Well, one concert day done. Many more to come. I suppose this is what happens at the end of the school year.
Today’s performance; Piano Quartet featuring Brahms and things went very well indeed. I find I am most relaxed and comfortable on stage when I am in a small ensemble which is strange because you’d think the large numbers of an orchestra would give me MORE comfort. Reason it doesn’t; if I screw up in an orchestra setting I feel like I stand out more (if I come in too early or forget about the subito piano.. yeah, big screw ups), and once you screw up you can’t fake it out because it’s obvious YOU were the only one that didn’t come in/came in too soon (although I have to do something about my fear of always screwing up).
Anyways, I gained control of my nerves, I performed well, and I was thrilled. I thought it all sounded superb. Then I went to the recording booth and listened to myself and it sounded horrible. I was out of tune, unbalanced in the group, etc. This brought the high of a good performance down to the low of a bad performance in a matter of seconds and I suddenly wanted to curl up in a ball under my duvet. HOWEVER, after moping in the recording booth for awhile and editing all the ensembles to put onto CD I finally emerged to find a fellow cellist congratulating me on a good performance. I scoffed and remarked how out of tune I was (I said “thank you” first, of course) and she looked at me like I was crazy. She said it did not sound out of tune, that it sounded perfectly in tune (this is exactly what I thought it sounded like until I heard the recording). Of course I went back and listened to the track (this time in my car) and she was right. It sounded great. I have no idea why it sounded so horrible to me in the recording booth but it shed light on the fact that my extreme high and low were so unnecessary. I was muttering to myself such things as “I’ve worked so hard and I’ve come nowhere, this is pointless” and I was totally deflated as well as more than willing to scrap the practicing I had planned for later that day. Is the performance really so important that I’m willing to quit trying if it fails?
Yesterday I was reading an article that talked about “grit” and persevering. The biggest tip I got from it was to schedule a date; a Wednesday every three months where you will let yourself have a 10 minute identity crisis. During this crisis you can question what you’re doing and why. However, if a doubt pops into your mind anytime in between then and now you are to tell yourself “no, this is not the time to worry about this; I will think about this on _____ date”.
How brilliant. In lieu of this advice my next identity crisis will be on July 6th and until then I’m not allowed to say “this is pointless”.
L
