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Hey all,

As I was laying in bed tonight, not able to sleep, I found myself thinking about several things in my life, and how drastic my life has changed in the last couple of months. Thinking back to May, I was a band director in a small town in Texas, and was engaged to get married in the summer.

As the summer passed, I got a job down here in Mexico to play in an orchestra in June, got married in July, and moved to Mexico in August. This has been a crazy rollercoaster ride for me to say the least.

For the past three years, I have been a miserable person who felt trapped into being an educator. When I graduated in 2002, I never thought I would have such a negative attitude towards teaching. I did have some memorable moments, and I will always cherish those, but for the most part, my life felt empty and dead. I felt no motivation to practice anymore; I felt my performing days were done.

During my second year of teaching, I joined an amateur quintet in a nearby large city (about an hour drive each way) that met once a week. We probably met a little more than we had to in proportion to where and what we played, but it was fine with me, I got to play in a group again.

This experience led me to practice more, and put the fire back inside me to be better. This also encouraged me to purchase a more serious horn for myself, which in itself was a giant leap of faith. This allowed me to temporarily swap my old cc for an f with my old HS lesson teacher. This last year of teaching, I spent as much free time as possible practicing and recording myself with the two new horns. I then felt ready to try an audition or two. My motivation was renewed.

Now that I have a performing job, I look back and see that I was very unhappy as a teacher, and I fell into a depression in first year of teaching. If it weren't for that quintet that I decided to play in, I would probably still be in some kind of funk.

Everytime I come to this forum, which is usually outside of appropriate practice time, I feel even more motivated to practice, but its usually too late to. My wife would be very upset right now if I grabbed a horn and started playing! Most serious musicians reach a point in their career when the desire to be better is mostly intrinsic, but there are still external forces that seem to intensify our desire to be better. Concerts, recitals, recordings, posts on this forum, etc... can inspire us to be better.

I guess the whole point of this entirely too long thread was to ask some of you:

What do you find to be the post potent motivation and inspiration for you?

It's music. The instrument doesn't really matter. Tuba's nice because it's usually in demand, but I'd settle for kazoo or slide whistle if that's what afforded a playing opportunity.

There are three main things that motivate me.

1.) Being a young (18 y.o.) player, I enjoy going to competitions and realizing that there are so many other people out there that are my age that can kick my butt.
2.) When I hear recordings of Roger Bobo, Arnold Jacobs, and Oystein Baadsvik I realize that in order for me to be that great I absolutely have to practice as hard and determined as I can. One day I would like to hear myself on C.D.
3.) My final motivation is the constant strive for musical perfection. No one is perfect and all we can do is strive to be perfect musicians. If we stop striving for that we will never realize our full potential.

sc_curtis wrote:What do you find to be the [m]ost potent motivation and inspiration for you?

Making music. And the people.

I went to school first for music ed. I decided during student teaching that it wasn't AT ALL what I thought it was going to be. I finished my degree, but listened more intently to my teacher, who was a former New York pro and Bill Bell student. Excerpts from day 1. I got a gig thanks to that influence. When I was playing professionally, being part of the artistic process let me breathe. Not only did I want to be the best I could be, but I didn't want to let down my colleagues by taking it too lightly. I didn't realize until I smacked the racetrack wall how important the personal relationships were (hell, a lot of the time we just complained about each other, but it turns out it was affectionate complaining... ). I tried for about 3 years to just make a noise, to deal with the double vision and ringing in my ears, but I was just too spastic. You want to talk about a FUNK!

Then, a couple of years ago we moved, and I decided to try to play again, since I still had all my horns (which I was reminded of- packing and unpacking). I joined a local community band. It may not be the same, and I can't play anywhere near like I could, but the group is good, and they put up with my playing. And it IS music. I feel like a blindfold was lifted off my head. I go out now, talk with my old friends, and while I thought my main value was just musically, I am delighted to find otherwise.

As far as practicing at night, my wife is a flute professor and performer, and she thinks nothing of playing piccolo after midnight! Even if you're in an appartment, try one of those Silent Brass things. Or as my old Bass Trombone said "practicing shows a lack of self confidence... "

I like to listen. Luckily, I'm in Toronto and I'm a student so I can get cheap tickets to the TSO ($12 CND). The "I want to play like that" factor is very high for me. I just can't wait for Mahler 5 next month.

Also, just playing for even just a few minutes in a really nice hall helps. You don't always remember what you sound like when you're stuck in a practice room. Take a few minutes to listen to yourself. I guess thats not motivation, but it makes you (me) feel better.

I guess that last thing I do is play as many different things as you can. Different styles, types of ensembles. Its very easy to get into a rut. At the moment I'm playing in 2 wind ensembles, a brass band, a brass quintet, a jazz band, an orchestra, a tuba/euph choir, and an octet (stravinsky). You know what they say, variety is the spice of life.

Music is part of our personal definition and this keeps us coming back to it.
I went to live in a monastery and finding a trumpet in a dramatics hall the wonderful sound I found I could make led to a 20 year career.
20 years later,I took 3 years off to recover from an overdose of top 40 and found my way to tuba as a third career. It's all about the sound.

Yours is a very well thought out and insightful post that most of us won't realize until we're much older, and doesn't just apply to music. I have been motivated more by what profession could allow me to afford the lifestyle I desire, rather than necessarily that which brings me joy. When I went to college I chose engineering because I liked the problem solving, but also because I knew that engineering graduates were in demand (in the '70s). I got married and had 2 children and continued what now was clearly a random walk through a career that allowed me many experiences, but not real fulfillment.

I added tuba back into my life about 12 years ago because I knew that something was missing. Although I only perform in amateur groups, it continues to be a source of joy in my life. The motivation is just to continue to challenge myself to get better.

With my children mostly grown, but at least moved out of the house, I have had more time to contemplate what I think my life should be. Somehow I think it should be more than just about a paycheck. Motivation comes from finding something you are passionate about and pursuing that with all that you have. You have to believe in what you are doing or you can never be adequately motivated to be completely successful.

I suggested to my children that they pursue a degree in something about which they have passion, not because they believe it will find them employment. That's why my daughter now has an art degree and my son is finishing up a music degree.

Congratulations on having the courage, and self awareness to realize what you needed in your life.