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Learning in Public: Part 3

This is a critical post about performing. I take you inside my mind to illustrate the good and the challenges of performance. Going from the practice room to the public platform is something that all musicians do. In school, at university, or with a teacher this is something that is trained into you and facilitated. There is performance class, there are opportunities to ‘air’ the music first, but what happens when you leave that environment and are on your own? Do you keep it going? Do you still push yourself? Few graduating musicians are likely to play the same concerti they prepared for their final recitals as recital material and certainly not as regular ‘gig’ material. And what of the learning opportunities? When you leave your teacher’s studio, there are no more regular performance classes, and depending on what you do there may not be any peers to play for….unless you create the opportunities. This is the story of the opportunity I created, my thought processes, and the results. I’m learning in public. (Featured image CC-BY-NC by C Steele)

I tell my students that they should play a programme at least three times in public before their final recital. It’s advice I hope to stick to as well. This was one of those opportunities. Five weeks ago I agreed to play a one-hour programme as the first of a series of early evening concerts at my village church. It is a beautiful setting – right on the water and over 1000 years old. Lovely. So it was set. I could play what I wanted and it would be a free concert to encourage live music in the church and village. Perfect.

I chose Bach 6th cello suite to open the programme. What was I thinking!?!? I was thinking it is great music and if I don’t challenge myself, then what am I doing. I have both a fantastic success and horror story with performances of that suite. I played it at university and it went really well and I played it at Chichester Cathedral in a recital just before my first son was born in 1998 (10 days before) and someone had kicked my spike stopper (little rubber disc to keep the cello end-pin/spike in place) and when I started to play the cello shot across the floor. I was sporting a 43 inch waist (oh he was a big baby!) and with a tummy like that there was no way I could grip the cello with my knees… All I could co was hook my feet around the legs of the chair and follow my cello across the floor. Oh. My. Let’s just say that wasn’t my finest hour. It is repertoire I love and I am planning to play it again in February at the university and perhaps I’ll play a couple of movements in America when giving some educational workshops, and  I thought that a low-key village recital would be a perfect time to get stuck back into it, and having a six month lead time to the other gigs seemed like good planning to me.

As a student it is possible to practice all day long, but as a mum of 3 who has a full time job, practicing has to be planned. I tell students that there is no way to tell them how other commitments (jobs and babies in particular) focus the mind and suddenly what used to take a day to accomplish can be strategically put into a few hours, and planning comes into it all in a different way than as a student. I did practice, but not 4-5 hours a day, otherwise the family would eat cereal and cookies for most meals. (I’m kidding, well a little bit kidding) The thing is that I knew it wasn’t practical for me to produce a memorised performance in 5 weeks, so I decided to use the music. I broke all the rules. yikes.

What were the challenges in preparation? (these are the things people don’t talk about, and I’m not sure why because we all go through them)

Time. There were days when my family needed me. We also had visitors for 2 weeks and that is tricky to just ignore people.

Revising known repertoire. I find that when going over material that I once knew very well it is like riding a bike – sort of… A friend once called it ‘honeymoon fingers’, you know, it’s all love and roses and then you come home and have to face normal life. When re-learning something, you remember it and know much of it, but the fingers need to be really in shape and drilled so that when unexpected pressures happen, it is still secure. That takes time, careful listening, and convincing your brain that you think you know it, but you still need to practice it like you don’t so that you really can know it.

Stamina. The 6th suite is for a 5 string cello, and that means when played on a 4 string cello there is a lot of high position work, and if the hand is not trained well, it shows – and this was the beginning of the programme. There was another half hour of music to come after the Bach.

What was going through my mind when playing it??

First lets talk about beforehand:

This was a concert in a village church, and I didn’t spend time quietly in a green room (because there is none!). Instead I stood at the door and greeted everyone and thanked them for coming. I never would have done that in my student days – I would be nearly ill in the wings. I was concerned about the humidity – I had clammy hands and sticky fingers are not fun on a string instrument. Ah well, let’s hope I prepared well…

When I went to play I had the problem of looking at the music. See, I don’t read well – I do memorise things, and I remember where they are visually on the page, but I didn’t trust myself to have it all down from memory, but it was 85% memorised, and that meant I didn’t want to read it – but if I didn’t look I might not be able to find my place if I needed to look. Oh my. The problem wasn’t necessarily all that, but that I THOUGHT OF IT while playing- like a ticker-tape parade in my mind. I wasn’t nervous, so to speak, but I need more practice gathering my mind and using it well in those situations and in different spaces.8545387591_320887166e_z
(image CC BY-NC-ND by Emma Duran)

The biggest problem when performing is to have thoughts in your mind. Whether you call it a meditative state, flow, zen, or just being in the moment – performers need that, and when something random creeps in… it needs to be ushered out immediately. When there is a wobble in the playing – intonation, fatigue, a bow placement squeak – these all coincided with a lapse in concentration (or a lapse in the pleasant clear void of the performance mind) when I had

a thought. 

It is all part of practicing and getting better. The thing that I am reminded, is that just because I am 42 and have done it once does not mean I can automatically do it again. It takes work. Lots of it, and I am still learning. Music is a funny world where we practice for hundreds of hours for each one hour of performance and how often do we get to practice performance?

The audience did enjoy it, and yes, in reflection I am plenty critical of myself (as any musician will also be if/when they hear it – it was not perfect and i know it) but it is important to remember that live music is live, fantastic to experience, and despite the things I would like to (will) fix for next time, I do not regret giving a free concert and playing to that church full of people coming from across the spectrum of life. I hope this post gives some insight into the unspoken topic of performance – Most importantly, keep at it. Perform. and enjoy it!

 

1 thought on “Learning in Public: Part 3”

  1. Pingback: Practice: Music, mind, & body - lauraritchie.com

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