I recently received word of another “failed” attempt to place in a competition. I wasn’t broken up about it. As we all know, you get used to this as a creative freelancer – lots of rejection or silence in various forms.
But… still.
My Dad called from Germany a few hours later; our usual catch-up. We chatted for a bit, and he asked if I’d heard back. I told him the result, and he asked if there was any feedback. “No,” I said, “and it wouldn’t matter anyway. It’s so subjective”.
“It took me 34 tries before I landed my gig”. He was referring to autumn 1976, when after months of grueling auditions, he ended up landing a 1st horn position in the Mainz Philharmonic – the day I was born. 8 months later, my Mother and I would join him there. Later, he won the same position in Wuppertal, where he remained until retiring a few years ago.
“In that process, two auditions stand out in my memory: one for the Berlin Philharmonic, and another for the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. After my performance in Berlin, they were very kind and gave me some feedback. It was unadulterated: ‘your performance was very musical, but you have no technique.’
Shortly after, in Nuremberg, I played the same Strauss piece as I had in Berlin and every other city (I marked every attempt and failure on the sheet music). Afterward, they too offered some words of advice: ‘your technique is fantastic, but you play with no musicality’.”
I loved this story, and asked if I could share it; Dad agreed.
Wear your “failures” like a badge of honor. Keep pushing, keep improving, do it for love and don’t let critical feedback get to you. If you listen or change without knowing in your heart that it’s right to change, you risk watering down what you do until there is nothing interesting or vital left, for reasons that may never have been good to begin with.
