Auditioning to be a piano major at Denver School of the Arts (DSA) in fifth grade was my first taste of intense anxiety; a foreshadowing of what was to come for the next seven years. When I got my acceptance letter into the school a few months later, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief verifying I was good enough to make it in, yet I knew I would have to keep working hard to prove that I deserved my spot. This was a tough feeling to navigate as a 10 year old, and knowing it would only persist throughout all of middle and high school didn’t make it any easier.Â
The most common question people would ask when I told them I attended an arts school was if it was anything like High School Musical or A.N.T. Farm. I’m here to say that it was definitely not. We had regular school the majority of the day, and then students would engage in their individual majors for an hour and a half. While this seems enjoyable, being expected to practice your art in such a competitive environment was stressful and demanding.Â
The competitive environment also extended to normal classes since everybody strived to be the best at DSA and prove themselves worthy of their spot. It wasn’t enough to be average or even above average—you had to be perfect. This was difficult to be around since I’m not an inherently competitive person, but it definitely brought out a different, more ambitious, side to me. In hindsight, I realize I was competitive for all of the wrong reasons. I know that it wasn’t due to wanting to do my best, but it was an extrinsic motivation to be at the top. In a school with so many talented and intellectual students, I was constantly disappointing myself because of the expectations I held.Â
One of the hardest experiences I dealt with every semester was the piano honors recital. We had recitals twice a year, and we also had to perform for jurors beforehand and receive a grade for how well we played. The students with the highest grades would get to play in the honors recital, which was the last recital of the day. The honors recital was highly attended, and the rest of us would have to play in the regular old middle or high school recital. I made it into this special group only once, and every other time I didn’t, I felt upset and angry with myself for not being able to play better than the others.Â
This experience mixed with the stress of playing piano in front of an audience was enough to make me lose a lot of the love that I had for playing piano. I know this doesn’t solely apply to me and other piano majors, as I have talked to other students who’ve also lost their passion for their art because of the way their teachers treated them and how competitive they were forced to be.Â
Coming to college after middle and high school was a transforming experience. I realized no one was competing with anyone in my classes, and it was such a low stress environment that it took me a while to calm down and adjust to the low-stress environment, ultimately realizing things aren’t that serious. DSA was also a pretty small school, my graduating class being about 150 students, so there was an immense shock of attending a large school. I discovered that, even if I did make a mistake, no one was concerned or bothered to watch.
I made many happy memories at DSA, even if it was a hard environment to be in. I had great teachers, made lifelong friends, and took some classes that I enjoyed. Even though I would not pursue piano as my career, I still play regularly and enjoy it when I do. My experience at Denver School of the Arts made me into the person that I am today, and I will forever be grateful for that.Â