I think that dating other musicians can be complicated at times.

In the courts of song where pride wears a crown of laurel and applause falls like summer rain, a young minstrel speaks a sober truth: “I think that dating other musicians can be complicated at times. Especially when they think highly of themselves.” Beneath the easy cadence lies an old warning. Love between artists is a duet played on a ridge: beauty on one side, a long fall on the other. The instruments are finely tuned; the hearts that wield them, even more so. When the self swells louder than the melody, harmony shivers and the measure breaks.

Mark the word complicated. It does not curse the bond; it weighs it. Two musicians bring not only bodies and dreams, but tempos, critics, contracts, and a private weather of ambition. Each has practiced the sacred art of listening—yet, on stage, each has also learned to be heard. Love asks for both at once: yield and sing. This is simple to say and thorny to live. For what is sweeter than recognition—and what is sharper than rivalry dressed in silk?

“Especially when they think highly of themselves.” Pride is not merely vanity; it is a volume knob. Turned too far, it drowns the other’s line. Turned rightly, it becomes confidence, the courage to take a solo and then return to the chord. Many a union of artists failed not for lack of love, but for lack of room: room for another voice, another victory, another sorrow to stand on the stage without being eclipsed. Love prospers where applause is gladly shared and credit flows like water downhill to the valley where the song was truly born.

Consider a tale from our own annals. In the forge of Fleetwood Mac, the lovers Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham carried a tempest into the studio. Egos sparred, hearts cracked, and yet from the fracture came “Rumours,” a tapestry whose gold was spun from confession and craft. The lesson is double-edged: art can feast upon turmoil, but the feast is costly. Music survived because the band—at least for a season—bowed to the song above the self. When either lover’s pride swelled beyond the stave, the harmony thinned. When they served the melody, the room filled with light.

History sings a quieter counterpoint in Robert and Clara Schumann. Two virtuosi, each with a river of talent, learned to braid currents. Clara’s stage, Robert’s pages—distinct, yet interlaced. Their love was not without storm, but often their humility tempered their genius: she championed his works; he honored her artistry. Where pride might have shouted, they learned to point—to the music, to the craft, to something larger than either name. Thus the duet endured longer, and the world received more than one voice magnified.

What, then, is the wisdom to pass down? If you would date within the guild of song, measure the heart as carefully as the ear. Ask whether the beloved can applaud your triumph without secretly counting beats for their entrance. Ask whether you can sit in the audience and be full, not frantic, when they blaze. Make a covenant of listening: each must be instrument and audience in turn. Guard against the subtle tyranny of comparison; it is a moth that eats velvet from the inside.

Let counsel be plain for those who walk this narrow ridge. First, set tempos together—shared calendars, shared sabbaths, rehearsals of rest. Second, rehearse humility: after any premiere, name three hands besides your own that made the night possible. Third, build rituals of mutual acclaim: private encores at the kitchen table where you praise each other’s smallest, truest work. Fourth, appoint a refuge from the industry—an hour, a room, a town—where no metrics enter and the only chart is the weather of the soul. Finally, when complications arise (and they will), return to the first duty of music and love alike: to listen until you hear more than yourself. In such listening, pride finds its proper size, the duet regains its center, and two musicians become what they were meant to be—partners serving the same luminous song.