Polyphony: emotional health and the musician.

Editor's Note:

A version of this article first appeared in' the Piano Pedagogy Forum, Volume 3, Number 2, and is reprinted with permission of Piano Pedagogy Forum of the University of South Carolina. it can be accessed at www.music.sc.edu/ea/keyboard/ppf.

Jane Magrath: Doug, we are interested in your investigation of emotional health and the student musician. Can you give us some background for this topic?

Doug Weeks: Creativity and emotional health a topic not extensively addressed in the music curriculum and one both sensitive and complex to discuss--is the subject of the pioneering work of Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller. She has achieved international recognition for her work on the causes and effects of childhood emotional trauma. Her books, especially The Drama of the Gifted Child, have become classics in the literature of graduate education and psychology programs.

In layman's terms, Miller tells us that a child needs to be loved unconditionally--for the unique individual he or she is. If the child at an early and crucial stage does not receive this unconditional love, then there is a likelihood that a narcissistic disorder will result. In other words, a child must develop from infancy a healthy narcissism by seeing an acceptance of his or her own image reflected in the mother's, or primary caretaker's, eyes. If the child sees nothing of him or herself reflected, but sees only what the care giver wants that child to be, for example a reflection of the mother's own narcissistic needs, then the child may not develop an inner sense of self, but rather will do everything possible to please the mother by fulfilling the mother's needs and expectations.

Miller writes about this condition in The Drama of the Gifted Child (originally published as Das Drama des begabten Kindes, 1979):

   "Quite often we are faced here
   with gifted patients who have been
   praised and admired for their talents
   and their achievements....
   According to prevailing, general
   attitudes, these people--the pride
   of their parents--should have had a
   strong and stable sense of self-assurance.
   But exactly the opposite is the
   case. In everything they undertake
   they do well and often excellency;
   they are admired and envied; they
   are successful whenever they care to
   be--but all to no avail. Behind all
   this lurks depression, the feeling of
   emptiness and self-alienation, and a
   sense that their life has no meaning.
   These dark feelings will come to the
   fore as soon as the drug of grandiosity
   fails, as soon as they are not 'on
   top,' not definitely the 'superstar,'
   or whenever they suddenly get the
   feeling they failed to live up to
   some ideal image and measure they
   feel they must adhere to. Then they
   are plagued by anxiety or deep feelings
   of guilt or shame." (1)

The child has learned to equate love and acceptance with fulfilling the parent's expectations of achievement. Often, this means overachieving in life. Obviously, this does not mean all people who have significant professional accomplishment to their credit were children who have been emotionally abused. The difference is that the narcissistically disturbed, like the miser who never has enough money, will never achieve enough. He or she will spend a lifetime chasing a prize that will never be found because it was never there to begin with--the unqualified love of the mother or father for the essential individual child. Miller describes this state as follows:

   The parents have found in their
   child's "false self" the confirmation
   they were looking for, a substitute
   for their own missing structures; the
   child, who has been unable to build
   up his own structures, is first consciously
   and then unconsciously ...
   dependent on his parents. He cannot
   rely on his own emotions, has
   not come to experience them
   through trial and error, has no sense
   of his own real needs, and is alienated
   from himself to the highest
   degree. Under these circumstances
   be cannot separate from his parents,
   and even as an adult he is still
   dependent on affirmation from his
   partner, from groups, or especially
   from his own children. (2)

What concern is this condition to musicians and teachers of musicians? Have we ever known a colleague or a student who fits this profile? Do some of us see some, or a great deal, of ourselves in this profile?

JM: I hear what you are saying. I think we all do.

DW: Music is one of the talents that reveals itself at an early age, especially in the gifted child. In fact, the term prodigy is probably more often than not associated with music or mathematics. If a musical child is traumatized in the manner that Miller has described, then we as teachers wield a profound power because we can either choose to aid the healing process, or we can wound the child even further.

We all have known musicians with an unquenchable thirst for success, who struggle to be in positions of superiority, who must win competitions or whose students must win competitions. We all have witnessed this kind of ego in action. And we know there are many, many deeply unhappy musicians. Again, this does not mean that a healthy pursuit of excellence, a healthy pursuit of lofty goals, is not possible and indeed positive. But Miller is addressing values and validation, and we as musicians and teachers should be addressing the value of music and music making on its own terms. We teach our students values by how we value them as individuals.

