When do you feel something is ready to be performed?

[staylor]

[This message has been edited by staylor (edited 11-11-2001).]

[chronos]

Something wasn't clear in my previous post. It's not enough to know the notes and rhythms by heart. What I should have said is that it's important to be able to play a piece well enough so that it's easier, within the emotional parameters dictated by the piece, to allow your emotions to influence the music.

[Mu0n]

I just sent it to Lydia. It's a 1 minute excerpt of the Allegro ma non troppo "movement" of the Sitt concertino #3. I just started to seriously practice it this Friday, so I haven't received any feedback from my teacher. I guess it should be played faster than what I do. I'm also not aware of the general character of this piece, because I've never heard, let alone practiced the other parts.

For the other beginners who are curious about this piece, it goes up to fifth position (I think this applies for the entire piece, not just this excerpt).

I just removed ALL traces of vibrato (I don't like hearing myself struggle to make a feeble one) and haven't incorporated dynamics too much yet.

Recording myself forced me to practically learn it by heart very quickly.

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Why have you deleted your posts off, staylor?

[This message has been edited by Mu0n (edited 11-11-2001).]

[bethr]

quote:

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Originally posted by lwl:

When do you feel that something that you're working on is ready to be performed?

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Never

[K545]

quote:

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Originally posted by lwl:

I, too, feel a piece is secure in my hands if I can "play" through the music in my head, from memory, and feel *as if* my body is moving correctly, even if I'm not actually moving at all.

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I agree. I don't think a piece is mine until I can sing it through in my head and "feel" the bow distributions for each phrase.

And the stage fright thing. Ah, yes. It is not just the shakes, for those can be conquered by Inderal. It is the self-consciousness and consequent loss of focus.

The cure for this is simple, although few of us have the guts to do it. Any Saturday or Sunday go to the nearest park, with unaccompanied Bach, music stand and instrument in hand. Set up your stand and music and begin to play for the passersby. Your stage fright will be mastered in one or at most two weekends.

That is plainly the cure. And I've been telling myself for years that one of these days soon I'm going to do it!

[MrWoof]

I know a piece is ready when I can just pick up the violin set my mind in the mood of the work and begin riding the current and flow of the piece without thinking about the technical aspects of it. If it is not at this point then I know it isn't ready and will probably go kerchunk if I present it too soon.

Regards,

Don Crandall

[Cedar]

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out the conspiracy angle of the thread.

In a way I agree with BethR, that given my druthers a piece is never ready for performance, there is alway something to fix or improve. I haven't done a lot of solo work but the times that I remember feeeling the most confident were when I had a good command of the technique of the piece and knew the phrasing.

I'm going to do the solo Bach in the park one of these days myself, really, this next summer.

[LongHair]

I was out of line, Cedar- please ignore.

[lwl]

quote:

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Originally posted by K545:

And the stage fright thing. Ah, yes. It is not just the shakes, for those can be conquered by Inderal. It is the self-consciousness and consequent loss of focus.

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My reaction to things is based on their "importance". I can casually play in front of people if I know it doesn't matter if I screw up -- thus the "music stand in the park" idea doesn't much help me.

It's actually the "redo" factor that gets me. I'm not nervous as long as I know I can do it again. A formal performance situation is the ultimate no-redo, at least in the life of someone like me (I imagine it might be different to someone playing a hundred solo concerts a year). I get wrapped up in trying to perfect the delivery right then and there, and of course that only leads to screwing up.

Also, I think I have some kind of twitch vs. people staring at me when I'm standing up. Sitting down feels very different, for some utterly strange reason. (I find I experience this in public speaking, as well, not just violin-playing.)

Consequently my *real* readiness to perform in a situation I consider "important", is when I can put the entire thing on autopilot and have it sound exactly the way I want it to sound. Given my available practice time, this effectively equates to "never".

I think when I hear a player perform, I want to hear them deliver as close to the best that their current abilities (whatever they happen to be) allow them to.

[Candace]

I think fiddling is a different world.

You're often expected to belt out a tune you learned last week. And it doesn't come out twice the same way anyway, so it's harder to say, "Now it's ready to be performed."

I feel like a piece is ready to be performed if I can play all the right notes at the right speed and make it sound interesting.

There is such a thing as overpreparing. Case in point:

A month or two ago one of my closest friends, my mentor, teacher, and former boss passed away. His widow asked me to play at his funeral. There were just a few pieces...a couple Scottish laments, Amazing Grace, some other tunes.

I played them for some people a couple days before the funeral. I was feeling very sad while playing and I was told that the tunes were wonderful and sad and made them cry.

But I wanted them to be perfect. I knew that everyone in town would be at this funeral. So I practiced and practiced and got to an automatic point with them.

Everything went okay at the funeral, but nobody cried at the music, and the emotion I wanted just wasn't there. I prepared too much, and the tunes were no longer ready to be performed.

[HuangKaiVun]

It wasn't the crack technical performance that the great ones sought.

What bushels of notes were dropped by Rubenstein! And by Ysaye, the incomparable Ysaye!