I got a “ C” in music history in my undergrad. My life was over.
The class was just way too much information about renaissance music. I don’t remember any of it, from either semester. I kind of remember something about propers (?) and something called a menstruation mensuration canon (I had to look it up). Other that that, zilch. Nothing. And I studied for the tests and everything and I just can’t for the life of me remember anything substantive from that course.
What I do remember from that course is the stress. Everyday, being terrified that a drop-the-needle listening pop quiz would come. Having these massive tests that required multiple essays to be completed with the 50 minutes of class time. Figuring out how to fit the entirety of a course into six point font on a tiny notecard only to find most of the information included was utterly worthless and superfluous for the final exam. Requesting that undergrads use Chicago style with no onboarding whatsoever. No quarter given to students with commutes from classes across campus. Watching other students take that class over and over again until they dropped out, thinking that they weren’t goon enough to survive in the field because they couldn’t pass music history.
Of all the courses I took in my time in college, music history was the one that I most wish had a pass/fail option. I will carry a “ C” on all my college transcripts for the rest of my damn life because that class was so hard.
Growing up, I was taught to believe that anything under an “ A” might as well be failing. A “ B” would get me nowhere in life. A “ C” was a sign that I was worthless. And anything lower? A death sentence.
I used to be punished for getting a “ B” or a “ C.” Sometimes it was grounding or privileges taken away. Sometimes it was extra chores. One time, my parents told me that I could not go to the eighth grade graduation dance because I had failed two semesters of English (by a teacher who couldn’t spell “ separate” ) and had to take summer school. I got told I was going to get pulled out of Arizona School for the Arts I went to because I got a “ C” in Health. My failure to get into the highest band was because I was a crappy “ B” student with no real ability — though as soon as I got a clarinet mouthpiece that wasn’t a stock mouthpiece that came with a plastic rental clarinet, I got right in.
My relationship with getting graded has been about doing fine, but being told I had failed and getting punished for it. Anything but an “ A” was grounds for immediate and unyielding punishment, a clear indication of behavior needing correction.
And now, I punish myself by grading myself.
Even after being out of school for several years, I have found myself grading myself. I have made a very bad habit of only showing people what I consider to be “ A” work, doing everything I can to minimize “ B” work, and utterly erasing “ C” work for online existence whenever possible. One of the ways that my fear of failure has manifested in my creative practice is through this internalized grading system that I have created.
In order to avoid failure, I grade myself. Anything that doesn’t get an “ A” doesn’t see the light of day.
What happens when you grade yourself is you create a level of stress that no one sees and is damn near inescapable. Most of the time, you don’t even realize you’re doing it. It weighs down on you, and it makes it so that your creative work is work that will be evaluated and usually deemed worthless.
This is not fair to me, and people have proven it over and over again. Before presenting the Consortium Captains for The Automaton and the Aeronaut and The Many Adventures of Mr. Maverick with the scores for their respective works, I preambled with the fact that I thought the two works were “ B” works. I thought I had failed to live up to the highest standard I could.
I was wrong. They loved those two works. I couldn’t believe it. Those were both “ B” work. They weren’t good enough for me, but they were good enough for them, the people who would actually play them.
Those were the first cracks in grading myself. That clued me into the idea that maybe I was being too hard on myself, that I was punishing myself for work I could be celebrating or that I was holding myself to an impossible standard.
Over the last few years, I have slowly relaxed and begun to unpack my relationship with grading and how it has shaped my work. I have begun to share “ B” and “ C” work more to surprising results. People don’t care how I evaluate my own creative work, and they love seeing what I deem worthless, because it means that I keep working anyways, regardless of the quality I internally assign to everything.
When I don’t grade myself, my capacity to work doubles, maybe triples. My productivity skyrockets because I’m not stopping myself to ask questions like “ isn’t this a little basic for Kincaid Rabb?” or “ do you really expect anyone to spend money on this mess?” and I can just keep going unfettered. Because of my extremely negative relationship with grading, doing it to myself is a form of self-harm. It’s an act of subconscious self-sabotage, but it feels safe because I have never lived my life without being graded.
But I have to stop hurting myself like this. I have to separate myself from the act of grading in order to grow and in order to heal. I have to break the cycle of writing music, grading that music, deeming that music worthless, forcing myself to trash that music, and starting all over again.
I am not trashing my music when I put myself through that cycling over and over again. I am trashing and abusing myself.
I don’t think that grading is super useful in my life. I don’t think it’s productive. I don’t think it uplifts me or my creativity. For me, I think grading is usually destructive, perpetuates competition in our field, and encourages gatekeeping. Even, maybe especially, when it all happens inside your head.
But I will never be graded again. I’m not putting myself in that situation again. I’m not giving anyone else the power to grade me and me work. I’m done with that.
And I will never grade myself again.
I can’t keep doing it to myself. It’s not healthy. It’s not fair. It’s harmful and painful and I need to stop it.
I will never grade myself again.