Test Pilot

In memory of Neil Armstrong

Today, I presented a little lecture recital on Gottschalk for our departmental recital. As part of this I shared the idea that playing in departmental recital is like being a test pilot.

A little helpful background for those who haven't been music majors before: the process of preparing to perform music, at least the process followed in an academic setting, involves these three stages.

1. Work one-on-one with your primary applied teacher to learn the music, to get some idea of how to interpret it, and to develop disciplines to support your performance.

2. Practice performing for peers (peers who study with the same teacher) in studio class.

3. Performance for a larger group of peers in departmental recital.

As you can see, these steps become progressively more public. The result of this is that students often feel a lot of pressure to play or sing well on the departmental recital.

Pressure or not, the fact is that some event has to be the first time you go public with your performance of each work in your repertoire. A test flight must happen sometime and somewhere. That's what departmental recital is for. You take your performance up and it might work great, or your psyche might pull apart up in the air. But at the very least, the instrument isn't actually going to blow up and your life is not really in danger, although you might go into fight, flight, or freeze-mode just for the heck of it!

Another comforting thing about this test flight (That last paragraph was comforting. Music students, you'll want to re-read it if you didn't catch the comforting part.) is that that this test flight takes place in the company of many other test pilots. Everyone present has the same fear of blacking out and making crash landings. It can be the most empathetic of audiences.

While navigating the performance experience, I am often reminded that the business of musical performance seems to demand a presentation that appears whole and a presenter who comes across as self-assured and as one who has arrived. But the art of performing music requires that we be on a quest involving growth and vulnerability. On this quest, we learn the same things over and over again. We become exhaustingly familiar with our specific issues. And I think it is best to think of these as issues and not problems. They are the things that make us who we are. And we must be ourselves so that others can be themselves. I think of my mentors who were clearly being their own unique selves. Without them being exactly who they were, I could not have found the way to be who I am, which is someone quite different from who they are.

Some of my issues I was reminded of in my recent departmental recital performance:
too much movement, physical tension, and general lack of focus on fundamentals of musicianship in performance. I'm trusting that somehow, in the big scheme of things, in some significantly human way, in the divine design, that it is important and worthwhile for me to have and deal with these issues.

A pianist is always somewhere in the process of learning music and bringing it to the public. Each performance is a step in a life-long journey that keeps you alive and moving artistically. Knowing these steps, making the journey- these are the core, motivation, and discipline of our musical lives.