Motivation

Although musicians may know what they need to do to improve their skills, it is quite another thing to actually do it. Similarly, it is easy for a teacher to write down a list of exercises to be practiced but much more difficult to get students to carry them out. Although a great many people get involved with music as children and set out to become musicians, relatively few of them achieve a satisfying level of proficiency. Building musical skill necessarily involves effort. A better understanding of motivation may allow musicians to approach the required effort with a positive perspective, so as to keep their musical lives sufficiently rewarding and enjoy the fruits of their labor. This chapter considers the multiple ways that people are effectively motivated toward meaningful achievement in music. It discusses how music is intrinsically motivating, as well as the most important sources of extrinsic motivation. Special attention is given to how young musicians’ beliefs—about music and about themselves—can greatly affect their motivation going forward.