Open Writing

Our minds are seldom entirely focussed on the activity that’s currently occupying us. For instance, while writing this article, every now and then I glanced out of the window at the grey, English-style weather and thought how dreary and cold it was for midsummer in Johannesburg.

My thoughts were also regularly dragged to the racket going on in the store-room next door, where workmen were erecting metal shelves with intermittent, tooth-rattling noises. In spite of these distractions, I continued typing, making more errors than usual.

Those errors led me to the conclusion that straying thoughts always have tangible results. This is particularly evident when performing on stage. It’s acknowledged that much of the secret of playing music is what happens in the mind. Thoughts flow through the performer’s mind, and through the minds of
the audience, and there seems to be a ‘silent conversation’ between them, a sub-text not immediately evident.

Meg, a flautist friend and I were chatting, resting during a duet session.

“I saw you out of the corner of my eye sitting in the audience, as I walked on-stage last week. ‘Oh, there’s Meg,’ I said to myself, ‘she’ll notice every wrong note I play in the Poulenc!’

Then, of course, I was centre-stage, I bowed, introduced the work and played the first movement of the sonata perfectly with the exception of three high notes that I missed. Missing them irritated me immensely. ‘Pull yourself together, Isabel,’ I admonished myself, ‘You know this work inside-out, stop with the mistakes now! Concentrate!’ I took my own advice and the rest of the concert went without error.”

Meg laughed, a little shame-facedly. “You know, as I sat there before the concert, I thought to myself, ‘If Isabel sees me, she’ll think I’m listening for wrong notes in the Poulenc!’''

“It must have been telepathy,” I replied, chuckling, “Which certainly doesn’t excuse me for losing concentration and missing those notes!” Then a stray thought crept into my mind. “Perhaps it was an entirely different audience-member’s thoughts that affected my high notes: after the concert, a
particularly critical ‘friend’ told me how well I’d played, but made a point of commenting on the mistakes I’d made.”

A couple of weeks later, I was chatting to friends after their performance at the same venue. They played an arrangement for ‘cello and piano of a favourite work of mine, the César Franck Violin Sonata. I complimented them on a moving performance.

Carel, an excellent ‘cellist, looked a little sheepish as he said, “You know, during the slow movement, I was thinking, ‘I wonder if the audience is bored yet, this is so long and slow…’.”

When I thought about it, his playing had sounded a little hesitant in that movement.

“Wouldn’t it be great,” I mused, “if everything but the music and its performance leaves your mind when you’re on stage, and you can ‘channel’ the music from composer to audience?”

Kerryn, the pianist, played the same sonata with me about eighteen months earlier. Her performance with Carel that afternoon was wonderful. She commented, “I certainly haven’t reached that stage yet! But in the slow movement, I was thinking, ‘This is such glorious music, thank goodness Isabel made me learn this last year so that I can enjoy it now…’.”

Perhaps the performer should consciously hold the richness of the music in the forefront of their mind, as a treasure which they are imparting to their audience. Begin with such thoughts and channel all other thoughts to the beauty, the glory of the sounds they create and the performance is bound to capture the hearts of the audience.

It’s all in the mind, after all.

Until next time… ‘here comes Treble!’

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By Isabel Bradley

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To read more of Isabel's thoughtful columns please visit
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/here_comes_treble/