The Key Change

Pursuing a life in music requires a lot of dedication. As musicians, we spend countless hours practising. It starts during our formative years of training and studying, and it doesn't stop after an audition has been won. Not surprisingly, we get very attached to our instrument (or voice), often to the extent that the instrument is perceived as an extension of ourselves. It is almost as if we become our instrument.

Apart from the sheer amount of time spent with practice, there are other factors leading to this fusion of identity and instrument, most notably the deep love of music that lies at the origin of every musician's path. This love along with an attraction to or affinity for a certain instrument is what fuels our motivation and dedication. As a result, the close relationship between musicians and their instruments can be seen as a love story.

There is beauty in this Oneness of musician and instrument, and it is the source of artistic expression and possibilities. At the same time, it comes with psychological challenges that rarely get articulated. Let's shed some light onto this: Throughout our musical education, we become conditioned to always strive for excellence, and our efforts get rewarded with applause, scholarships, prizes and awards. Unnoticeably, our sense of identity becomes increasingly tied to outcomes in the form of musical achievements.

Identifying yourself so much with your instrument and your musical achievements can have dangerous side-effects. It can make you vulnerable to criticism in uniquely personal ways. Setbacks can hit you to the core, and critique can feel like a personal attack, because your sense of self-worth is linked to external validation. This provides the perfect ground for performance anxiety to grow. The fear of failure becomes existential rather than merely professional. As a coping strategy, many musicians react by working even harder, practising even longer hours. A pianist once told me, he needed 8 hours to warm-up before a concert. He would get extremely stressed, when for some reason this wasn't possible. However, being driven by fear inhibits true artistic growth, and the excessive hard work doesn’t get rewarded with the desired relief.

Luckily, it doesn't have to be like this. Like in any relationship, completely losing yourself in the connection with your instrument isn't sustainable. Just as maintaining healthy boundaries and individual identity strengthens personal relationships, musicians hugely benefit from rediscovering who they are beyond their instruments. This includes learning to separate your intrinsic worth from your musical achievements and finding validation from within rather than constantly seeking it externally.

The path to a more balanced relationship with music starts with reconnection – not just with your instrument, but with yourself. Working with a specialised coach can help you navigate this journey, providing tools and strategies to disentangle your self-worth from achievement while maintaining the deep artistic connection that drew you to music initially. When musicians learn to express themselves through their instruments rather than being defined by them, something remarkable happens: their playing often becomes more authentic, more profound, and paradoxically, more technically assured. The focus shifts from proving worth to sharing art, from fear of failure to joy of expression. It’s a key change that starts inside. At IN TUNE Coaching, I support professional musicians in making this change.

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