Read on to discover the important skills for a more successful life that we can all learn from musicians...
It is a truth universally acknowledged that playing a musical instrument is good for you. Study after study has shown improved cognitive abilities, lower blood pressure and even protection against dementia. And these are just the scientifically testable benefits. What of the more intangible life skills and values?
When a child picks up an instrument, they start on a path that can take many directions, through situations that are quite unique to classical music – practising on their own, intense one-to-one lessons with teachers, passing auditions, group music-making, performing on stage, travelling the world, constantly working with new colleagues. But how can we apply these skills to other parts of our lives?
Skills for a more successful life... Listening and making conversation
Maybe the most fundamental skill that music teaches is listening – both to ourselves and the people around us. Jacqueline Thomas has been cellist of the Brodsky Quartet since its inception 50 years ago and explains: ‘We’re playing a complicated line ourselves, trying to express an emotion, at the same time being completely aware of the triplets that are being played in the second violin part or the descant coming from a higher instrument – listening and adjusting, but not being led by it. It’s a constant balance of how to appear completely immersed in your own performance and yet listening to the other parts. That kind of multi-tasking is great for the brain.’
Music and successful social interaction
Might this process help people socially? Thomas thinks so: ‘There’s something about the balance in a room and the awareness of who’s standing around you and if it’s somebody else’s turn to speak. Many people don’t know how to have a conversation – they simply talk about themselves. It could be that music helps people to understand the to-and-fro of a conversation.’
A corollary is that (paradoxically) musicians know how to be quiet, she says: ‘It’s astonishing how many people don’t know how to sit still and be quiet, yet you can walk into an orchestral rehearsal and 120 people are absolutely silent. Any musician going to a concert knows how not to cough, even if they are desperate to, whereas people who don’t understand what it’s like to be in the musical moment are likely to cough at an inappropriate moment or shift in their seat.
Musical skills for a more successful life... Teamwork and empathy
Another aspect of being a musician – solo recitals apart – is as team sport. Ask Catherine Arlidge, artistic and educational director of National Children’s Orchestras, which trains kids from a young age. ‘We work with children from 8 to 14, which is a transitional phase, when you’re going from thinking only about yourself to starting to think about other people and the world,’ she says. ‘Self-preservation is important, but equally, there is a whole world out there of which you’re part. You start to appreciate that and to think empathetically.’
This musical teamwork is complex, but offers life lessons: ‘One of the things that’s difficult in an orchestra is that you have to find that balance between who you are and where you fit in a bigger jigsaw. It’s important not to lose yourself in the mix. Being thoughtful, present and true to who you are while being there is like being part of society in microcosm. You have to conform, but also bring something that’s you.’
A sense of identity
The benefits are genuinely life changing, Arlidge says. ‘One of the massive drivers is a sense of community – that you’re part of something bigger than yourself. You belong, you have an identity – that’s a primeval need.’
The legendary baritone Thomas Allen, who retired recently after a 60-year career, says he preferred the group aspect of opera. He was in the company of Welsh National Opera early in his career, and later at the Royal Opera House: ‘I love the teamwork. We were close colleagues and understood one another and the way we worked. One week, you’d be singing a major role, the next something smaller. There was wonderful camaraderie and involvement. You saw people on a regular basis and got to know them well – their families, whatever they were experiencing in life. It made you very tolerant of variations in performance levels. We’re human beings, we have life to deal with and sometimes it’s not easy. It puts you in touch with those aspects of life.’
Skills for a more successful life... Critical thinking
Alone in a practice room, musicians must analyse their sound in the utmost detail. They learn this kind of critical thinking from their teachers and eventually discover how to do it on their own. Arlidge explains: ‘You get to a point where your teacher is your coach, but you’re your own coach as well, looking analytically at how you’re doing things, videoing yourself, observing, experimenting, changing, risking. Those skills help us to be better at whatever we’re doing – the skill of mastery, of honing something.’
