The longer I study horn here at U of Michigan, the more I feel a lot how I expect professional athletes feel in their careers. Unlike most majors in college, where study is focused on learning everything to pass exams and deal with problems you'll face in a future job, music, like sports, requires study that trains your body to respond in a very specific physical way. Sure, there's mental things you have to do, and thing you have to think about, but the people who are successful are the ones who are able to perform physically the best in a stressful situation.
Learning how to and competing on the Michigan Rowing Team gave me a really interesting perspective on this. I couldn't understand how all that practice and hours of pain really amounted to just a race that lasts under 7 minutes, where all that was required was to perform the exact same stroke less than 200 times in sync with 7 other guys. It didn't seem that hard!
What I've noticed though, with that experience and with my multitude of experiences in music, is that we don't practice to be perfect! As weird as that may sound, it's kind of true. From a religious standpoint, no person (Christ excluded) will or has ever lived a perfect life. As human beings, its a crutch we have to carry that we will never be perfect or make perfect choices. From a rowing standpoint, I remember the day I was talking to my coach about how to "row perfectly", or have the perfect stroke. He turned to me and he said: "No matter what you do, there will always be something to fix about your stroke".
I feel the same way about performing music. A little while ago, Scott Strong, the 3rd chair in the DSO, came to our studio class and he said how we'll never be completely happy with what we play. There will always be something we'll look back and say we could have done better, or that someone else says they would have liked to hear more or less of. To hear that from him (who's a relatively young player in a pretty serious orchestra) was kind of crazy. I mean, if he's saying that, then I have a lot of work to do(: Whenever I play something, very rarely do I step back and say I wouldn't have changed anything. Occasionally it happens and I freak out and can't believe what miraculous day it is, but chances are, there was something in there that wasn't "perfect".
I think in the is sense expecting perfection from performance is really detrimental to musicians. If we hold ourselves to that standard, and then beat ourselves up for any slight mistake, even in style or dynamics, we lose confidence in ourselves and our ability to play. In turn, that hurts us when we play more and more, and eventually we can't play anywhere near where we used to be because of that los of confidence.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't expect that we can play it perfectly. There's a big difference between expecting that you will play perfectly, and believing that you can play perfectly. It's the best to strive for perfection, but also to not be bogged down when the 276 note you played, or the 10th crescendo in that line doesn't come out as clearly as you would like it to. Anybody can technically play perfectly, there's just a lot of things that have to come together. The trick is practicing and performing to eliminate as many chances of imperfection as you can. Add to that a big shot of confidence in yourself and your practicing, and you have the solution to how to be an effective musician.
Scott Strong also in another encounter (we see him pretty frequently(: ) said to the effect: "Obviously you all are going to do something differently, cause you're all individuals. In an audition setting, you don't have a conductor to give you directions. So just play it, so the people behind the screen know that you know what you're doing".
Good words. Isn't that in a real sense what being an artist is all about?
Learning how to and competing on the Michigan Rowing Team gave me a really interesting perspective on this. I couldn't understand how all that practice and hours of pain really amounted to just a race that lasts under 7 minutes, where all that was required was to perform the exact same stroke less than 200 times in sync with 7 other guys. It didn't seem that hard!
What I've noticed though, with that experience and with my multitude of experiences in music, is that we don't practice to be perfect! As weird as that may sound, it's kind of true. From a religious standpoint, no person (Christ excluded) will or has ever lived a perfect life. As human beings, its a crutch we have to carry that we will never be perfect or make perfect choices. From a rowing standpoint, I remember the day I was talking to my coach about how to "row perfectly", or have the perfect stroke. He turned to me and he said: "No matter what you do, there will always be something to fix about your stroke".
I feel the same way about performing music. A little while ago, Scott Strong, the 3rd chair in the DSO, came to our studio class and he said how we'll never be completely happy with what we play. There will always be something we'll look back and say we could have done better, or that someone else says they would have liked to hear more or less of. To hear that from him (who's a relatively young player in a pretty serious orchestra) was kind of crazy. I mean, if he's saying that, then I have a lot of work to do(: Whenever I play something, very rarely do I step back and say I wouldn't have changed anything. Occasionally it happens and I freak out and can't believe what miraculous day it is, but chances are, there was something in there that wasn't "perfect".
I think in the is sense expecting perfection from performance is really detrimental to musicians. If we hold ourselves to that standard, and then beat ourselves up for any slight mistake, even in style or dynamics, we lose confidence in ourselves and our ability to play. In turn, that hurts us when we play more and more, and eventually we can't play anywhere near where we used to be because of that los of confidence.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't expect that we can play it perfectly. There's a big difference between expecting that you will play perfectly, and believing that you can play perfectly. It's the best to strive for perfection, but also to not be bogged down when the 276 note you played, or the 10th crescendo in that line doesn't come out as clearly as you would like it to. Anybody can technically play perfectly, there's just a lot of things that have to come together. The trick is practicing and performing to eliminate as many chances of imperfection as you can. Add to that a big shot of confidence in yourself and your practicing, and you have the solution to how to be an effective musician.
Scott Strong also in another encounter (we see him pretty frequently(: ) said to the effect: "Obviously you all are going to do something differently, cause you're all individuals. In an audition setting, you don't have a conductor to give you directions. So just play it, so the people behind the screen know that you know what you're doing".
Good words. Isn't that in a real sense what being an artist is all about?
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