaching, auditioning, and practicing. No one told me the big orchestra job or the plum teaching appointment would be so elusive.

What’s your real job?

Let me start with telling you a little bit about myself. I came out of the womb singing; I was a natural-born vocalist. Being raised Catholic, I was cantering mass as a soloist two days a week between the ages of 8 and 18. Whether I was singing in a cathedral or on stage as soloist, I felt like that was my home. There were many years of music study on voice, piano, clarinet, and saxophone, but I kept thinking, “These are too easy.” Cue the pedal harp.

Like many of you, my first experience hearing a harp was in the Nutcracker ballet. After hearing a harp for the first time during my family’s annual trip to the Fox Theater in Detroit, I knew this was the instrument for me. After finding out the high cost of this instrument, my parents hoped I would forget about my desire to learn it and move on. However, after several years of hounding, I received my first Lyon & Healy Troubador harp on Christmas morning when I was 12 years old. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had done their research in finding the best harp teacher. Cue the fabulous Patricia Masri-Fletcher, principal harpist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. And off I went.

I’ve managed to create and sustain a career for myself in Chicago—one of the world’s great harp cities. We have Lyon & Healy and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (which boasts one of the world’s most famous orchestral harpist in Sarah Bullen). I’m the harpist for a historic hotel, which entails recruiting, scheduling, and managing about 20 or so harpists. (Gulp!) I also maintain a private teaching studio, am a professor of harp at a local university, perform with orchestras, and freelance. Many people would deem me a success, but in the back of my mind there is always doubt. I haven’t landed a big orchestra job; I haven’t won a major competition; I’m not good enough; I’m not a real musician.

The impossible dream

“Don’t worry, you’ll win someday.”

Like many harpists, I have spent hours envisioning myself winning that dream job world-class competition. Like it or not, the classical music community emphasizes winning auditions and competitions as the only measures of success, rather than valuing musical fulfillment and financial security. My question is this: why is this our only definition of success? Why are we defining a successful musician so narrowly? Popular culture rewards winners, brand names, and celebrity status. Are we kowtowing to the expectations of popular American culture? Do we need a gold medal, big orchestra, or prestigious school to be a legitimate professional musician?

One meaningful conversation I continue to have with colleagues delves into the pervasive perfectionism in our field, and which came first, the chicken or the egg? In other words, are perfectionists naturally drawn to become musicians or does the music world demand perfection for all those who want to succeed in it?

Regardless of where the ideal of success came from, the classical music world indoctrinates us at an young age to think we need to win that big orchestra job in order to earn the distinction of being a real musician, and that an orchestral principal harpist is truly the end-all-be-all career path. Personally, I have always wanted to make my living solely from performing in a major symphony. The fulfillment I achieve in playing with other musicians and creating something that can move people—that is truly what I wanted to spend my life doing. When performing with others, you create moments that can give you goosebumps, make the hairs on your arms stand up, or light you up on the inside. But the reality is orchestra jobs are few and dwindling, and college harp graduates are many and growing. There simply aren’t even close to enough orchestra jobs for the number of qualified musicians.

Our best selves (as portrayed in social media)

You can’t scroll through your social media feed without occasionally feeling a sense of “I’m not good enough” or “Wow, his or her life seems so perfect.” Sharing only our successes and wins on social media isn’t real life. Movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter brought real issues to the cultural forefront through social media. Being honest and open in the classical music community can be a start to our own movement empowering young musicians to have honest conversations and expectations. Some of my most meaningful connections have been made with harpists after losing auditions, laugh-crying into our beers while having sincere conversations about expectations, auditions, and our futures. These losing moments have really made for some awesome memories and long-lasting friendships.

Let’s give a more authentic depiction of our harp lives on social media. Let’s be more honest about the preparation, the experience, and positive growth as a result of doing these competitions or auditions, rather than sharing only our successes on social media.

Change, honestly, options

Young harpists may enter a college program with a goal or a dream, and we should help them realize those dreams, but also think about the why behind those aspirations. Why do you want to win that competition? Is it for accolades and acknowledgment or is it to become a better musician? Helping young people to realize what their future can look like and giving them a blank canvas on which to create it is the best service we can give them.

A successful music career in 2019 doesn’t have to be as narrowly defined as it has been for the last century. Let’s promote a realistic depiction of what making a living as a musician looks like and reframe our idea of success—whether you want to sing and play your harp, or do a performance art piece delving into gender roles and society, or take every orchestra gig you can get. To reference Marie Kondo: if it sparks joy in you, keep it.