My love-hate relationship with music.

My family is an extremely musical family. Playing instruments is what we do, and we all play them well, and play them together. (Here's a youtube link of me and all my siblings playing violin together at our school in Holland: https://youtu.be/Qc69S-PAUR0?t=68) It's never been a choice, growing up, of whether or not any of us would take music lessons. We always would. Piano and violin lessons simultaneously until about high school, and then we choose one.

We play together as a family, as shown in the video, and it looks fun, but practicing is not. Trying to get 6 kids to do something they don't want to do for more than an hour at a time, to be quiet when other people are playing, to not run off and get distracted, to not goof off on their instruments, and to come up with creative ideas is nigh on impossible. Family practice sessions were rarely fun.

I never was good at practicing. I never liked practicing. But since when I was young, I was very gifted for my age at the piano and violin, I always felt the pressure of not squandering my talent. Of becoming the best. This pressure didn't come from my parents, but rather myself and my teachers. And when I was 11, still getting used to balancing school and practicing after being homeschooled my whole life, my younger brother started to get better at the piano than I was. Now, as a 11 year old, there isn't much worse than seeing a younger sibling do better than you at something you work extremely hard at. So for a while, I pushed myself harder, but eventually, after realizing that I wasn't going to be able to get back ahead, I abandoned ship. Not totally, because again, ditching music isn't allowed in my family, but I stopped acting like I cared about the piano. So I refocused on violin, and progressed more in violin than I ever had before. My teacher told me "You have the potential to be one of the best. You just need to work harder." So I tried, for years. I worked and I practiced and I gave performances and I practiced more, but I started to get sick of it. I realized that I would never be able to work hard enough to compete with the best violinists. That was a tough realization for me, but it was a good one to have.

This semester marks the longest time I've ever gone without taking private music lessons. I miss it way more than I thought I would. I'm very glad that I decided so long ago not to make a career out of music, because I've realized that if I made music performance my career, it would stop being my hobby. I wouldn't be able to go and play the violin when I am stressed, because music would be a source of stress. I wouldn't be able to accompany my friends on the piano or learn pieces to play in sacrament meeting, because I would be so loaded down with other work. So, even though I haven't enjoyed every moment, I'm really happy with where I am with music. I cherish the memories of performing with my family (not so much the memories of practicing.)

And I'll definitely make my future family a musical one.