Unabashed Self-Promotion

I may have picked the wrong field to be in, or maybe this applies to careers across the board. I have a huge problem with feeling bold enough to promote my career, concerts, and playing. Even if the quality of my work ever warrants a huge audience or a fan-following, something about marketing myself makes me cringe and want to crawl into a hole and hide.

I think this may have a lot to do with my upbringing. I remember when I was little and there was this one kid in our cello class who was known as the show-off kid. As a little boy, he was unafraid to play the hardest piece he was working on at any spare moment and try to beat everyone else working through the Suzuki books. We used to talk about him at home as the kid who showed off. I was young at the time, but I remember thinking that I never wanted to be that kid because we all agreed he was a show-off, and I figured that it was probably bad to do so. I didn't want to be talked about in someone else's house as the kid who showed off. So in my 5-year old mind, the logic went like this: show-off=bad. Quiet and nice=good.

I suppose that Asian values have a big role in this. I always felt like I was encouraged to succeed in whatever I did, but that this should never be flaunted. My parents never told me this in exact words. But somehow I picked these values up. I would overhear conversations where compliments were spurned and higher praise was always given to the other person's kid. I never wanted unnecessary public attention. I was shy. I just wanted to fit in and be polite and nice and well-liked and not get in trouble.

And then I entered the guitar world, which is dominated by male machismo (albeit the meticulously filed long right-hand fingernails) and boys in death metal T-shirts showing off how fast they can play their scales or any number of famous pieces. Usually, I was naturally set apart just because I was a girl. I never felt the need to join in showing off how fast I could play this or that because somehow I found a niche as the girl who could hang with the boys and even beat 'em, but in a graceful way. (At least that's probably how I like to think of myself.) But this continued to reinforce in me that I should still be a hard worker and good at what I do, but I never felt comfortable demonstrating this to others unless I was poked and prodded to do so.

Well, I'm not as shy as I was when I was 5 or 6, but I realize that I still have deep-seated issues with the notion of public attention. The whole idea of putting out a CD with multiple pictures of myself on it, asking people to buy it, and publicizing a release concert brings out a whole slew of insecurities from under my skin. Maybe that's why this project has taken so long. What if people think it's lame? What if the concert sucks and nobody buys the CD? What if people are just tired of me going, "Buy my CD! Me, me, me! Come see me play! Look at me, everyone! Oh, wonderful me!" My innate crawl into-nearest-hole instincts come raging back like a flood.

Yes, I'm being a little facetious here, and I know (or hope) that people don't really think that way. There's a tricky balance between false humility, true humility, sharing your talents, and ostentatiousness. I want to stand in a good place on that spectrum. I really just want God to be glorified through all of this. It's just hard to know how to do that and it takes courage that I don't have by myself. Lord, help me to do that.

That being said, if you live in the Bay Area, here are the details:

Saturday, July 12, 7:30pm
San Jose Canaan Christian Church
1228 Redmond Ave.
San Jose, CA 95120

Join Connie Sheu, classical guitarist, at a CD Release concert
with special guests
La Verne Chen and Danny Sheu

Featuring music of Villa-Lobos,
Torroba, Barrios-Mangore, Chopin, Piazzolla, Rodrigo,
and traditional hymns.

Free admission.
Connie’s debut album, Waking or Sleeping, will be available for purchase!