Comparisons
LIKHITA MANCHIKANTI|December 13, 2018|COLUMN
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (SCPDA) — It’s 2:58 p.m. on a chilly Sunday afternoon and I’m late. As soon I park my dad’s 2007 Acura TL in front of FSCJ’s music building and shift it into the parking gear, I jump out of the vehicle, grab my violin and sheet music and speed-walk through the parking lot into the building. I squeeze my way through a lobby full of parents, searching for the perfect spot to unpack my instrument.
A sudden swell in sound comes from the classroom and I hurry to connect my shoulder rest to my violin, the sound of A strings being tuned ringing in my ears. I enter the classroom with my instrument, stand and music and settle down in the back of the room, making sure my seat is in a position where I don’t have to worry about clicking bows with the nine-year-old kid sitting next to me.
That’s right—there is a nine-year-old kid sitting next to me, and I don’t doubt for a second that she has been a part of the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra (JSYO) much longer than I have, and, judging by the way she plays her violin, I bet she has been taking lessons since she was just a toddler.
My 17-year-old hand curls around my three-year-old violin as orchestra practice begins. I give the room a once-over to ensure nobody noticed my late entrance and it becomes painfully clear that I am the oldest student musician in this intermediate orchestra group. The conductor counts us off and we begin running through our first piece and my previous thought escapes my mind for an hour and a half; however, it never fails to come back at 5:00 p.m. when rehearsal is over and I’m on my way back home.
Every Sunday during the school year, I attend JSYO rehearsal. Although I started to attend violin lessons at a relatively late age—I began learning during the summer prior to eighth grade—I believe I fit in well in the group environment that the Symphony offers. Unfortunately, the fact that most of the musicians in my level are younger than me never fails to undermine the confidence I have in my musical abilities.
When I sit in that classroom, I feel like a senior in high school who had repeated a school year so many times that he or she sticks out from his class like a sore thumb. In fact, the two or three people in my orchestra that look like they’re around my age are simply exceptionally tall middle schoolers and everyone else is a foot shorter than me. Although I know that my skills as a violinist will improve with time and practice, I am also aware that these thoughts would not be crossing my mind if I had signed up for violin lessons at least five years before I actually did. I see 10-year-olds in my orchestra group who play their cellos as if music is their first language and can only wonder if I would be as fluent of a musician if I had started cultivating my talent at a younger age.
While I’m aware that constantly comparing myself to others is unhealthy and causes me to set unrealistic standards for myself, I find it difficult to prevent myself from doing so; I have spent a lot of time measuring my success against others’ in order give my accomplishments value and I think it will take even more time for me to remove this thought process from my mind. I just hope these comparisons won’t ever make me lose the enthusiasm with which I play my instrument because music is a passion of mine that I hold near to my heart, and I would hate to lose it to these insecurities.