The Upgrade Rabbit Hole

Satisfaction doesn't come easily in a commercial, throw away culture.

We are always striving for the next best thing in both our careers and personal lives. Whether we're working overtime for a promotion or reading articles about how to make more friends, it's time-consuming and exhausting.

For musicians, this concept of continual searching can be dangerous. While it might be fine when shopping for new shoes, we can't just donate an instrument worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to buy a new one every season.

Of course, we want the best instrument our money can buy, so it just makes sense that we would never stop searching. The only problem is, this never-ending search takes up a lot of mental space. On top of that, fixating on everything wrong with an instrument can interfere a lot with musical growth.

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Who gets trapped in this loop anyway?

Some people never have the opportunity to buy an instrument of their own, and some people are truly unhappy with their instruments. I do not intend to make anyone feel badly here.

Let me be clear that every musician deserves a professional instrument that they adore!

If you're dissatisfied with your instrument because it legitimately isn't working for you, then please, shop for a new instrument. I'm not here to judge or shame anyone.

I'm talking to people who own professional instruments but still search endlessly for something better. I want to challenge you to take a moment to be grateful and make peace with the instrument that you have. Maybe that's a little harsh, but I have a feeling that a lot of people will be able to relate to this.

After all, this whole topic is based on my own experiences and observations I made while I was in music school.

I'm one of those people who spent far too much emotional energy on shopping for a new instrument and looking for what was wrong with my set up. I wish I had spent that time doing something more productive.

Time is precious. We don't need to spend years fixating on our equipment when we could be focusing our playing (🤭).

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So here's my story...

I have been playing on a quality flute since I was in middle school. I didn't know it at the time, but it's considered a professional instrument.

Obviously the quality of my flute didn't matter much to me while I was playing in my high school's annual musical or in the local flute choir. And why should it have mattered? No one was in high school band to compare equipment. We were all there to have fun and make music.

I loved my flute and played it like it would be my full-time instrument forever. It served me well, and I still love it now. Back then, I never felt any pressure to buy a new instrument or look for my flute's flaws.

It wasn't until I was going to pursue music in college that something changed.

The summer before my freshman year at UNT, someone convinced me that I had to have a gold flute in order to progress (this probably isn't what they intended, but that's what stuck!). So off I went to the NFA Convention to shop for a gold flute.

Throughout college, I was surrounded by people who were constantly comparing instruments and looking for flaws. That rubbed off over time.

Gradually, I began to feel like what I had would never be good enough to achieve my musical aspirations.

My teachers were always pushing me to play louder, and I felt that I couldn't do that with the instrument I had. I was consistently telling myself that my flute was to blame.

Seriously, it felt like part of the culture to blame the cut of my tone hole or the position of my G# key rather than examine what I could improve. And I don't think I'm the only one who felt this way.

My colleagues would complain about something that they felt was wrong with their flute. All their flutes were also professional quality, and many of them gold. We would play each others' flutes and discuss what could be better (wow pre-COVID times were different). Almost every time without fail, we liked each other's flutes better than our own. This classic "the grass is always greener" mentality might be evidence enough that we were all stuck in an endless loop of instrument shopping.

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Never-ending Shopping

In my pursuit of the perfect set-up, I tried instruments whenever I had the chance. I would seek out opportunities at conventions, when vendors visited my university, or when my friends had instruments on trial. I purchased a new head joint, then I exchanged it during the 6-month exchange period the company allowed. Years later, still dissatisfied with my sound, I bought a LeFreque.

The changes I made to my set-up did improve my sound, but at what cost?

All the time I spent listening for undesirable qualities about my flute's sound left me in a constant battle with my instrument. Throughout music school and graduate school, the first several years I owned my current flute, I felt like my instrument was working against me. I didn't trust that I could achieve what I wanted, even after all this time trying to build this "ideal match" between myself and my flute.

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When I finally broke free

After years of feeling like my sound and my instrument weren't good enough, I suddenly stopped feeling the pressure to shop for new instruments. That moment came after I graduated, when I was no longer surrounded by people doing exactly what I was doing.

I finally stopped comparing my sound, and my instrument, to everyone else's.

As musicians, we spend so much time perfecting and tweaking our sounds. I'm sure we have all had beefs of some kind with our instruments. But there's a big difference between that, and switching instruments whenever our professor or a famous performer endorses a new brand.

So here's the point. None of us should be wasting our time focusing on what's wrong with our instruments. Instead, we should focus on what's great about them and remember why we decided to become professional musicians in the first place.

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Enjoy this life we've chosen...

If we don't allow ourselves to love our instruments and grow with them even when we have frustrating set-backs, we'll never be soaking up the joys of the life we've chosen. After all, isn't that the whole reason we chose this path?

Being content is easier said than done, and it's important to acknowledge that not everyone has the same experiences or financial means.

So buy the best quality instrument you can afford, then allow yourself the space to be happy with it so you can truly enjoy making music.

What if we all gave ourselves permission to appreciate our instruments and focus on the joy music brings to our lives?

Let's give ourselves the space to be grateful and content not just with our equipment, but with everything we have and everything we create. Embrace life, and our instrument, for all its beauty and flaws.

Once we reach that point, we suddenly have so much more room to breathe and grow.

Be safe, kind, and well,