Considering Practice, Remembering Fun
Organ loft, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. Photo by Perrin Ford.
I'm not a person who has done many auditions. I know people who, even this early in their lives, seem to have done as many auditions as they have teeth. But I haven't. I don't like the competition aspect of it. If I want a particular position obviously I have to put myself forward alongside other people, but I don't really like being compared musically to other people, I can't really handle it: I just kind of shut down and start questioning everything I do. I have only recently realised that that's a frame of mind I've been in for years.
I’ve been going to auditions now that I’ve almost finished my undergrad and am looking to work in music. I love music; I want to make music my whole life.
My first audition was for an organ scholarship, and I was shortlisted with two other people. This was exciting, but also terrifying, because they wanted me to play a contrapuntal work by Bach. Most organ auditions will ask for a contrapuntal work by Bach, that’s very normal, but I usually play the chorale-preludes, so I needed to learn something fast. My organ teacher suggested BWV 545, one of the preludes and fugues in C major.
Fine.
The first thing was a short chorister rehearsal, which I felt went well. I had fun and it was rewarding to see how quickly they learnt to sing the psalm chant self-conducted while I played at the piano. My foot was shaking uncontrollably the whole time I wasn’t putting my weight on it.
Next was the playing. I sat down at the console, and all my limbs started chattering freely. All I could think about was how I was going to just scrape through this, and how accurately the other two had no-doubt played. I skipped the prelude, played the fugue quite slowly, and still only made mistakes the whole time. My goal was to make my mistakes without lingering on them for too long. The tests also went badly, I was in a mental fog the whole time. Whenever I can’t do something, I think my assumption is that everyone else has done it note perfect and with almost no effort, and I am the only person to ever struggle with something.
A few days later I was set to play the same piece, the prelude and fugue, for a recital at Queens' College. I walked up and down Silver Street, wondering which of my family members’ illnesses would be devastating enough to stop me from playing (but not too devastating to keep me away from my favourite café), or the least risky way to sprain an ankle.
I did end up playing, and BWV 545 was the first piece in the programme (both the prelude AND the fugue this time). I told myself I would be brave, and start at a reasonable speed, no matter what. I started to shake a few minutes before the recital, but less badly than at my audition. I focused all my energy on not shaking, on relaxing myself. I was much too brave, and started the prelude much too fast. After about a line of music there was a cadence I held, just to stop myself crashing and burning, and in that moment time seemed to stop. I felt myself visit every limb to calm it down, I untensed my shoulders, it felt like an eternity passed in that moment. About ten million thoughts I couldn’t even put words to seemed to pass through me and out of me. Bravery requires fear, and I wanted to get out of that whole loop. I just didn’t know how. I kept playing, but steadily. I wish I could tell you whether the rest of the recital went well or not, but honestly I wasn’t even listening to myself, I was just thinking: Don’t fuck up. Don’t fuck up, or you’ll have wasted all of their time. Don’t fuck up, or they’ll all wonder why you were asked to play in the first place. Don’t fuck up, or they’ll find out that you’re the worst organist in Cambridge.
I had a lesson the next day, and I took the prelude and fugue to my teacher. I kept expecting him to stop me, but he didn’t. I finished playing it through. He paused for a while. “It’s very nearly there. It just doesn’t sound like you’re having any fun.” It all hit me in that moment. Oh. Of course. Fun. I know fun. It became so clear in that moment that I had been flying through a fog for years, and had been so used to it that I hadn’t even realised anything was wrong. I know that music is fun. Why hadn’t I been acting like it?
I have been practising having fun moment to moment for the past few months, and everything is better for me: my accuracy is better, my speed is better, mostly I just look forward to sitting down and playing, and trusting my ears to tell me how the music should sound, moment to moment.
A part of it is definitely that I was thinking of music as capital A “Art,” which it can be when listening, but making music is more quotidian. When it’s just a process, not a looming goal or deadline or accomplishment, then it’s just a Tuesday, and the rain is coming down on the other side of the stained glass, my bag is slumped next to the bench, and I am spending thirty minutes with a page of L’ange aux parfums by Messiaen, getting the touch comfortable in the fast section, while I wait for some friends to be free so we can go get lunch together.