Josh

Message Me! I play three instruments ADHD. Wanderlust.

[katchihe]

Team Mystic:

Team Valor:

Team Instinct:

artwork

[narnia]

[mybrainkindahoyts]

Some more interesting captions I ran into in this amazing ensemble today.

[just-shower-thoughts]

If I ever won the lottery I’d use the money to make a movie about a guy who invented a time machine and won the lottery then used the money to make a movie about it.

[just-shower-thoughts]

If Pandora let users thumb down audio ads just like songs, they’d be able to automatically target ads towards individuals, sell marketing research back to companies, and overall have a happier userbase

[psych2go]

If you like psychology tidbits, follow us @psych2go.

[howtomusicmajor]

How to Handle Feeling Inferior

Everyone has days when they feel like they don’t quite measure up. For people who have competitive spirits, work in competitive fields, or just have high expectations of themselves, those days can unfortunately be the majority. Now, your feelings are completely valid - you never need to let someone belittle you because of them. However, there’s something else to keep in mind: just because your feelings are VALID (something important, tangible, and possibly distressing to you) doesn’t mean they are automatically TRUE (based in reality, on objective facts) or USEFUL (something that helps you improve yourself and spurs you on to better things). 

So. Feeling inferior, or like you don’t measure up, or like you’re hopelessly behind everyone else - those are all valid things to feel. But if you want to stop feeling that way, that is also completely valid. You are not doomed to feel any one way forever. Here are some ways to get over feeling inferior:

Ask who you’re comparing yourself to.

If you’re a high school cellist, and you’re comparing yourself to Yo-Yo Ma, you might need to readjust your expectations of yourself. The same goes for if you’re a college freshman comparing yourself to a senior, or basically anyone. To steal an idea from someone whose name I unfortunately do not remember, you can’t just be jealous of someone’s good features - you have to take it all. If you’re feeling inferior to a child prodigy, ask yourself if sacrificing your childhood to touring and practice would be worth it. If you’re jealous of someone’s great new instrument, remember to be jealous of their loan payments and the month they ate mostly ramen to afford it. Honestly, the only person you should really compare yourself to is YOU, about a week, a month, a year ago. You can’t change the past, after all. You have the background you’ve got, and it isn’t going to change. You, minus some experience, is really the only person you can accurately compare yourself to.

Ask if the emotions you’re feeling have prompted any POSITIVE behavior.

Now, have you mostly been moping because you feel like you’re behind? That is doing nothing for anyone, especially yourself. Try viewing your feelings as motivation to improve yourself. If you want to be better than someone (and specifically yourself) then you need to sit down and practice. Read about your instrument. Listen to recording, or watch videos. Everything you do to improve yourself means that you have a little more knowledge and you’re a littler closer to whatever your end goal is.

Stand at a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and state three things you are actually for real good at.

Don’t give me any BS about “but I’m not good at things!” Do you remember to clean your instrument regularly? Can you do long division in your head? Are you really good at predicting what team will win based on their mascots? Then there’s three things you’re good at! (Consider monetizing that last ability, you could make bank.) Now look yourself in the eye and say “I am good at cleaning, long division, and sports predictions.” Or whatever your three things are. Then say it again. Do this once or twice a day, and try to come up with new things every time. It helps build confidence like nobody’s business.

Ask a superior for their honest opinion.

Go to your teacher, and ask what they think of your abilities. Depending on the teacher, they may not want to give you a straight answer, but most will give you a realistic response with one or two strengths and a couple weaknesses. Unless your teacher is literally Umbridge, they will not say you are a completely failure or whatever you’re afraid of. That’s because, surprise! You aren’t!

Stop gossiping about others.

Stop and think about how often you spend thinking or talking about someone else’s abilities. Now, try to reduce that by two thirds this week. See how much better you feel.

Follow up on the people you used to be jealous of.

If you’ve been playing long enough to have lost touch with a colleague you used to feel inferior to, look them up on Facebook or something. In all likelihood, they have not played a solo concert at Carnegie Hall. The singers I was super intimidated by my freshman year have respectively become a housewife and gone to grad school for social work. A lot of music is about how long you are willing to stick with it. The longer you hang around, the better the chances you’ll have of developing a real career.

If necessary, have a cry, take a nap, then repeat the above steps.

Hey, stress gets to everyone. Take a couple hours, wail and cry and scream, then get some sleep, and things will probably seem better when you wake up.

Remember, you are still learning! If you’re passionate about music, or whatever you’re doing where you’ve developed an inferiority complex, then keep doing it. There will always be someone better than you. If you let it get to you, then you’re always gonna be down in the dumps, even if you make a million dollars doing what you love. 

Good luck!

[beethovensrighthook]

Absolutely to all of the above.

[dnd-5e-homebrew]

[laughcentre]

[wrywlf]

it’s been years since i’ve first seen this comic and i still think it has one of the best punchline delivers of anything i’ve ever seen

[ogrebattle128-deactivated201404]

eternal classic

[boredpanda]

Meet Smoothie, The World’s Most Photogenic Cat

[middlemarching]

omg you’re not kidding, look at that beautiful fluff

[slimegargoyle]

the knowing eye contact women make when men are talking is the purest human connection possible

[sggxv]

What the fuck does that even mean?

