I’ve been playing music for the majority of my life, but that has almost exclusively been on guitar. As a college-level music major, I have to take two semesters of piano lessons for the piano proficiency requirement of the major. I’ve learned to play a couple other guitar-like instruments like bass and banjo, but this is the first time since I was five years old that I’ve needed to start completely from scratch on an instrument where very little of my prior knowledge can help me.
Now to be fair, this is not just a senseless and useless hoop that music majors are made to jump through for no reason. The piano is an incredibly versatile and fairly neutral instrument. This makes it one of the best ones for visualizing and hearing music theory concepts, and, in fact, throughout my music theory courses I’ve cursed myself for not learning how to play basic piano sooner. So whenever I can, I head to a little practice room in the music building and practice stumbling my way through my scales and etudes.
The main problem here is that I can hear myself and assume that other people can hear me. Frankly, I sound bad. The book my teacher has me using has a little box in the corner of the cover that says “For the Older Beginner,” and true to the intended purpose of this book, I sound like an 12 year old just starting out (i.e. a bit more coordination than the 7 year old starting out, but still no real idea what I’m doing). The problem with starting an instrument comparatively late in my musical studies is that I already understand most music theory and know fully well how simple all the pieces are. Equally frustrating is the fact that I could probably play almost all of these on the guitar without much effort. A very important part of improving on any instrument is starting by sounding bad and working up to sounding better, but when you haven’t had to sound bad on simple things for this long, motivation is not easy to come by. But beyond comparing my piano skills to my guitar skills, it seems that whenever I practice either one I can hear someone in another room flawlessly making their way through some virtuosic classical piano piece.
This is where social comparison ties in. Social comparison theory holds that people tend to evaluate their own traits and abilities by comparing themselves with others when there is no objective standard to compare to. I would argue that in this particular situation, there is not an objective standard since music is a subjective art form. So as a result, I am judging my own beginner-level piano skills based on the extremely skilled people I hear in the rooms nearby and the other people in my classes. Because piano is presented from the very beginning as such a basic and necessary skill for all musicians, lacking that and needing to learn is frustrating. Most good musicians I know play piano, so I ought to as well. Having to start from scratch has been a humbling experience. Beyond sounding bad in isolation, I sound worse than the people that I want to be like. And because the skill is so fundamental in music, it extends further and makes it feel as if I am so much worse as a musician on a fundamental level than those around me despite the fact that I’ve been doing it for so long. Now, of course, this isn’t true. This is one single aspect of music. But social comparison is a powerful motivator and demoralizer especially in music. I am both motivated to try to improve and frustrated by the fact that improvement is slow. The solution? Reward myself for practicing piano by practicing guitar immediately afterward. I might still be fumbling my way through basic scales on piano, but if I balance that by following it up with something more complex on guitar I remind myself that it will take time to get where I want. And it also plays another powerful social comparison tool. While my piano chops are still at 12 year old level, my guitar chops are at a higher level. I can remind myself why I love music that I’m pretty good at it. In balancing upward and downward social comparisons for piano and guitar, I can maintain my own sanity and improve both skills.
Eric's Social Psych Blog 