Did I Hit the Wrong Note? The Mistakes in Music

The path of music is one of the most marvelous and satisfying that this short life we are living have to offer. But we have to be sincere with ourselves, this path is not a piece of cake to walkthrough, it’s breath taking sometimes and full of stressful moments too. But wait, let's stop on this point right now; playing and making music is supposed to be always a joyful moment, right? Music is meant to be a channel for catharsis and pure way to human expression, isn't it? But, why if music is all of these blessing things and more, there are so much stress on the way up to becoming and being a professional (or amateur) musician? Why sometimes we found ourselves nervous before an important gig? Why we torture ourselves think "Did I sound good?" "Geez I failed those notes, what the audience is going to think?" "What if I’ll play something wrong?” “What’s my teacher going to say about my improvisation?" "I'm really good enough to be on the music market?” Beneath almost all this stressful moments exist a common factor that can paralyze your whole career in a bit, the fear of failure, that is to say, fear of make a mistake.

Simon Wills - Incorporated Society of Musicians

For a long time in the human common practice the concept of mistakes is directly connected to a pejorative meaning. We've learn that a mistake occurs when we do something wrong, and when we make something wrong, we are doing things in the bad way (Who is happy doing the things the wrong way, right?). Since little kids, the society put in to our heads the idea that after a mistake is made, usually we receive a negative response. If you make an orthographic mistake on a handwrite essay, the teachers would lower your score and then you would have to write that word you missed 100 times until you get it right. If you play a wrong note, oh boy, you would have to play that single passage over and over again, and every time you'll play that note wrong again, you'll have to repeat the passage 5 times more. These traumatic experiences start to accumulate in our brain creating the genesis of the fear of failure. If we don't control our minds we can end up in a spiral of fear that could paralyze our creative self. As a musician you always have the shadow of that horrible monster of fear behind you back every time you are in a gig, or presenting an audition, or even resting in your bed and your mind is telling you "Did I practice enough? What if I'll no hit those notes on that tricky passage?" "What I'm going to do?; To overcome this fear we have to review the pejorative concept of mistake.

First of all we have to understand that mistakes are not necessarily a bad thing. They are an integral part of the learning process. We can't learn without making mistakes, so the moments when you play those wrong notes are the perfect time to impulse yourself to the next level, not repeating mechanically the passage a thousand time more, no, but taking an introspective reflection to overcome the difficulty. It is this insightful thinking what really makes you understand and learn the things you need, to absorb the knowledge you want. The mistake then it is not an obstacle in your path, it is the launching pad for you to become better. But don't get me wrong, there is no short cut here, if you don't do the insight reflection and you make on purpose the mistake over and over again, you are getting inside the mediocrity hole (watch out).

There are no mistakes at all then. If we see them as a power to advance instead of a set of chains in our ankle that impede us to move, we can go forward without the fear of failure. I know is much easier to say it than to put the concept in practice, but start by repeating this to yourself every time the doubtful monster appear ("Do not fear the mistakes, there are none). Yes, the are none, you create them as a ghost on the shell (the shell is your head), so it's time to redeem the concept of mistake, it's time to impulse ourselves as human from the pleasure of learning from our own mistakes in order to advance.

The regime of fear is over now. No more tension on the practice room, no more stress on the scenario. It's time to embrace the learning process with all his stuffs. It's time for your mind and your muscles to relax, letting the music flow from the divinity throughout your fingers and right into to the center of every soul that listen to your playing. Enjoy the delightful path of music. Bring with your sound happiness/peace to the ones who have the pleasure to hear you playing.

"Do not fear the mistakes, there are none" - Get the impulse you need from them to become a better musician (and a better human being).

Happy Practice.
PD: Thanks to Miles Davis for the great lesson.
Carlos.