[slimegargoyle]

30 thousand women seem to get it

[fisadeepforestgreen]

we’re doing it right now

[just-shower-thoughts]

There is something oddly tragic about throwing away the box the trash bags came in in the last trash bag from that box.

[buzzfeednews]

[buzzfeed]

oh heck yeah

[gaytectives-deactivated-deactiv]

Can you tell the metronome story? Idk it

ajdlfhkajgf okay. so

in high school i was in the marching band and in my junior year i was co-section leader and i carried a metronome in my backpack to use in rehearsals after school

to preface this story, the day before The Event we had a lockdown because there was a “suspicious person” circling the building (it was a confused parent. i spent two hours in the percussion closet. can you fuckign image, with my level of anxiety. anyway) so everyone was kind of on edge

so in this particular year of high school i had math first thing in the morning, which was awful, so i liked to go visit my english teacher because she was my favourite and i liked hanging out with her in my free time. so i set my backpack down and i leave the room

it gets close to time for class to start and i start heading back to the classroom, and @starrymonk and another friend of ours come running up to me and they tell me that our math teacher thinks my backpack has a bomb in it

apparently, when i set down my backpack, the metronome was in the bottom and got turned on and started beeping

now bombs haven’t fucking beeped or ticked since the goddamn 1960s but fuck that logic, our math teacher was actually. fucking ild and had never heard of an electric metronome in her life and was shouting at students to evacuate the wing 

so im running up and trying to explain to this fucko that the beeping in ¾ time at 120bpm is not, in fact, a bomb, but a device for making sure my section is in time, but she’s fucking losing it and makes us evacuate to the cafeteria

the students in the cafeteria are losing their shit. yesterday they thought they were going to be the next victims of a school shooting and today they think they’re going to die via metronome bomb. im running around trying to find a fucking sane faculty member while simultaneously telling everyone i run into, “it’s not a bomb, it’s A FUCKING METRONOME”

i finally find the vice principal and tell him, “dude, it’s not a fucking bomb, it’s a metronome, you know me, i’m in the band, literally there are only like five hundred fucking students in this school you know exactly who i am”

so he grabs me and another staff member and we start heading back toward the wing with the fake bomb, and already the three officers that we have patrolling the school (because of the incident the previous day) and the principal are gathered near the classroom and they shout at us to stop at the end of the hall (which is no more than fifty feet from the classroom, if that, and yeah that’s totally far enough to save us in the event of a bomb going off, right)

so the vp shouts to them that i think it’s a metronome, and i’m like no, i know it’s a metronome it’s my backpack and im a band student for the love of god

so they’re like nah we’re gonna call bomb squad

so fucking, i’m sent back to the cafeteria and this is how things happen as my band director filled me in later that day

apparently, the principal calls my band director down at the opposite end of the school and he’s like “hey darren, could you identify the sound of a metronome over the phone???” and my band director has no clue what’s happening because he isn’t involved in this nonsense, he doesn’t have a class during first period and was probably napping in his office, but he’s like “yeah, probably??” and the principal holds the phone up to the noise and my band director says it sounds like a metronome

skipping about an hour of hysteria and me telling everyone repeatedly that they aren’t going to die, the intercom comes on and tells the student body to gather in the gym for an assembly, presumably so we can all die in one place when the metronome bomb goes off

i’m still telling everyone i can grab that the bomb isn’t real and we aren’t going to die, and then i sit in the bleachers, possibly the angriest i have ever been, while everyone gathers in the gym

the principal and other important faculty whoever the fuck come in and start talking about the previous day’s incident and how tensions are high, so someone may have been stressed and mistakenly thought a metronome (which he pronounced as “metrodome,” which i like to think of as a giant beeping sports stadium) was a live fucking bomb

meanwhile i see the doors to the gym open and my band director slides in. he looks around for a minute, then sees me, and fucking grins like the asshole he is and starts edging his way around the room to me

when he gets over to me, he turns to face the people talking about threats and mistakes and bullshit to cover the fact that they know nothing about music education

and then slowly and slyly he pulls my metronome out of his pocket and hands it over to me, and then separately hands me the two batteries to it and starts giggling

if you don’t believe me, i made the fucking news

[omg-horns]

THIS IS NOW MY NEW FAVORITE THING. READ IT. READ THE WHOLE STORY

[copr]

I skipped laughing and not breathing and went straight to coughing

[sixpenceee]

The perspective on this photograph make my head spin! (Source)

[classical-crap]

like if u get this terrible music joke!!!!!!

[flute110]

Things that annoy music majors

-stems going in the wrong direction -do re mi fa so la ti -practice rooms are full -parents question why your wardrobe is 99% black -when 99% of your wardrobe is black but nonE OF THEM MATCH -needing to practice on your off day -when the weather messes with your instrument -when it’s really cold and your fingers forget how to move -having to leave the music building for a non-music class -having to pay for so much music -being really confused in theory -people who wear white socks with black shoes -when the composer hasn’t been dead long enough for the piece to be on IMSLP -getting really thirsty after double tonguing -vocalists trying to sing and conduct at the same time -PEOPLE WHO CLAP BETWEEN MOVEMENTS?? -playing a piece that’s really modern so it sounds like you’re screwing up but that’s how it goes -anything with more than 5 sharps -‘you’re studying music? Wow that must be so easy!’ -when you have so much class and rehearsal that there is no time to stop for coffee

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