If you examine the strengths of other mandolin players, and compare them to your struggles, how do you measure up? If you can, list the emotions you come up with, if only in your mind.
Is it helpful to compare yourself in this way?
It is natural to want to play as the great mandolin players do. Their musical licks seem endlessly creative; the precision of their picking and chop techniques are passionate and spontaneous.
You wonder, “How did they ever get to be this good?”. And then things may begin to degenerate.
Their instrument costs more than a car, they’ve had a mandolin in their hands since they learned to walk, their parents were fantastic musicians too.
Those factors certainly are shared by an overwhelming majority of the greatest artists. However, these are events completely out of our control.
Sure, we can save up all the money we can to buy a fantastic sounding instrument, but that will only get us so far. We can’t go back in time and begin playing mandolin sooner. It has been known for millennia that parents cannot be chosen. As a mandolin player, where we are is where we are.
This is a fantastic place to be. And the brilliancy of other musicians doesn’t change that at all.
Of course it doesn’t. In fact it is the compulsion which puts our mandolinist self in control when we hold our instrument and listen to others with theirs.
This is the drive which pushes us on as musicians. The struggle is to unknot the feelings of inadequacy and envy from it all. The hope is that what remains is excitement, focus, and affection for music and musicians. Including yourself and all those freakishly talented buggers too.
How to Overcome this Nuisance
So this is how our brains are wired as default: to compare ourselves to others.
Thankfully it isn’t impossible to rewire ourselves. We learned mandolin, didn’t we? That’s not a default wiring for humans. How we diverted out brainwaves to pluck a few notes on the mandolin is no different than quitting our predilection for toxic comparison.
Practice practice practice. Repetition. Repetition.
Practice is never as difficult as we assume it to be. It’s really the easiest thing out there. It’s just convincing ourselves that we can do what we want. And the more we convince ourselves, the easier it is to convince ourselves further. Which means the difficult things become easier.
Here are the steps to rewire your brain to refrain from comparing yourself to other mandolinists:
- Step one is to notice when you are comparing your weaknesses to another mandolin player’s strengths.
Noticing these feelings in real time is much more helpful then dwelling on them later on. If you’re unconscious of it all, then it will lead your thoughts further. Delaying your mandolin progress. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a certain way. What’s unacceptable is if the feelings lead to your musical abatement.
- Step two is to tell yourself graciously, “I’m comparing right now.”
Noticing is the hard part. However, once you do notice what you’re doing, it’s easy to redirect. In the beginning perhaps you will want to actually say these words in your head. Or even just “Stop that”. It will help solidify your noticing.
- Step three is to remind yourself of your strengths as a mandolin player.
There’s no need to be envious. Congratulate yourself on the little things. No one else is going to do that for you. They don’t know you like you do.
- Step four is to return to the music.
Admire how wonderful it is to live in a world where great musicians exist. How fantastic that there are such great musicians to look up to. Each one is unique. They push the envelope, so that others may push it open even more.
The Mandolin Journey
No matter the skill level, to one degree or another, each of us posses the strength of a master mandolin player. Holding the pick correctly, or playing a song composed by a mandolin genius. That is what draws us to admire the sliver belonging to the inhibitors of that highest degree. Their sounds are the ones we’re on the journey towards. And we live out that journey in our playing.
And the artist’s work is never done. Even the greats have not arrived from their journey. The setting of the mandolin isn’t a straight road, it’s an exotic landscape wrapped around a gigantic globe. And there are seasons too, so even if you find yourself back at a place you were before, the leaves have changed. It’s familiar, but with a tint of progress.
Similarly, the practice of noticing when you’re comparing yourself to others is just like playing mandolin too. It is also a gigantic globe. There’s no arriving anywhere. In fact, with noticing, you’ll realize you compare yourself to others much more than you originally thought. Be nice to yourself, it’s just the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
These ideas can be applied to many facets of our lives as well. I hope we can all can redirect comparison of others strengths and our weaknesses into excitement or repose. Content with where we find ourselves and excitement for what’s ahead.
Here’s an article I read which lead me to write this post.
MandoZen 