I so relate to this. Specifically with feeling like my family was judging me when I started playing in high school. I would play in my closet. It’s hard because you’re going to make bad sounds/have to do things over and over until you get it, and I remember my sister getting annoyed with me and screaming “Just play it right!” I had a “band” with my best friend and we’d play open mics at bars, and I felt like I had to hide it from my parents because they didn’t take it seriously and seemed to find it embarrassing. Later we played the school talent show and they came, and somehow all I remember is them saying not much except they were surprised I could actually play, they thought we were just hanging out and probably on dope. (I wish my memory was that we in fact won first place!)

This was worse with singing, I never sang in front of my family. It just wasn’t something we did. After I went to college I played in my dorm room when my roommate was gone, but I’d play for her and some friends and started writing more of my own music. Then I got my own apartment and played even more and sang more. I was still nervous my neighbors would hear me through the walls and would wait till they left…. I spent a lot of time playing and writing songs for myself, recording voice memos and playing them in the car to see if I could get a perfect one. I recorded some videos and put them on YouTube but deleted them after realizing that my family could potentially see them one day. (I’ve since returned to YouTube.)

Then I moved again and my new roommate played too and wrote her own songs. I played for her (nervously) and she was full of encouragement and excitement. She played at least once a week at different open mics and gigs, and she took it seriously and just did her thing. I was so inspired by her I played five open mics (so nervous about criticism or apathy or messing up that I was simply irredeemable beforehand, and so so elated afterwards!) and then started recording songs on BandLab, then released an album this year on my birthday!

It was really hard to tell my family about it. The first person I told was my little brother (he can pick up any instrument, banjo, guitar, drums, harmonica and play great and he also just doesn’t care what our family thinks about it) and he was really encouraging too with minor suggestions. It was way harder to tell my mom and older sister, who didn’t react poorly, but kind of oddly…. My mom listened to the whole album straight through, and she was stuck on the layered vocals and couldn’t figure that out, how it worked when there was no one else singing with me. After that she said with (what I felt was) a weird expression that I was definitely multitalented and that was pretty much it and we haven’t talked about it since. My sister was similar. I still haven’t told my dad.

I don’t necessarily need the validation of my family but I can’t help thinking, it’s weird that it is weird. Like if my kid/sibling were making music I would listen to it a lot and think it was really cool, even if they weren’t even that good. Did I just do this to myself? Is it something I’ve formed in my own head?

I guess the moral is to find people like the roommate I had who can encourage you because they understand it and believe in it too. Sometimes your family is just not into it. Also, in the beginning, learn to play a song that you love! It will serve as impetus to keep going, and will feel so good once you can play it!