Let’s Talk – Personal Success and Failure

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. Between work, lessons, blog, YouTube, rehearsals and other family obligations I have definitely been falling down on my practicing and morning routines lately.

Take last week for example, when i realized for the first time that I had messed up on my YouTube Salem Philharmonia playlist and had forgotten entirely to add the Bruch symphony that we are playing. So since the beginning of the year I’ve been neglecting listening to that but doubling up on Tschaikovsky because I put that piece in twice.

ARRRGGGG!

So lets talk about something that is extremely relevant to my experiences in the last couple of weeks. Personal successes and failures.

Last time I shared with you about how I felt that the first rehearsal for one of my symphony groups was the worst first rehearsal in my post-collegiate career. Well, I’m not sure how much better I’ve gotten, which is disturbing since the concert is in 5 days.

5 days. How did it come to this?

So lets talk about my personal successes, small as they may be, for this concert set. Success #1 – My morning routine has really brought me joy.

I hate mornings. It’s one of the worst times of day for me, but since changing my morning routine I have found out a couple of things about myself.

1. I enjoy about 30 minutes of quiet time in the morning. This is time after I’ve fed Dante, my fat black cat, where I can sit on my couch with coffee and read a book. Currently I’m rereading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which feeds my need for post-Battle at Hogwarts wizarding world information.

2. I love listening to symphony music while I get ready in the morning. I have a surround system in my living room which is really close to my bathroom. I’ll pair the Bluetooth on the sound system with my phone and play my YouTube playlists while I do my hair and put on my makeup. I have a couple observations from this as well.
   

3. The Chausson symphony does not hold my attention very well. I can be alert to it through most of the first movement but then I check out and start thinking about other things and eventually I stop really listening.

4. The other pieces (minus the Bruch because I forgot to add that to my playlists til this week) have gotten markedly better in rehearsal since I have been listening to them in the morning.

5. I find that with this morning routine I am more awake, alert, and functional at my 8-5 desk job. Being alert and functional can be extremely challenging when you are doing repetitive keystrokes for 8 hours a day. Especially for me. I don’t mind this work, in fact I think it’s super interesting, but I like being creative and sometimes I feel a bit stifled, which makes my mind wonder, which makes me daydream, which makes me sleepy….. you get the drift right?

Success #2 – Practice has been more focused since my personal epic fail a couple weeks ago.

I have found that when I do get to practice, which is much less than I would like to be honest, I am more focused. I can turn to the spots that cause me trouble and work on them for a longer period of time and become less frustrated. Usually. I also think this may be due to how many times a week I’m listening to the pieces. Success # 3 – Practicing wins

Personally I feel like my performance in rehearsals have gotten better on most pieces and that I feel more confident. With the exception of the Chausson, the practice that I’ve done on all the other pieces has produced some great rehearsals and brought me a long way from that first abysmal rehearsal.

Now let’s talk about my failures. I know I’m probably being harder than I should be… Failure #1 – The Chausson Symphony

There will always be that one piece that as a musician gives you a little bit of PTSD. This one is the one for me. Every time I go to practice it I lock up! My fingers become a jumble of fleshy stumps and nothing sounds good. My tongue decides it wants to go numb and I can’t articulate clearly to save the life me of me, my family or my beloved cat!

I think one of the reasons this piece gives such performance anxiety is that I can never seem to translate what I’m doing in the practice room to the stage. Last Sunday I was confident that a couple spots had been resolved with the practice I’d done the day before. Nope. All that work to be jumbled up by flesh stump hands and a numb tongue. Failure #2 – Giving up

usually in rehearsals when things go wrong I power through, I find my place, I get back up again. But this time, especially in the Chausson, I get so frustrated and upset with myself I just stop playing and wait until the next big entrance. I hate doing this. It’s unprofessional and not to mention childish. But I think the reason why this has started happening is because I’m not confident on that piece.

Not feeling confident in rehearsals and not normal for me, and it’s personally upsetting. Last week when I was riding home with my carpooling buddies I was surprised to hear that both of them thought rehearsal had gone pretty well. I said “wow that’s not how I felt at all. Yes I played better than I normally do on that piece but I still feel like crap now that it’s over.”

This exchange reminded me that what I think of myself is often much harsher than what other people think. My carpooling buddies had seen the progress that the group has made on this piece despite the rough time we have all had with it.

It’s all about how we look at things.

We are always harder on ourselves than we need to be. It’s a constant battle to overcome the urge to punish myself internally for all the imperfections in my playing, but I’m working on it. I call myself a recovering perfectionist, meaning it takes work. Everyday.

Well hope you all are thriving in your rehearsals and that your concerts turn out amazing!

Aim high and keep on practicing!

Sara