She doubts my musical ability in that she doesn't believe I can get an orchestra job or play well enough to make a living off of music. But she never said I don't play well because 1) she doesn't understand music well enough to make a call about how good I am and 2) I'm trying to figure out how to word it... no one would say that I'm not good. I'm not trying to say that in an arrogant way. Many people say that I have a lot of work to do and I have a long way to go and that's totally true, but no one would say that I'm not good because I am. I know what I'm doing and people like it even if they don't always think it is the best.

She criticizes how I practice. She tells me that I'm lazy and don't practice enough and don't practice "the hard stuff". She told me when I graduated high school and got into my school that I got in solely on natural ability and never had to do any work to get where I was and that I will start facing problems in music the second that real work was involved. And yes, it is true that I do have to work much harder in college to remain in the spotlight, but waving away all of the hours I worked in high school to get into schools and win merit scholarships isn't fair and it just made me neurotic.