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Melissa Ford

My name is Melissa Ford, and I happy to be a single mother of three lovely children. My youngest daughter recently entered college - this is an revelation of my age and also an indication of the personal freedom I have realized now that I have the house to myself. Now that the kids are all grown up, I am able to commit more time into composing music - this is my passion in life.

Currently, I make a living as a piano teacher in the Suzuki Method. Actually, though, the bulk of my earnings comes to me in the form of royalty checks. See, I played a small role in creating the title song of a syndicated television program from the ‘90s, called Blossom. Nearly every day, I receive at least one check in the mail, and at one time it was as many as 214 (I counted), for the amount of $1.36 plus or minus a few cents. I find this quite amusing.

“Talent comes naturally to some and supernaturally to others.” ~ Melissa Ford

I have found success in life through pursuing my passion, which is art, and my advice to other artists is just to keep on creating. In my experience, I gained nothing by creating nothing, but I gained something from every piece I created. Whether it was a valuable learning experience from a rejected song that I had written or flattering recognition from one of my top students, I have continued to practice my art and that has helped me to achieve what I would consider success. Talent comes naturally to some, and supernaturally to others, but for me, I had to work extremely hard as a pianist to be able to profit from my talent professionally.

Not wanting to bore anyone with the minutiae of my past, I will summarize by saying that I grew up living in oblivion (sorry for the cliché) until I learned to become aware of myself and started to recognize myself as an artist. I was 20 years old when I first started playing the piano as a result of inheriting my grandmother’s Yamaha upright piano. The fact that I was in my twenties before I found my passion in life is something that I think a lot of other people could benefit from knowing, especially artists. I think some artists are afraid to fully embrace the creative side of themselves until they experience some kind of tremendous success story.

In my opinion, the likelihood of a person achieving success in one’s passion is precisely congruent to the devotion one invests into her or his passion. Yes, there are certainly external factors that throw us all for loops (my kids and I survived on Ramen noodles and Saltine crackers for way too long). To me, success is measured in terms of happiness, and happiness comes to people who do what they love. As long as a person is pursuing her or his passion in life, then success is inevitable - she or he is doing what makes her or him happy.

I remember a mantra of some kind that says, “Where your heart is, there your treasure lies.” I think it’s from the Bible. This mantra seems appropriate and right, and I think it is good advice for me and anyone else with a passion.