JM: I agree that this has to be at the center of teaching. With competitions and other pressures we place on ourselves, it is easy to lose focus.

DW: As music students and as teachers, most of us have probably at one time or another run into the "out of control" ego. One of the many teachers I have had, who was absolutely outstanding in most respects, said to me in a lesson, "Well, either you're musical or you're not!" He closed the book on the problem we were trying to solve, and, in effect, closed the book on me. Some might say he was challenging me to work harder for my own good. But the actual erect was demoralizing. Instead of feeling challenged, I felt unmusical and incapable of understanding what it was he was trying to teach me. Looking back on it, I realize he might have been frustrated because he couldn't get me to understand. He may have felt not only frustrated but also somewhat inadequate. So he turned the tables on me. A little incident? I've carried it with me for three decades. But from that incident I resolved never to say anything so disparaging to one of my students.

Far worse was the time one of my teachers actually grabbed the music from the rack and hit me in the face with it because I had begun a crescendo too loudly. He got his point across, some would say. He also got across that my musical crime merited corporal punishment, like the stereotypical "old school" teacher who would painfully rap on knuckles with a ruler to correct errant fingering. It was not the physical pain that hurt. It was the immense indignity that I felt--the personal violation. Certainly, I learned to execute a more effective crescendo. But, I came to realize after several months of study that I meant less as a human being to this man than I did as a potential prize winner in a competition. That was the bottom line. While my playing did improve that year, substantially I might add, I have never been able to answer the question of whether studying with him was worth the emotional pain. Could I not have received the same excellent training elsewhere--without the humiliation? My gratitude to this teacher for what I learned will always be intertwined with a burning resentment for how he treated me.

And, there are other incidents I have witnessed. The teacher who would slap his forehead and make faces to ensure that anyone watching him would know that he was not responsible for his student's mistakes in recital. Or the teacher who accosted his student backstage after her full recital, dressing her down in front of her peers for all her musical failures. Or the teacher who put a guilt trip on one of his students who did not want to enter a competition because she felt that she wasn't ready to compete. He told her that he hadn't had a winner in a long time, and, by golly, she had to compete and WIN. Said he, with an alarming lack of self awareness, "You gotta do this for me!"

JM: Some of this seems unimaginable, and yet we all know it does exist.

DW: I agree. Here is my point: it doesn't have to be this way. Part of the problem is the legacy of a few legendary teachers who, although great pedagogues, were also known for their neuroses and even their cruelties. But great talent does not excuse abuse. There also are those equally great pedagogues who are revered for their kindness and for their nurturing attitude toward their students, as well as for their wealth of knowledge. The large majority of my own teachers fall into the latter category. And to them I always will be grateful for not only what they taught me, but also for how they taught me.

I am in no way suggesting that musical standards be lowered or that a piano lesson be turned into a therapy session. I am suggesting that when a teacher belittles, mocks, ridicules or shames a student for nor playing well, or for not wanting to compete, or for wanting to change teachers or majors, or for maybe not even wanting to pursue music as a career, he or she is modeling values. The crucial question follows: do we as teachers have a responsibility to teach only the music, or are we also responsible for teaching the human being?

In The Drama of the Gifted Child, Miller succinctly describes the parent's responsibility toward the child: "... if we are willing to open our eyes to the suffering of the child, we will soon realize that it lies within us as adults either to turn the newborn into monsters by the way we treat them or to let them grow up into feeling--and therefore responsible--human beings." (3) As piano teachers in the unique position of interacting with individuals in a private setting week after week, year after year, an intimate bond often develops. We are not their parents, but we are their mentors--powerful in our influence. We must put the needs of the student above our own needs. Exploring the work of Miller and others can help us deal ethically and humanely with students, with colleagues and with ourselves.

NOTES

(1.) Miller, Mice. The Drama of the Gifted Child. (Basic Books, 1981): 5-6.

(2.) Ibid., 14.

(3.) Ibid., xv.

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Jane Magrath, NCTM, is internationally known as a pianist, author, clinician and teacher. She is professor and director of piano pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Douglas Weeks is Babcock professor of piano at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. During the summer he coordinates piano studies at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina. A prize winner in the 1979 Casadesus International Piano Competition, he has performed as soloist and chamber musician in the U.S. and abroad.