Monday, February 19, 2024
In an organ lesson, early in my college years, I was playing a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was going poorly. I had prepared, and I was so excited to show my teacher my progress. I had worked all week so that he would be pleased. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was stopping in the middle of my lesson to tell him that things were going much better in the practice room. To my surprise, he closed the music and said, “OK, let’s go in the practice room!”
Things did not go better in the practice room either. The problem was not the physical location, but the location of my mind, which was to please someone else. When we perform for another, thinking they will be pleased, we only unplug from our own joy and fulfillment.
The only way around so-called performance nerves is to be totally selfish. Even Gandhi was arguably selfish once when someone complimented him on a talk he gave. He responded to their glowing praise, “I do it for myself.” The reason why I went into music was for myself. Why do anything if it’s not for your own joy? Some of my most profound music-making has been for myself. It’s always for yourself, and the variable between a performance and a practice session is you, not the audience or the location. Do not neglect yourself anymore. Life is too short to do anything for anyone, if you yourself experience no joy.
Do it for yourself. That’s the only way to get better at anything. I write for myself. I play music for myself. I am totally absorbed because I don’t want to miss a second of the joy it brings to ME. Connect to your joy first. Don’t miss out on the joy because you were too busy playing for others.