Musical skills for a more successful life... Diplomacy
Musicians must be their own harshest critics, but it’s one thing to tick oneself off and another to do it to someone else. Jacqueline Thomas says: ‘In the rehearsal situation, you have to criticise each other all the time but make sure it doesn’t come across as criticism, trying to be more diplomatic. The younger you are, the less you understand that skill and the more you start pointing a finger at everyone who was out of tune. It’s much better to say, “Shall we practise that passage for tuning?” We then can think about it as a group. You learn that skill as you go along, and it turns you into a slightly more diplomatic person.’
The same goes for soloists working with conductors. Martin Roscoe, concert pianist and professor of piano at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, learnt early on how to navigate conductors: ‘Not being confrontational at all and knowing when not to speak is useful. It’s so important to know how to manage a situation to achieve a professional outcome. Even if there are difficulties or you’re working with a conductor who’s not very good, you still have to get the best out of the situation.’
Skills for a more successful life... Mental control
Beyond the notes and the instrument, much of a performer’s life is governed by what goes on inside their heads. ‘There are a lot of mind games in music, and you have to be able to sort them out, not least the ones you play with yourself,’ says Thomas. ‘You’re constantly telling yourself you’re rubbish while trying to come across to an audience as a genius. It’s a daily battle and you have to keep reminding yourself that you can do this. No one’s ever said you shouldn’t be on that stage, and you’ve had lots of good reviews, so maybe it’s okay. It’s a question of logicising it. It’s healthy to have self-doubt, though. There needs to be a certain amount of humility.’
Allen recalls learning how to play mind games following a bad experience as a young singer at a first night in Japan in the 1970s: ‘I had a week to wait before the next performance. Living through that week was not easy, and I had to find a way of dealing with it. There were things I turned to, whether it was putting a pair of binoculars to my eyes and looking at birds, or drawing, reading or doing something that took me entirely away from music. I had to find a way to do that for seven days, knowing the pressure I was under. I did get through it and it was a lesson to me that you mustn’t judge everything on one experience. It wasn’t about vocal exercise – it was simply a mental exercise of control.’
Musical skills for a more successful life... Resilience
This is a vital part of being a musician, Allen says: ‘You just have to be. In a busy musical life, there are challenges that beset you on a daily basis. Some are relatively minor and you deal with them, and others require a lot of thought, and musical and technical preparation. Most of the time you can surmount those difficulties, and occasionally you just have to say, “Look, I can’t.” Every musician – and those from many other professions – encounters this.’
Part of this is courage, says Arlidge: ‘You’re standing up and risking humiliation. There’s strength in being comfortable with the uncomfortable. If you always want to be comfortable in life, then what are you achieving?’
Skills for a more successful life... Curiosity
The finest musicians often have a hunger for intellectual pursuits beyond music. Allen’s curiosity has helped him throughout his career, he says: ‘It keeps you sane and makes you a more interesting person, to be interested in how a great painting was put together, what a poet thinks or how a composer comes up with a symphony. If a creature always stays the same, it will eventually perish. That would happen to anyone who was too insular in the way they look at their life.’
Roscoe is also fuelled by curiosity. He remembers going to the BBC Proms aged 12 and turning overnight from dutiful student to piano addict and autodidact. He says: ‘It opened a huge door and made me a very curious person. I never had an interest in other arts, but I found the connections between the visual arts, literature, film and music. One thing leads to another, and I read bits of philosophy and politics. I don’t know I can say that being a musician has led me down that road, but when I look at some of my other friends who are not particularly into music, they don’t seem to have that same curiosity.’
Which comes first?
But chicken-and-egg-wise: which comes first? Are great musicians born curious, resilient, critical thinking, good at listening and all the rest? Or does their life in music make them so? It would be impossible to prove any causation, and there are surely many counter examples by way of successful musicians who lack any or all of the skills discussed. Maybe what we can say is that playing an instrument offers the possibility of developing and exercising these skills, with or without any natural talent. From there, perhaps muscle memory or willpower helps to transfer them to our outside lives, to our own benefit and that of society. And wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone had that possibility?