"Perfection" as a barrier to true music making - Revised 11-22-14

In addition to my career as a performer and teacher, I serve in other capacities which sometimes demand that I speak publicly. At times these are rather high pressure situations. As with my playing, I spend an incredible amount of time and energy preparing for these occasions and am often fraught with anxiety leading up to the moment of truth. What I have observed, however, is that when it comes time to deliver, I am usually able to let go and feel very much like a conduit for something to speak through me. In these moments I feel like an observer listening to the words coming out, often in a surprisingly effective manner.

I was recently called upon to speak on camera about something that means a lot to me - music. I was asked what makes the greatest musical performances, and I observed the following statement come out of my mouth:  

"the purest connection of minds free from any obstruction".

My body was absolutely relaxed and confident in the way we hope to be as performers on our instruments. Somehow, I was able to let go and trust my knowledge and preparation to get the job done well and found myself in "the zone". From this “zone” I was able to put together a series of words which I had never uttered before, but yet expressed perfectly what I meant.

The interviewer commented on the effectiveness and ease of my delivery, and I was able to observe and understand what happens to me in these moments with clarity.

"If I tried to say it 'right', I could never do this."

This was an insight I had never had before about my speaking, but it was the absolute truth. If I had written a script and thought through every word to deliver in precisely the right order, my priority would have been "getting it right" instead of communicating my message. With perfection as the focus, the connection between us would have become muddied at best and completely severed at worst. Letting go and trusting the knowledge you possess to speak through you can yield some remarkably effective communication.

Since these words came out of my mouth, I began to really reflect on what makes that "purest connection of minds free from any obstruction" in a speech and try to relate it to musical performance. I began to look at some of the most powerful speeches in history. Here in the US, there have been incredible Presidential acceptance speeches and inspiring words from political conventions in recent years. Thinking back in history, landmark speeches by JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. also come to mind. Each of these speeches has an element of improvisation and interaction with the crowd receiving the message. I took the opportunity to watch John F. Kennedy's 1963 speech in Berlin as a fine example of how to convey a powerful message.

Notice that he is not glued to a pre-written speech but only has a series of note cards to which he refers occasionally. Notice that his eyes connect with the people of West Berlin who eagerly consume each utterance. There is a conversation even though he is the only one speaking. There is also an element of improvisation as he interacts with the energy of the crowd. He owns the message he is delivering and is unfettered by the written page. It seems to me that the message is speaking through him.

Could he possibly have written down the exact words, seconds of pause between, which words to repeat etc and gotten the same response? I can't imagine it. Nobody trying to replicate that speech will ever do as well.

How does this relate to music?

The one thing that no computer or recording will ever replace is the live performance. The experience of listening to a great orchestra, jazz combo or chamber music group perform is a singular one with no two performances ever the same. By the very nature of so many minds constantly reacting to a music director and each other, an orchestra must be removed from that single static idea of "perfection". Yes, we are all reading pages of notes, but any orchestra member will tell you that the majority of our attention is spent watching, listening and constantly adjusting how we play what we see on the page to fit within the ever evolving collective effort.

Reflecting on recent Boston Philharmonic Beethoven 9 concerts in Symphony Hall, I was able to realize the magnitude of the shared experience. When considering all of the minds involved in this conversation, we see the connections grow exponentially. We begin with deaf Beethoven creating music in his imagination with so much more clarity than he could ever hear in the "real world". This incredible picture of such vastness is deciphered from the graphic representation of the score left by the composer and processed through the mind of the music director (in this case Benjamin Zander) and executed through further interpretation of 100 members of an orchestra, 4 soloists and a chorus. This message was then received by 2,800 audience members who fed the conversation with their own energy.

At a recent masterclass the great Hakan Hardenberger made one statement which stood out as the finest way I have ever heard to describe a great performance.  He said

“We want to feel as if the music is being invented before our eyes.”

Perhaps now we understand why HE is Hakan Hardenberger!

This conversation, when an audience is open to receive and the musicians are highly trained enough to execute the music and comfortable enough to let go and allow the music speak through them, is what creates magic. This produces the same collective elation that draws an audience to its feet and to roar with cheers and applause in a concert hall as the citizens of Berlin reacted to the honesty and sincerity of JFK's message. The musical experience, however, is so much more powerful and visceral as there is no language to decode and nothing is lost in translation.

How does this relate to auditions?

As a result of this line of thinking I have re-examined my audition preparation process and returned to the words of my musical mentor and former Principal Trumpet of the Boston Symphony, Charles Schlueter. Charlie is a wealth of priceless concepts about music making and life. One of the principles he constantly drilled into his students was “never play it the same way twice”. This is key to communication through music.

