Weill: the lesson

Performing is a beautiful thing.

Trusting in yourself - your ability to communicate - your ability to listen.

I don’t perform very frequently. But when I do, I realize how much I take it for granted on a daily basis. I forget what I’m capable of, how to get caught up in the momentum of the performance, how that mental space opens up, and allows for you to be flexible, to be in control of your actions. How much fun it is.

It makes me wonder what lessons could be learned if I made the effort to perform more often. I remember being in college, and being completely overwhelmed with my practice schedule, work schedule, homework obligations, and every other extraneous musical project I had going on… Concerts, recitals, lessons, masterclasses, auditions. Everything built up into one stifling anxiety attack. I wasn’t feeding off of these performances, I was overwhelmed by them, and ultimately paralyzed. There was a feeling in there somewhere I knew I was capable of feeling, but it was lost to me at that time. I’d go to a concert, and just when it was my opportunity to perform, I’d lose focus. It might have been fear, but it doesn’t seem like it. It seems more like I was distracted from the performance itself, like I was waiting in the audience to see what I would do, instead of in my own skin, listening.

I spent those years trying to figure out why that was, and what I could do to stop it.

During Saturday’s recital with Andi, I was paying close attention to myself. But not as a critic, almost as a scientist. Noticing what I was thinking, how I was feeling. I purposefully tried to keep my focus, allowing myself to let go, not to get in the way of myself. All the things I’d learned these past few years.

But how did I get there? There’s always been these musical extremes… Performing my own songs has always been like home-base, that comfortable ground where I knew I was free to experiment without being compared to other saxophonists, to other pianists, to other jazz players. Performing this way these past few years, away from expectation, allowed me to become more of myself when I perform. A more natural musician. Slowly trying to undo the unnecessary pressure I’d put on myself for so much time. Learning new interpretations to songs, seeing what I had to offer them, was the first step for me. Knowing you can create your own boundaries to help focus you, not to distract you. For example, here is the melody to a song you like! But how do you want to hear the chords? Harmonies? Do you even want to change the melody? What would it sound like if I sang it? The first step is knowing it in its original context, but accepting that that performer is only a performer, just like you. It’s hard with Kurt Weill, who is a composer that is performed frequently, but you wouldn’t hear him in a concert hall to the extent that you would hear a Mozart aria. However, I’m sure his Foundation would have a thing or two to say about our performance. Regardless, Andi and I tried to approach the recital as an outlet for ourselves to BE ourselves as performers, instead of trying to recreate what is already out there. We hadn’t had that opportunity for a while, and I think we both really wanted to see what we were capable of. It was a difficult process, because, for example, we really love Anne Sofie von Otter. Her interpretations are great. And part of us wants to experience what she experiences. But neither of us ARE Anne Sofie von Otter. So what would be the most effective and rewarding way to perform these songs? We let them develop on their own. Yes, having the luxury of, well, 3 years to play through them over and over helped this process a little. But ultimately, we learned a lot about each other as performers, and our visions for these songs by letting them find their way out naturally.

I ‘spose you could also just have a beer before you sit down at the piano, as well. But I have a predisposition to hiccups, so that route probably isn’t best for me.

In any case, I’m very proud of Andi and I for sticking to our guns, and Andi even more so for really taking the reigns and making this happen. There’s no better motivation for the future than knowing you were part of a good performance.