What Happens When the Dream You Chased No Longer Fits?

What happens when you spend years working toward a goal, finally achieve it, and realize the life that comes with it isn’t actually the life you want?

That is one of the questions that came up in my conversation with Darci Gamerl on Do Music Differently.

Darci trained in the classical music world with a very clear picture of success: become a full-time orchestra musician.

And she did it.

She held multiple orchestra positions, performed professionally, toured, and built the kind of career she had spent years preparing for.

But reaching the goal didn’t feel the way she expected it to.

When Success Starts Feeling Like a Trap

Darci described what she jokingly calls the “interstate philharmonic.”

Instead of one ideal orchestra position, many professional musicians piece together several orchestra jobs in different cities and states. That can mean constantly driving, preparing new repertoire, taking auditions, working weekends, and spending large amounts of time away from family and friends.

Darci was making music professionally, but she was also becoming burned out.

The thing that stood out to me was that nothing had necessarily gone “wrong.”

She had accomplished what she had been taught to work toward.

The problem was that her definition of success had become too narrow.

Freedom mattered to her.

Time with family mattered.

Creating something of her own mattered.

And eventually, those things became harder to ignore.

Then a Dream Told Her to Create

One of my favorite parts of the interview is the story of what began changing everything.

In 2019, Darci had an intense dream involving an Aztec dancer she had photographed years earlier. In the dream, he stood in front of an enormous wave.

The message Darci took from it was simple:

Create.

She listened.

She began writing music again after spending years primarily interpreting and performing music written by other composers.

That decision eventually helped lead her toward a very different musical life.

Darci and her husband, cellist David Downing, developed Bel Canto Duo, where they compose, improvise, perform, create films, tour, collaborate with museums and explore entirely new applications for music.

And then things got even more interesting.

What If Music Could Help Change What Happens in the Brain?

Darci’s curiosity eventually led her into the emerging field of NeuroArts.

While studying how music interacts with the brain, she recognized something in the looping and repetitive musical patterns David was already creating.

That curiosity turned into collaboration with neurologists.

Their work has explored how live music may affect people experiencing tinnitus, stress and other neurological responses.

Darci shared one especially fascinating observation from their work: participants experienced improvement in tinnitus symptoms while listening to the music, and some experienced relief again simply by recalling the live performance.

That is a long way from the original plan of getting one full-time orchestra job.

And that is exactly why I wanted Darci on Do Music Differently.

Sometimes the Opportunity Is Outside the Original Plan

Darci did not stop being a classically trained musician.

She expanded what being a musician could mean.

Her path now includes composition, filmmaking, improvisation, touring, interdisciplinary collaboration, science, education and projects she probably could not have predicted when she was sitting in a conservatory preparing for orchestra auditions.

That brought us back to the rule we were questioning during this episode:

Old Rule: There is one right way to succeed.

Darci’s experience shows what can happen when you become willing to look beyond the path you originally thought you had to follow.

Sometimes changing direction isn’t giving up on the dream.

Sometimes it gives the dream room to become something much bigger.

Toward the end of our conversation, Darci gave a challenge that I think is worth considering:

If there is an idea you have been thinking about, a career shift you keep considering, or something you have been waiting to try, pull on that thread and see where it takes you.

You might be surprised by what appears when you stop insisting that success has to look one particular way.

#BeyondTheOrchestra #RewriteTheRules #DoMusicDifferently

What rule are you ready to rewrite?

Watch the full conversation with Darci Gamerl of Bel Canto Duo on Do Music Differently and hear more about her journey from orchestral musician to composer, filmmaker, collaborator and NeuroArts explorer.

Learn more about Darci and Bel Canto Duo at belcantoduo.com.

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