I teach the concepts delivered by sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella in his books "Golf is not a Game of a Perfect" and "Life is not a Game of Perfect". I have always benefited from his concepts as they applied to auditions and the physical act of playing the trumpet. Dr. Rotella's concepts of training your swing on the driving range and trusting it on the course resonate well with me as a trumpeter. Thinking of technique while trying to hit a golf ball or playing the trumpet yields less than optimal results.

A quote from one of his books: "Before playing any shot, a golfer must lock his eyes and mind onto the smallest possible target." has been a mantra for me over the years. My translation of this to music is to have the clearest aural picture of exactly what I wanted to sound like. Many of us work really hard to come up with that one perfect rendition of Petrouchka or Pines etc. Upon reflection, in this I believe that I have missed an important part of the golf-music correlation.

In golf, you never play the same shot more than once! Picturing a golf shot is a response to unique set of circumstances at a moment in time. This is the same with music!

So, yet again the wisdom of Charlie’s teaching reveals itself to me in a new light. Practicing excerpts as most of us do is the equivalent of repeatedly reading a paragraph off the page exactly the same way. Instead of that, Charlie encouraged us to practice etudes and generally polish our ability to get the ideas in our head out in a variety of ways and only peripherally approach the excerpts. This process not only prevents undue anxiety building up around these small chunks of music, but allows one to “own” the material (how to play the trumpet) and be more responsive in the moment. Be sure that your preparation allows you to be responsive to the unique circumstances of the moment. Feel the energy of the committee, the resonance of the room and who YOU are in that moment. Make it a conversation.

Among the many books about the psychology of sports and musical performance on my shelf, "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Werner is one of the most powerful. The book and the accompanying meditations are a wonderful study on getting out of one's own way and tapping into the music that is flowing through all of us. I recommend this to every performer as an invaluable tool for achieving true and direct communication through music.

The goal for all of us is to use our printed page, chord changes, and whatever else we use to serve only as note cards that allow us to channel what we already know and feel deep inside us. Get rid of the obstructions of needing to be “perfect” and allow yourself to communicate. Proper investment in practice and preparation helps you to own your message so that you can let go and invent the music before your audience’s eyes.

Just Do It

This is a short post today inspired by a Huffington Post article that really infuriated me. It talked about"choking" under pressure, particularly in sports. The crux of the article is this:

Whether you choke under pressure might have more to do with your motivation: specifically, to what extent that you are driven by a desire to win or by a desire to avoid losing. If you're very loss-averse -- meaning that you hate losing more than you love winning -- your chances of choking will be lower. But for those who value the rush of winning over the pain of losing, the likelihood of choking is often higher.

What this entire article fails to acknowledge is that there is a third option. In addition to "loving winning" or "hating losing", the motivation that most successful athletes embrace is one that minimizes thought of outcomes and keeps them focussed on the task at hand. 

Athletes at peak performance level call this state of focus being "in the zone".  For a shortstop to make a spectacular catch does not allow time for thoughts of winning or losing. An incredible putt from 50 feet over undulating greens at the Masters is a result of visualizing the path the ball will take, not an imagined final score. 

As musicians, we are high level athletes using incredibly fine muscle control to express ourselves through our voice or instrument. Whether we perform in a concert or in an audition, I make the clearest association with the game of golf because we have nobody playing defense! Like a golfer, the challenge of our job is to stay out of our own way.  Thoughts of winning/losing or missing/hitting notes are defensive players of our own making. 

What would Nike's corporate ledger look like with this slogan?

I am very loss averse

Any time that we perform, our best course of action is to control those variables which are in our control and focus on communicating clearly. Winning or losing an audition is NOT in our control, but presenting the best performance we can muster in that moment IS in our control. My beloved mentor Charles Schlueter ingrained in his students that the power is in "staying in the present". Notes missed in the past cannot be sucked back in and you can't do anything about the high C at the end until the moment arrives. Worry about either undermines your ability to create the most beautiful sound NOW. 

I often quote the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr when talking about auditions. 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.

Seek to understand that difference. Oiling your valves, bringing your mutes, and diligent preparation are variables in your control. We cannot control outcomes, but we have the best chance of success with our motivation being the courageous third option of staying focussed on the present and JUST DO IT. 

Practice Space - The Practice Routine

All of the blog posts I have written so far lead you to this. If you REALLY want to improve, there is no better tool than this simple practice routine. Saying it is simple is misleading as the discipline required to break old habits of mindless repetition is very difficult.

What I have written below expands on the basic practice routine that I got from Vince Penzerella. I give my endless thanks to Vince for giving me this tool for efficient and effective practice.

STOP! 

What do you want to accomplish?

Before we even begin to practice, it is important for us to have goals. Do not be afraid of dreaming big! In the words of 19th century American psychologist William James "people by and large become what they think of themselves." This quote came to me from golf psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella who also said "people with big dreams achieve great things."

