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I have heard it said that the difference between being a professional musician and an amateur musician is this: An amateur musician practices until they get it right. A professional musician practices until they cannot get it wrong. That makes some kind of sense to me. They were talking about classical musicians, but I wondered about other kinds of musicians and for that matter other kinds of artists. I, myself am an amateur actor. The idea of practicing a scene until you could not get it wrong, just doesn’t work. You can practice memorizing your lines until you can’t get them wrong, but you don’t have to be a professional to do that. And memorizing lines is only about ten percent of what it takes to be an actor.

To be a professional actor does take training. There are not many professional actors who simply lucked into a career. It takes work. It takes practice too, but not the kind of practice that a musician engages in. You don’t go over and over a particular part or scene until you can’t get it wrong. Right and wrong have a very different meaning to an actor than it does to a musician, because there is no definitive “right” way to play a scene or a part. There are choices to be made. No choice is wrong if it fits the vision. It is only wrong if it doesn’t fit the vision. But you could say that if you work at it enough, you can develop the instincts that are necessary to become a good actor. Instincts that will not lead you astray. So, in that sense, the definition sort of works.

Other kinds of arts have their own specific needs and quirks. Does that rule about what it takes to be a professional pertain to them? Yes, and no. Each art form is different. Each one takes its own form of practice to gain expertise, even if we just limit it to performing artists: singers, actors, musicians, dancers; there are differences. A classical musician has a different definition of perfection than say, a jazz musician, where improvisation is expected.

So, what is the difference between an amateur and a professional? Certainly, a professional makes a living from their art, but how do they get there? Whatever the art form, it takes passion, commitment, mentors, and certainly, practice, but even with all that it requires a bit of luck. There are people who look down on art as being “not real work.” Those people have no idea. There is no easy path to becoming a professional artist.

Star Liner

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