#3, Finding a Greater Motivation; My Conversation with a Pianist

This week, I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Yejin Noh, a prominent concert pianist. Unlike many musicians who slow down after a certain age, Ms. Yejin is well-distinguished for constantly pushing herself to the next limit, whether it be a new album or a recital. I had been curious to find out what it was that motivated her progress.

The common perception about an artist is that they are prodigies with natural talent for creativity. I, too, had secretly harbored assumptions about artists’ life, imagining it to be a very romantic life requiring a bit of effort but mostly carried by natural talent. I did know that my brother, who aspires to be a cellist, spends hours mastering a single note, but I had this notion that professional artists all have an aptitude for success and natural passion that make the hard work possible, in contrast to the normal person. However, the interview with Ms. Noh revealed to me the reality of a high-achieving artist’s life, which was less about dreams and more about brutal, non-negotiable effort. In fact, she explained piano to be an instrument with its performance 99% dependent on the effort and hard work of the performer.

Let me illustrate Ms. Yejin’s piano career briefly. She started the instrument at a young age, driven by her mother. “It was probably because my father’s church needed an accompanist,” recounted Ms. Yejin. She showed talent and fast progress, which led to her specializing in the instrument. However, she did not believe herself to be a once-in-a-century prodigy. Rather, she practiced up to 16 hours a day, sometimes sleeping only two hours. Up to this point, although Ms. Yejin followed the standard ‘elite’ course for classical musicians from Yewon music school to SNU, she could not truly ‘enjoy’ piano, as she thought she was not very good at it. The ‘reality check,' as Ms. Yejin put it, came around the age of early-thirties, post-graduation. The traditional pathway of a musician’s success as a concert performer is very narrow and involves winning major competitions. Ms. Noh had also been vying for this way of success. Yet, after falling short in her final international competition before the age cutoff, she had to question if her intense suffering was worth the outcome.

Let us briefly cut the story here. To be very honest, if I were in her shoes, I would have stopped right then and there, telling myself I did my best and settling with what I had. Because, well, she did do her best. She constantly pushed herself beyond the average hard work and suffering, ‘gosaeng,' to a near-death effort,‘gae-gosaeng,' as she put it (a Korean term for dogged effort). But Ms. Yejin’s journey did not stop there. She refused to quit, continuing to organize her own recitals and record albums. This non-stop effort eventually led to the breakthrough moment around age 37, when she started to discover the pure joy of practicing and studying piano. “Practice became addictive,” said she. Audiences started acknowledging her work, and she became a precedent of a successful concert pianist who does not have an international award from their youth under their belt.

From her story, I could clearly see that Ms. Yejin’s commitment and hard work had brought her amazing outcomes. But the big question still remained, “What was her motivation? What thing could be so powerful as to fuel her monstrous intensity?”

As it turned out, her driving force was her Christian faith. Ms. Yejin explained that she believes in meeting God in heaven after life on Earth, and hopes to “make God proud” when she finally meets him She said that the thought of eternal rest and observing God’s creation (the sun, clouds and sky) preventsher from burnouts, and that she has little interest in ‘worldly desires’ like luxurious travel, delicious foodand substantial amounts of rest.

This was a shocking answer to me. I had thought myself to be a christian and I hoped to see God in heaven. But for Ms. Yejin, the hope seemed to be an impending reality, the kind that I had never experienced. I cannot forget her joyous and excited countenance as she said those words. I was a christian, but I thrived in small, day-to-day pleasures in life, like eating nice food, lying on the sofa for a little longer, resting and having fun every once in a while. At first, her words seemed too radical to me. How can someone last without daily rest and fun things to do? But then I slowly came to realize that my life was centered solely on those daily pleasures. Even when I thought of my future, yes I did want to go to a good college and have a nice career, but the purpose of all that was so I could eat more delicious food, go to nicer places and rest for longer. It dawned on me that I did not have a clear motivation or purpose for my life other than ‘happiness,’ and that didn’t really fuel me to work hard or save me from my instant-gratification monkey. I started hoping and praying that heaven and God become a bigger reality and purpose for me.

This interview was a particularly insightful one for me because in every single interview I did, I kept asking the interviewees about their motivations and what led them to choose their careers. I was at an age where I had to start thinking about where I wanted to be in the future, and I had absolutely no idea. What I considered to be my biggest weakness was my laziness, and I had been thinking I needed a motivation to work towards. Initially, I thought that motivation would be something related to the work I would do, passion about a certain subject or job. But one thing I found in common among the interviewees was that their successful career wasn’t driven by a penetrating passion. Rather, it involved a bit of initial interest,circumstance, and an immense amount of hard work that eventually led to joy and meaning in their work. I realized that I shouldn't be trying to find a certain career or a job as a motivation, I would need to find the purpose of my life. Through the encounter with Ms. Yejin, I saw the certainty and joy that she spoke with and became curious to find what she had found for myself as well.