The Reckless Violinist: Performance Diary № 1
A Story of Injury, Despair and My Teacher’s Tragedy
Performance Diary № 1:
March 8, 2021:
I’m playing “Brindisi!” from La Traviata.
It’s like being 13 again.
I’m playing the way a 13- or 14-year-old would play.
This is good; it means that I’m not playing at the 5th-grade level. Also, it’s an excellent place to start; it’s close to the point at which you make the first Big Leap.
It’s surprising how painful it was to tackle the piece and decide to play it adequately — not at performance level — and move on. It almost hurts to make the decision to move on without polishing it to perfection.
But you see, that’s part of the lesson here. It’s not that I’m learning to breathe again; it’s that I never learned how. I was taken in to this perfectionistic training regimen before I had a chance to learn any other way.
This kind of training can propel you to amazing heights. It can also be destructive.
So I’m going to walk away from this piece, and leave it in a state that’s 75 percent finished. I may get to 100 percent with the next one. Maybe it’ll be easier.
In short, this experience has left me questioning the wisdom of a teacher turning me into a soulless competitor. There was no point in teaching me to compete; America had already become a place where winning by merit was the province of the rich.
March 9:
Yesterday I started rehearsing lines for a video about why the song from “La Traviata” was several notches below performance level, and that I was going to walk away from it, and how that was OK, because part of this project involves learning how to produce things that aren’t perfect and be OK with it.
Then I decided it was complete bullshit. I won’t leave it imperfect. I got back into that studio and parsed out those passages until I got them.
I’ve developed a twitch in my lower lip. It took a full day for it to go away.
March 10:
I developed an unhealthy curiosity about my teacher during high school, the one who molded me into a relentless competitor. I seem to have remembered she had some kind of awful story.
It was hard to find much about her; she occupied a very analog world. It was sad, really, that such a towering figure had left such a small trail in the modern world.
Then I saw some footnotes on her great tragedy: A trailblazing player, educated at the top school; a woman who was seated in symphonies where women had not been allowed, and then who partially lost her hearing after a terrible medical diagnosis.
My God, how it hurt me to recall that story.
I stewed in my own inability to play my song, and I stewed over my time with her.
I was a rotten teen. I regretted every moment that I pushed back at her. I regretted it for about 20 minutes.
Then I came around to a more grown-up view of things: She had been a debutante. She came from a world of cotillions and families who dressed and treasured their daughters. She had no way to comprehend how I lived and what I had to do to get by. She could have understood why I did not want to join her world, if only she had tried.
It was a mutual lack of compassion. I settled on that conclusion, and it didn’t hurt me to think about my time with her anymore.
March 11:
I played it.
After two days of hearing this song in my dreams, by God, I played it.
[Three weeks after starting.]
March 13:
I played it for the camera tonight, and it felt exactly like going into a lesson or an audition. You get “right-minded” for the opening, then your mind goes blank as the tempo flies, and it falls apart at the end.
I pushed the tempo. I didn’t give it the space it needs, which meant I wasn’t able to breathe.
I’ll shoot it again tomorrow. This time I’ll breathe.
March 14:
I’m not going to shoot again today.
Yesterday was show time, and the show didn’t go well. I did shoot enough to see whether yelling at the score makes any difference. Con grazia, my ass.
My playing sessions alternate in quality; one good, then one bad. You need to leverage that. In the future, don’t shoot on the bad days.
March 16:
All right, so I went back in there and tried to play it for the camera again. This time, I didn’t dress. I didn’t stand. I didn’t introduce any of the trappings of performance. The key here: I played it best when the camera was off, so I needed to duplicate those conditions.
I played it. I haven’t reviewed the tape (and I won’t, for now), but it felt like I hit the standard that I wanted.
What’s really strange here: I can’t tell what I can do. I look at a piece of music and say, “Yeah, I can play that. No double stops. No big chromatic runs.” I forget what goes into it. With the Verdi, the layers of interpretation drove the last stake through it.
My terrible realization:
This is why the teachers never wanted us to listen to a piece. You could get lost reaching for musical interpretation without having first built the skills.
Conclusion from this experience: I’m reading musical scores with the eyes of an advanced player at 20 or 21, but I’m coming in with the skills of a 15-year-old. Of course, in three weeks of solid practice, I jumped from where I was at 10 to the point of early competition level. It was a four- or five-year leap.
I’ll come back and play this piece again. I’m not done.
March 25:
I’m surprised by how little I want to play.
The Verdi just mowed me over. It’s clear that I’m making the same mistakes in my approach and doing the same things I’ve always done. I played a children’s song, got overconfident and went after something way over my head. (Yeah, I played it, too, but it came at a pretty high price.)
I played today, and it was OK. I have to remember, the practice sessions alternate. One good. One bad. It’s very predictable.
I also managed to play without ending up crippled with pain. Don’t forget: You’ve got to get out the ice pack every single time and numb that neck down, or you’ll never play again.
The fear of physically not being able to play is keeping me away.
March 28:
I played the Bach last night. Got into the dirt with it. Walked away without pain — no pain last night, no pain this morning.
The Bach is going so well, I feel like I’m headed for the Vivaldi Concerto, knowing full well that there’s no way I can play that thing.
March 31:
Another great practice session. I’ve played two nights in a row now, and haven’t ended up with crippling pain.
Here’s what’s strange: I’m playing in the upper registers, and it’s . . . not terrible? I remember how hard it was to get those sky-high notes the first time, but, once again, I’m having this strange experience — not of learning, but of remembering. Could this skill really have been that hard-wired? That was certainly the goal of my teachers.
Maybe the high notes are coming easily because it was the last thing I learned. That’s entirely possible.
Nonetheless, I still feel like I’m doing a lot of slop playing, and that I’m not going about this in a systematic matter.
April 5:
Practice went very well last night. Arpeggios sounded incredible. I’m running four-string exercises flawlessly. I’m still afraid to go back in the room and play the Bach.
April 9:
I feel like I can play again.
Let’s keep in touch! Follow the journey of the Reckless Violinist with my news letter here: Rebecca Raney (ck.page)
