Equipo de Subsuelo

Most of the participants experienced beginning tertiary music studies as a moment of adjustment and reappraisal. During this time their musical self-perceptions were exposed to a group of peers with whom they could compare themselves, and they began working intensely with their teachers towards new and more serious goals. This process necessarily involved reappraisal of standard and potential. Participant comments reflected how strongly the new environment of tertiary study clashed with or reinforced their self-perceptions as musicians. Some experienced success and were able to continue their positive musical identities as performers and future

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professionals. Others found themselves needing to change their self-perceptions, their situations, or their perceptions of situations in order to resolve perceived discrepancies. This aligns with identity theory, which describes the cognitive dissonance individuals experience when self- perceptions clash with feedback from the environment, leading to attempts at resolution involving changing the environment, changing perceptions of the environment, or changing perceptions of the self (Burke & Stets, 2009).

George and Robert had primarily positive performance experiences from a young age, including recognition, appreciation, and praise, as well as support from important others in their respective lives. They had already developed strong identities as performers and entry into the conservatorium environment reinforced and matured these rather than seriously challenging them. George experienced his studies as a forum for improving his performance, but also as a distraction in the form of written subjects, and at times as a frustrating delay in his goal of becoming an international soloist:

[I’m a] performer ... I want to be playing and performing, practising. I just came back from this competition and I was doing six-seven hours a day, and I wasn’t feeling stressed, it was just so much fun. I did four 50-minute recitals, all different programmes, in less than a week ... [It] was really comfortable for me. And when I came back and started writing, I just felt like: “oh why am I wasting my time?” ... I think it’s because I’m thinking that I’m young and I’ve got to get out there as a performer ... I want to be internationally performing, renowned. You have to do that in your 20s. (George)

Robert described how he had appraised the possibility of becoming a soloist before beginning music study, through observing visiting professional soloists:

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I never deluded myself with aspirations of being a soloist. I realised fairly early on in the piece that that wasn't really a viable option ... there is no demand for it. Going to concerts when I was younger, I realised that the really [famous] players [come to Australia] fairly infrequently, and they struggle a lot of the time to get a full hall ... it's not something I wanted to flog myself with either. I want to actually enjoy my music and not feel like I'm struggling to make ends meet every single week ... it's not my idea of enjoying music. (Robert)

Robert was adamant that he did not desire a life as a soloist, and emphasised his desire to continue enjoying his engagement with music. Like George, Robert had no trouble imagining himself in a performance-related career in the future; however, his idea of solo performance conflicted with his view of himself as someone who wished to avoid emotional struggle. He had apparently resolved this conflict, and, although they had different ultimate goals – Robert was happy to accompany, play chamber music, and teach, whereas George aimed at becoming a soloist – they shared the experience of a musical identity which was robust and relatively free of dissonance. They both enjoyed the positive way in which their identities separated them from other people, and they perceived their future selves as natural extensions of their present ones.

Kirsten described a similar experience. She identified as a “muso” when she was at school, although she never saw herself as a future professional performer. After beginning at the conservatorium, she was strengthened in her conclusion that she was only moderately talented as a performer, and that her personality was better matched to instrument repair. She explained that her view of herself since coming to the conservatorium was adjusted to accommodate a higher standard of competition, but that there were no fundamental changes:

I think my [school] friends still see me as a muso, and I mean I do too myself, but they see me probably as a higher standard than I am, because for them,

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they saw me in the school community, where there’s not that many people who are at a higher level. It’s a bit more difficult to think that when there are so many other people who are here and really great. For me it hasn’t changed too much. (Kirsten)

Kirsten’s words reflected a change in context for herself as a musician. She saw the change to tertiary study as reducing her claim to performance “at a higher level”. Other participants experienced a variety of changes in their identities in the tertiary study setting. They found that their self-perceptions were not aligned with their experience, and feedback was telling them that they needed to change. They reported various responses to this experience. Helen, for example, saw herself as a capable and confident learner, and a passionate musician. However, when she began studying at the conservatorium she found herself lacking in many areas - including performance on piano - and experienced a time of reassessment and doubt:

In first year, I still didn’t really know who I was, and I drowned a little bit. [I took] a step back and realised: “ok I might not get 100% in Aural, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to be a bad teacher.” So many times during last year I kind of asked: “what am I doing here? Everyone’s so good, I’m just...” I started to question myself a lot, and then I got to a point where I realised that that just wasn’t going to do anything ... It was a lot of individual sorting out. (Helen)

Helen’s experience culminated in approaching her teachers for support, through which she began to accept her current standards in various subject areas as “good enough”. This gave her a positive foundation, and enabled her to find a renewed application to learning that carried her through her studies. Thus, she experienced a dissonance in her self-perceptions with regard to her abilities compared to others, accepted her standard as a sufficient basis for her goals (of becoming a music teacher, not a pianist), and was motivated to improve her skills. Her identity as a musician was

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challenged, and a shift in her perceptions was necessary. Her subsequent success in Music Education studies continued to reinforce her identity as a future teacher.