The Tartan

Editorials featured in the Forum section are solely the opinions of their individual authors.

When I first watched the Damian Chazelle film “Whiplash,” I was in shock at how accurately it depicted my experience at a performing arts school. I first started attending the school when I was in seventh grade, but I left my senior year of high school because I just could not take the abuse any longer. 

“Whiplash” is a film about a jazz drummer, Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), who attends an elite university for jazz drumming. There, he encounters legendary Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons) whose teaching tactics lead Andrew down a path of destruction that ultimately ends in him withdrawing from the school and temporarily giving up drumming. I’ll stop there so I don’t spoil the ending because it’s an amazing movie and you should go watch it. 

As someone who attended an arts school for jazz guitar, I could relate to this movie a lot. I clearly remember the first time I watched “Whiplash” and my sister said, “This isn’t a drama… this is a documentary,” because of how accurately it depicted our experience. There’s one scene where Terrance Fletcher is seeing how the students in the band play. He goes around the ensemble one by one and has each person play a line from the piece. When he gets to the only girl in the band he says: “You’re in the first chair. Let’s see if it’s just because you’re cute.” There were so many times where something similar happened to me at my school. There were a few years where I was one of two girls in the class. I had one teacher who at some point every class would say: “It’s time to get one of the ladies up here!” and either me or the one other girl would have to get up in front of the class and sight read or improvise. This happened. Every. Single. Class. My sister faced similar trials seeing as she was the only female drummer in the jazz program and only the second in the history of the school. Now, I want to be clear, this wasn’t the situation in every conservatory at the school, but if you were a female musician in the jazz program or the guitar program, you were definitely treated differently (and not in a good way). 

Additionally, every day I would have teachers tell me that I was untalented and would never amount to anything. I was told that I would never be able to play in a pit orchestra and that I wasn’t a good enough guitarist to get into a good college. I was told these things so often that I believed it. Sometimes I still do now. It tends to be difficult for me to even play the guitar in front of anyone without feeling a sense of dread. They took something I loved, something that brought me joy, and turned it into an instrument of torture. 

A lot of these teachers used being a “professional” in their field as an excuse to treat students poorly. Many of the teachers didn’t even have teaching credentials, they were just performers who needed some extra money. First-year Annabelle Foster said that this applied to her experience at a different art school as well. “The main musical theater teacher was very real world-based. She performed on Broadway for a little bit and she lets you know that she performed on Broadway.” She went on to say that she liked having professional help and getting that real-world experience, but at the same time they were still high school students. Junior Vocal Performance major Kira Cervi also felt this way about the arts high school that they attended. They had a teacher once tell them that their voice is like a “finely bred stallion that’s just been let out to the racing track for the first time and is bucking around.” While Cervi understands what this teacher was saying now, hearing that as a 15 year old was very confusing. While this method can be beneficial it can also crush the spirits of the students enduring it. Foster said that out of her graduating class, only about half of the students actually went into their art. 

The truth is that arts high schools can be very intense. You’re often with the same people over the course of several years and forced into competition with them. It can make it difficult to make friends because they would do anything to get ahead of you, so you can only trust people to an extent. This culture is very toxic especially in some of the most formative years of your life. Cervi also felt this way at their school. When describing what it was like, they said, “I don’t want to say it’s Stockholm syndrome? But slightly… I loved it there, but not because of the people. The people were awful.” 

The other difficult thing about going to an arts school is that you can only do the thing you’re there for. Since I auditioned for jazz guitar, that’s all I could do. I couldn’t audition for a play or a musical or even play a different style of music like rock. There were times where I felt stuck and defined by one thing that I was constantly being told I wasn’t very good at. This also made it difficult to make friends outside of your specific program. Foster had a similar experience she said that being with the same teachers and students for seven years was “fine because you got a sense of community, but it felt like a very sectioned school.” In “Whiplash,” Andrew Neiman sort of does this to himself since he’s so focused on jazz and impressing Fletcher. He pushes away any other connection with anyone outside of his jazz circle. 

Now not all students at my school had this experience. I know several people who would say that their years there were some of the best of their life. And while for several reasons I’m grateful for the opportunity I had there, I also can’t deny how the abuse still affects me to this day.

Cervi, Foster and I can all agree on how our art schools shaped who we are as musicians and artists today. Learning all that music theory along with the professional training gave us a leg up when we first came to Carnegie Mellon. However, that doesn’t distract from the mental and emotional cost we paid to get that training. 

I have to say that if someone ever came to me and asked me if they should attend a performing arts high school, I would probably say no. I do think the arts school prepared me well in my music knowledge for college, but I’m still trying to build back my self-esteem from five years of them breaking me down. So while I’m grateful for the experience and everything I learned, I don’t think art high schools are all they’re cracked up to be.   

“Whiplash,” while a fictional film, is not far from reality. There are teachers that seek to tear their students down to build them back up. After living “Whiplash” for five years I know this more than anyone.  However, there are also some really great teachers out there that enjoy helping their students succeed. Even at times when my life has felt more like “Whiplash”, I just have to remember all of the great experiences I’ve had outside of school with teachers that have genuinely cared. I would say that that’s the biggest lesson I took away from my arts school experience.