7 ms·

I met a guy one time who did what he loved for most of his life--he played the piano. Despite practicing for 8 hours a day for years, he still wasn't good enoug

• wheels 18y ago
  I think the case you mention is more about having reasonable expectations than staying upwind. If you're studying as a musician and targeting symphonic performance as a career goal, you need to realize that you're going into a field which maybe has a couple dozen job positions open up per year world wide. Being the 200th best clarinet player in the world, despite being statistically very impressive, means that you still won't be able to work as professional symphonic performer. On the other hand, if you set that as a nice-to-have goal, but are fine working as a studio musician or teacher, it becomes a much more attainable goal. Fortunately, as a software developer, even if you're only one of the top several thousand you have a pretty big chance of doing impressive stuff. My sister is about to finish a degree in music from a decent conservatory, but I'm glad she decided to double major half-way through. She's very good, but she doesn't have what it takes to be competitive in a race for maybe a dozen open positions every year for her instrument.