You should have a series of goals beginning with grand long term goals and becoming ever more detailed as we approach shorter term and daily goals. Especially as we approach the most short term goals, they must be realistic and allow for small successes along the way to reaching those more lofty long term goals.

For example, I may have at one point had the following list of goals.

Long Term Goals

• Have a long career in a major symphony orchestra
• Win and retain a major symphony orchestra position. 

Medium Term Goals

• Conquer my fear of Brandenburg 2
• Gain better control of my softest dynamics
• Play more effortlessly
• Arrive at audition comfortable that I have prepared well

Short Term Goals

• Become more comfortable with my Eb trumpet (upcoming Haydn performance)
• Get a good audition tape ready for summer festivals

Daily Goals

• Clarify my articulation on Fetes and Pines Mvt 1
• Better intonation and sound on Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition  
• Practice well: Thoughtfully and Efficiently

In order to achieve any goals, Vince's approach is as follows. I may discuss orchestral excerpts, but it works for anything.

1) Mental Practice - Create: Creating your ideal trumpeter: (The real creative process)

This is the most powerful part of the process and what most people skip. Take a moment and close your eyes. Imagine yourself in your favorite performance space. Feel yourself on the stage and really immerse yourself in that environment. Look out into the space and see it in as much detail as you can. (In my mind, I visualize Boston's Symphony Hall.) Understand the size of the space, see the colors etc.  (One wonderful upside to this is that because I imagined while practicing that I was in Symphony Hall, it was also easier to imagine I was in my practice room while auditioning at Symphony Hall!)

Hear yourself begin to play whatever you are working on with your ideal trumpet sound. (For example, let's say the Promenade of Pictures at an Exhibition.) Really put yourself in the space and hear your ideal sound in as much detail as you can. I often imagine it with a shape and color so that I can see it interact with the space. This sound is THE most important thing you have to give the world as an artist. Whatever that sound is, the goal of everything we do is to get it out of your head and into someone else's.

Continue to hear more and more detail as you listen to your ideal sound. Draw your attention to the connections between notes, the direction of the phrases, etc. Really perform! Interact with the audience if you have one and tell a story. Take chances and allow yourself to imagine all that it could be.

This is a wonderful confidence building part of the process as I have rarely had anyone report that they heard missed notes in their heads! This part of practice can be done anywhere and for me often yields better results than time on the face. Treasure this!

Once you have defined what you want to sound like, pat yourself on the back and know that you are already ahead of 90% of your peers.

2) Press Record - Perform: Bringing your creation to life.

Hit the record button on your recording device and just play along with that wonderful sound you created in your head. Start with short passages. Promenade is a great one. Turn up the volume on your mental recording as high as it will go. Your awareness of the actual sound you create out the bell should be merely peripheral. Your goal should be to completely lose yourself in the sound you have created in your mind embracing it entirely as a real performance.

In this part of the process it is important to remember these important points:

• The mind cannot create and criticize at the same time.
• You cannot hear your own sound as others do from behind the bell.
• Internal vibration and compression narrows what you do hear.
• Once you hear a miss, it is too late to do anything about it, so why bother. 

Therefore, just turn the sound up on your great recording in your head and play along!

3) Press Play - Listen: Changing hats from performer to critic.

Changing into listening mode will free that critic which you have drowned out with the excessively loud amplifier you turned up to 11 in the last segment. It is important to separate this from performance and analysis.

Press play on your recording. While listening to what you have done, ask yourself Vince's question:

"Is what I am hearing on the tape the same as what I heard in my imagination?" 

Listen critically for all the details you created above. You can answer yes, no or I'm not sure.

If your answer is YES: 

• Pat your self on the back and enjoy your accomplishment! 
• Keep trying for more YES answers!
• Start again with more details or new material.

If your answer is NO:

• Pat yourself on the back and be glad that you know what you are looking for!
• Make a list of what you wish to improve and go to the wood shed. (See below)
• Stay connected to your ideal goal.

If you answer is I'M NOT SURE:

• Pat yourself on the back for admitting it!
• Spend more time in your imagination defining what you want.

You may find that you have a combination of answers on any given passage. That is fine! Be sure to congratulate yourself for where you stack up well against your ideal. This is part of building confidence for the future.

4) Back to the wood shed: Refining the vehicle of expression.

This is practice in the traditional sense and normally what we feel most comfortable doing. However, your practice is now informed by a much more detailed idea of what you hope to achieve and where you need improvement. Here is where your short and mid term goals are formed.

Goals: From what you want to improve, set a few goals for that day’s practice.

• A few which you can definitely achieve
• A few which will be attainable only with real diligent and focused attention.

Setting clear and realistic goals is of vital importance. A goal for me to "play with the ease of Allen Vizzutti" in the course of one session will only set me up to fail and erode my confidence. Aiming for it in a short passage is something which can be built upon. 

