On Music, and Being a Musician

Being a musician can mean many things. It can take on a lot of forms. But the biggest part of being a musician that everyone who has ever tried playing instrument can relate to is the fact that it is hard.
It is just plain-out hard to be a musician.
This means that if you want to be good, you'll have to work hard- and consistently. If you want to surpass your peers you'll have to work even harder. There's a reason they say being a musician isn't easy: if you had a poster with the title, "Shortcuts to Becoming a Musician", it would be blank. There are no shortcuts. You have to work for it.
At our school, we know this. Mr. Taylor is an excellent director that knows how to work a band into shape. Our band room walls are decorated with state concert band plaques and jazz awards. Since we know we can be good, we have been good over the years. But there's always room to improve. This is an important part of being a musician: believing in yourself. If you have no self-confidence, you won't get very far. However, if you believe that you can go as far as you want with your music, you CAN. You'll get to wherever you want to be, guaranteed. You can even surpass people with natural talent. 
Second important point right there: consistent practice will always surpass talent that refuses to practice. Mr. Taylor has told band parents this many times, so you can be sure it's true. The Wind Ensemble and Varsity Jazz bands are excellent examples of kids who practiced and became really good musicians, who are sure to go on to greatness. Since they're so good, they make great peers for us in the lower bands; we take inspiration from them. We live and learn. I learned a lot from the Wind Ensemble trumpets last summer in marching band, seeing as I was a little fish in a big pond and hardly knew anything about anything concerned with band. See, you can learn from your peers that are more advanced than you, since they were in your place once. This helps you become a better musician, of course, and it shows that practice does indeed make you better.

The amazing Varsity trumpet line in February
From here

I didn't talk much about the Gala where that photo was taken in February, but there are more pics here. Now back to music.
Once you've decided, like me, that you want to get real good at what you play, then you will know that you'll have to work real hard the rest of your career. I practice every day that I can. Since I'm determined to get into Wind Ensemble and one of the jazz bands at least, I work to achieve. And this is the secret. YOU. HAVE. TO. WORK. And so I do work, every night for around half an hour, even on the days I have band at school. It's worked quite well over the past nearly-a-year; I've improved from being someone who doesn't hardly know any fingerings to a person who's pretty good when I practice the music enough. It's been proven. Now get to work.
Another hard part of being a musician is that once you get good enough to be the soloist, you have to maintain your balance. That is to say, you have to balance your style as a soloist and you still have to fit in with the rest of the band. You cannot be full of yourself or pretend to be of a higher rank than the rest of the band. When you're the soloist, you are not an entity in and of yourself. You're still a member of the band. That's the first hard part of being the soloist. Then you have to be confident. It takes a great amount of willpower to play confidently when there's no one else to cover up what you're playing. It takes more than you could really imagine until you do it, and then you're officially a soloist. Good for you. Now take a deep breath, practice that solo, and don't get nervous. Relax. If you manage to relax and play a solo, you'll be respected even more. More work, but it'll pay off and you can then be a good teacher for your peers. 
Now. Take a deep breath. Get your instrument. Focus, and go practice that music.
Good luck to you.
-- Emma, the well-practiced, tried-and-true band geek. 8)