Friday, May 21, 2010

Quandary

quandary [ˈkwɒndrɪ -dərɪ]n pl -ries a situation or circumstance that presents problems difficult to solve; predicament; dilemma

Okay, so I'm in a bit of a quandary right now. It's coming up to the end of the school year, and I need to let my piano teacher know what I'm doing next year, so I can register. As you may know, I completed the Suzuki Piano program this past February, and I am taking my Grade 9 Royal Conservatory exam in mid-June, and so it seems like a good time to re-evaluate and make some decisions. The thing is, I honestly don't know what to do for piano next year.

Here are my options:

Option 1. Get a new piano teacher, and see where that takes me. My current teacher has actually suggested this to see how a different approach will help my abilities grow.

Option 2. Stay with my current teacher. Maybe work on my Grade 10 exam or on a larger work i.e. concerto.

Option 3. Take a year off from piano lessons. Focus on preparing for post-secondary, thinking about what I want to focus on, and preparing for that. Practice piano on my own.

I'm currently leaning towards Option 3. See, the thing is, as much as I love piano, I'm not sure that I have any plans to be a concert pianist. I think that my passion lies in a mixture of music and theatre. So, I guess what I'm saying, is if I don't have specific plans to pursue a life as a pianist, what's the point in studying that at university, and if I'm not going to study that at university, then I should be spending the time on things that will prepare me for university. I don't know... Obviously, I'm never going to stop playing piano, and the skill that I currently have will be of huge value to me in the music/theatre/composing world.  So yeah.

By the way, my current plan is to be a working actor with lots of musical theatre training and a composer/sound designer on the side. I love directing as well, so I guess my title would be actor/composer/director. I just have so many choices, and so many interests, it's just really hard.

Sorry, this has been rambling. Bleh.

2 comments:

Captain Background said...

My advice (as unhelpful as it may be) is to take some time off. Piano, as I can say with feeling, is a wonderful thing to learn, but if you're taking lessons and feel like it's not going anywhere, maybe working on it on your own time is a good idea. Believe me I found this out the hard way.
The good thing is that you'll always have music whether your in lessons or not, so I wouldn't stress too much about it.
Sorry, my comments tend to trail off into the distance, so I'll stop now.

Unknown said...

I completely agree with Captain Background. and I will add my two sense: Go with something you haven't tried. Do something new even!