Klarinet Archive - Posting 000007.txt from 2003/06

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Enjoying yourself at the time
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 13:06:27 -0400

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003 01:16:32 -0700, benmaas@-----.com said:

> As some of you know, I did my undergrad degree at Eastman. I had the
> fortune to play in all of the ensembles there including the Eastman
> Wind Ensemble....the quality of ensembles always had issues to me (and
> my fellow students) and we were very critical of ourselves as well as
> others....I sat down and started to listen to these recordings....was
> absolutely blown away at the quality of playing in this group....I
> couldn't believe that I had actually questioned the quality of this
> ensemble at one point. Looking back, it was almost certainly one of,
> if not *the* best ensemble I've ever had the luck to play with....
>
> ....we were all so bitter while there. The experience is very intense
> and is certainly not for everybody. That said, I feel like I really
> didn't appreciate at the time what I had going for me there.

'Bitter' does seem a bit extreme; nevertheless, in my experience, taking
a meaningful part in any serious endeavour almost always involves coming
up against dissatisfaction of one form or another, because you're
necessarily aware of -- indeed, listening for -- 'what's missing' from
what you're currently doing. I suppose that some people hold and handle
this dissatisfaction better than others, and so have a nicer time; but
it's not necessary for the end result that they have a nice time.

It's certainly very important that 'having a nice time' isn't the
*primary* objective for you if you're involved in a serious endeavour --
the criterion for which I take to be that you're doing something that
you can succeed or fail at, and where your success or failure is to be
judged by standards that you locate outside yourself.

Clearly that criterion applies to the (sometimes) demanding task of
dealing with a piece in such a way that your vision of its aliveness is
fully available to other people. But I suggest that you can see the
criterion applied, by yourself and others, in many other activities.
It's worth noticing.

Fortunately it need not apply when you're playing music for your own
enjoyment. But the sadness is that playing 'for your own enjoyment' can
become unavailable -- or not so readily available -- if you're commonly
involved in these 'serious endeavours', simply because you get into the
habit of requiring standards for yourself and others that aren't
immediately available.

Of course, sometimes you do enjoy yourself even in the most demanding
situations. (Perhaps some people are lucky enough almost always to
enjoy themselves!) Still, I find there's not a particularly good
correlation between the performances of mine that I enjoyed most at the
time and those that my listeners say they enjoyed the most. So when
another player wishes me good luck as we go onto the platform, saying,
"Remember, let's enjoy ourselves!", I quite often reply, "Mm, it would
be good to enjoy ourselves -- unless it turns out that we don't!"

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

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