Dealing with a sense of failure

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My last piece of coursework was not to the stadnard iver become accustomed to at all. It was a piece for an indonesian gamelan orchestra. My peers were performing said piece so I felt it necessary to avoid prescriptive scoring. Instead I gave them alot of freedom. I merely provided rhythms to improvise with.

Mathematically it was sound. It was in the whole tone scale with vibraphones in the octatonic scale superimposing 2 scales which have a harmonically interesting relationship. The rhythms themselves were subjectred to transformations. 1 2 3 4 becomes 4 3 2 1 becomes 1432 becomes 2143 3214 4321 (rotation). There was even an interference pattern in the form of 5/8 against 3/8.

The problem was that I didnt arrange it properly. I also didnt use a particularly innovative structure. Furthermore it felt directionless. Interestingly however I noticed that my peers started copying some of my ideas so I was on the right track in some respects.

Annnyway I felt quite anxious because this was an underachievement for me. I also ddnt make the mathematical properties clear so its likely that the lecturer thought it was lacklustre. He may not have sen the mathematics governing the piece. He may also not have heard the octatonic/whole tone superpositioning.

Arggggh anyway thats not the point of this thread/ The question is: How do you deal with that sense that youve not performed well/failed

Honestly, I'm not very good at failure, although I've had practice. But sometimes I've found that other people have no problem accepting my terrible performance at something. This one underpwrformance might also get buried under better work.

I usually make a conscious effort to do something else for a while. If your academic mission is to structure music appealingly, you have to appeal to your own sensibilities first. In my case, this means lots of caffeine & random information to ponder. Being a coder, for me means introspection on an ever-expanding scale.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

A counsellor once taught me what I have found to be a powerful word to say to myself in such cases.

That word is: "Oops!"

That casual approach to mistakes helps me not get derailed by them, and instead glean lessons learned and then have another go at it.

Cheers.