While working out your issues, keep the following important points in mind

• Rest as much as you play. This was first preached to me by Frank Kaderabek in high school. We build muscle when it is at rest. Make sure not to constantly tear down muscle to the point of failure! If you follow this routine and listen to what you have recorded, you already have that taken care of above. 
• Revisit your warm-up. Stay focused on a good approach. Refer to this earlier blog post about The Warmup 
• Stay connected to the music. Never lose sight of the fact that you are an artist. The goal is not to "not miss notes" but to express something uniquely yours through your instrument. Spend some more time in your imaginary concert hall if you find yourself losing focus. 
• Find musical solutions to technical problems. Charlie Schlueter is absolutely brilliant with this. Instead of trying to find a physical way to get a clearer slur, he could help you change the inflection of the line to get the desired result. Better musical decisions usually cause fewer technical challenges!
• Separate the components: This is also majorly influenced by Vince. His words were "You learn more away from your instrument than with it". Connect to the ideal sound in your head and:
• Deal with pitch alone with singing and buzzing
• Deal with articulation with simple wind patterns
• Slam your fingers to be more definite
• Realize that everything that has to move needs to move at the same time. If you approach all of the above with great rhythm, coordinating them is simple. 
• Take breaks: A fresh mind and body work best

Repeat: Start the process over

Start the process again and remember to keep the music and your ideal in the front of your mind. This can be repeated endlessly allowing you to remain fresh for very long stretches of practicing. Be vigilant as your mind is what tires first. Don’t fall into the trap of judgement while performing.

Best wishes for incredibly efficient practice!

Practice Space - Mental Space

Now that you have a good place to practice, you need to have the right mental approach to get maximum results. It is vital to find the focus necessary for good work.

With our lives increasingly busy, we tend to cram practice in the midst of other stresses. Real practice takes a focus and clarity of thought that demands our complete attention. Finding the time is hard enough. Once you have scheduled it, make sure that you get the most out of it. Find a way to leave all other thoughts behind. It is often easier to find this focus when you have a regularly scheduled practice time within a well-budgeted calendar. Optimally, find several shorter intervals during the day to keep your mind sharp.

Once you have a good space with plenty of focused time to practice, you are ready to build the new trumpet player within you. My goal is to help my students become as physically efficient and musically informed trumpet players as possible. Help set the stage for great practice before you begin.

1) Have adequate fuel for the machine - make sure that you have eaten a meal to fuel the brain. A grumbling stomach will distract you from the task at hand.

2) Have a notepad with you. Should distractions of "to-dos" arise, you can jot them down and continue.

3) Turn off notifications on your smart phone. I am guilty of being tied to my email.

4) Get rid of any other possible distractions that you can. Life does intervene, but do your best.

Now you are ready to begin.

The purpose of practice for me is simple: I want to improve the process of getting the sound in my head out through my chosen tool, the trumpet, so that it can enter the listener's ears and we can share that sound together.

Arnold Palmer, the great golfer said, "Practice with INTENTION and ATTENTION." These are wise words from a master, which truly apply to us as trumpet players. Amateur golfers often hit the driving range and just hit balls and watch where they go. For Arnold, there was always a clear target in mind and a purpose for what he was doing. How many of us have gone through our lives practicing scales mindlessly in front of the television?

For a long time, I was concerned with "putting time in". There is no doubt that at some point in all of our lives, we need to spend time developing the muscles which help us produce a sound. However, if we are not careful, the incorrect muscle memory that we develop early on can remain a burden throughout our careers. In many ways, some of the repertoire that I learned first is the most challenging for me now. The haphazard practice of youth ingrained habits that remain difficult to re-program. As a sort of vaccine against these habits, Norman Bolter, the fantastic former trombonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and educator counsels his students to approach everything like it is their first time, even if it is a solo or etude they have played for decades.

I do a fun exercise with my students every once in a while. Just as they are about to play, I pull the trumpet away and ask them to sing the first note. It is amazing to them when they actually play the note and hear how far off they are. So many players get in the habit of just blowing into the horn and waiting to see what the note sounds like. This is backwards!!!

Imagine for a moment the creative process of other artists. Don't forget, you ARE an artist. A painter doesn't wait to see what the brush does, nor does a poet wait to see what words come out of his pencil. The creative process must begin with the intention in your mind to communicate a sound, an image, a texture etc. Years ago, I asked a young student named Madeleine to define music. Her response has always stuck with me. Even as a 6th grader, she understood; "Music is talking without words." We must always have a clear image of what we are trying to communicate or we are just potters throwing our clay on the wheel and hoping for the best.

That sound in your head is the target that Arnold Palmer was always hitting to on the range and on the course. It is that INTENTION to communicate the sound in your head that begins to make the physical process work. The rest of practice is ATTENTION to the details of what you are trying to communicate as well as to your physical habits. More on both to come!