Local musician gains insight from social media challenge

For a man dreaming of someday becoming a teacher, what insights can be gained from engaging with a social media hashtag? The surprising answer is quite a few.

Chauncey Allison, 28, is a student at Flathead Valley Community College working on an Associate of Arts degree in music education. He’s on track to complete that and then transfer to pursue his bachelor’s degree. For Allison, his connection to a particular hashtag began with a viral Instagram post by professional violinist Chloé Trevor.

It started with #100days, a global Instagram project which was embraced by the visual arts community. However, growth, change, and reinterpretation, are all part of the nature of hashtags. So for musicians the hashtag grew into #100daysofpractice.

“I’m part of the classically millennial world, in that I grew up without technology,” Allison said. “We were finding ourselves when the internet was introduced. The biggest difference between then and now is that in high school we didn’t have Facebook or Instagram or hashtags, or a community that was as large as the whole world. Now we do.”

Today students can easily engage with others who are playing the same kind of music, exploring the same kinds of themes, and dealing with the same struggles around the globe.

“This was the first time I saw a hashtag challenge and wanted to jump into it,” Allison said. “My biggest reason is that this would create a chance for others to see my work, my progression, and to give me tips and insights. But it definitely came at a bit of cost.”

First, the good: Allison began his 100 days of practice last semester. When signing up for a project like this it can easy to forget that 100 days is nearly one-third of a year. It is a significant commitment.

“The biggest thing I learned is how to efficiently practice and what I can get out of a practice session,” he said. “It all comes down to being intentional and being precise. Making sure that you have a plan and are not just opening the case, grabbing the viola and hoping for the best. You have to grab onto your imperfections and work to make them stronger.”

The community aspect remains the dominant good that Allison experienced because of the challenge.

“The community is wonderful. You can type in ‘#violist’ and there are hundreds of thousands of posts. I’ve made new friends and new role models. I had my first-ever private viola lesson over the internet with Greg Childress, a graduating senior at James Madison University in Virginia. He’s on Instagram as @violagreg.”

Another person Allison now follows is Drew Forde, @thatviolakid, a professional violist/hip-hop artist in Los Angeles.

“If I’m having difficulty, I might make a post on Instagram like ‘does someone have the fingerings for this particular spot?’ and I’ll get 40 or 50 responses. You have teenagers in conservatories giving advice to 20- to 30-year-olds who are still learning their craft next to 45-year-old professionals who are giving advice to 18-year-olds with their first instrument.”

Allison made one of these advice-seeking posts and Forde responded. That’s how easy it is to connect.

Now, the bad: while the balance of the experiment is absolutely positive, Allison admits there were some drawbacks he had not envisioned.

“You can get overwhelmed,” Allison pointed out. “You can start to think, ‘why don’t I sound that good?’” It’s easy to become negative when a person finds themselves stacked up against the best in the world and falling short of an impossible standard.

“With a challenge like this people get wrapped up in the performance of it. Suddenly 100 days of practice becomes 100 days of performance,” said Allison.

The original intent of the challenge was to create a documentation of what true, natural, unedited practice looks like, no matter your level. But that doesn’t negate the social pressure.

“I’m past the transformative years of my life. When I think about this challenge in terms of a 15- or 16-year-old, I can’t imagine all of them being prepared to deal with the stress and emotion of this,” Allison said. “It can create a detrimental sense of self-awareness unless you are strong enough and are going into the project with the mindset that ‘I am going to post raw, unedited videos.’”

Allison is real and vulnerable in his posts from this challenge. You can find him on Instagram @chaunceylovesmusic. In his posts he gives himself grace for where he is in the process. It’s exactly the kind of thing one would hope to find in a teacher.

In one post he wrote, “…the whole point is to progress by graciously and intentionally accepting your imperfections.”

Allison made the project his own and learned the value of intentional progressive practice. Above all, he acquired confidence in his state of music, whatever that may be.

“As I was making these posts I would get comments from fellow students who would see them and say things like ‘I love your #100days, I want to get better at my own craft,’” Allison said. “I started this because I wanted to be the best musician I could be, but I found along the way that I was motivating other people while I was in the process of learning.”

When Allison becomes a teacher he will carry many of the lessons of this project forward to his someday students. He’ll encourage them to have patience with themselves and to recognize that not everyone is in the same place, “which is true in both in music and in life.

“I love studying music and music education. For me it comes down to this: if you have the chance to impact a child’s life, that’s a huge opportunity. To make a life of doing that — that would be a gift.

“I used to open a book to a new piece of music and see how complex it is and think to myself, ‘I should find something easier that I can play right now.’ And now I have the ability to recognize that both in life and the viola good things never come easy.”

These are lessons Allison wants to share.

He sums it up himself in the words from Post #100: “This isn’t the post I had in mind for my big finale, but if I’m being honest with myself, there is no finale. There is no finishing or arriving when it comes to practice. If we choose to arrive in knowledge or skill, then we are creating an artificial and detrimental “ceiling” for our goals. So here it is…day 100…I managed to practice a few measures that have been giving me issue…Just remember folks, no matter what, as the great poet @zacefron once sang, ‘we’re all in this together.’”

Brenda Ahearn may be reached at 758-4435 or bahearn@dailyinterlake.com.