When Perfection Paralyzes

I’ve worked with musicians of various stripes in their endeavors to prepare artistically for a performance. As an artistic coach and conductor I have found there are usually three types of preparation styles that musicians use to develop their performance concepts of a work.

The first type of player looks to others for answers to How does the piece go? What is the right way to play this piece? The outside source is usually an esteemed teacher whose words are treated as absolute and right. This performer seeks to perpetuate at the best of their ability, the way that was passed down to them in a sort of pedigree approach.

This style, then, is pre-occupied with producing sounds in close replica of an external model. The player competes internally with their own skills to come closer to the teacher’s example. This model is typical for young players and provides a good launch site for developing a sense of musicianship.

However, a player stuck in this mode, unable or unwilling to develop personal music maturity, will often come to a coaching session seeking confirmation that their teacher/ideal model continues to be right. They are usually unwilling to absorb new possibilities and can even become hostile if their idol’s methods are questioned. If a musician continues in the servitude of this external ideal, the romance may eventually wear off. Unfortunately without the skills to develop personal musicianship, the player often becomes unfulfilled and disgruntled.

(Consider this instance from a rehearsal of the Dvorak cello concerto. When I asked for confirmation that the soloist did indeed want to move aggressively ahead at the point in the score where Dvorak writes dolce. The surprising reply was, “Hmm, I’m not sure, I need to listen to X’s recording again.” This, from a player who had just graduated from a top school with a doctorate degree in music performance! I’m tempted to suggest that the longer one remains in school the more committed the player becomes to this ‘pedigree’ style of musicianship. It does bring success in that environment!)

The second type of player wrestles with a piece, looking for answers to artistic questions from within.

The ‘right way’ of performing will be one that is genuine and true to the self and the music. They see their role as a creative artist, rather than a reproducer. Their competitive drive is towards developing musical depth. These types of musicians are very pro-active and are usually artistically satisfied. This player also knows that no one else is exactly like them; as a unique artist they feel no rivalry towards other players.

(This musician is an absolute pleasure to coach as everything becomes grist for their artistic mill.

Note that this musician will find working under mediocre conductors - who keep them on a tight leash - justifiably torturous!)

The third type seeks to execute a ‘right way’ of performance which is neither based on what another person offers as a roadmap , nor what is discovered or created from within. This musician strives to play a piece perfectly. Perfection - as defined by some vague cosmic, super-human ideal.

This third style incorporates one striking aspect. Whereas both the ‘do as the teacher says’ reproducer and the ‘I will dig deep and discover’ creator are following the respective routes out of a desire to communicate and connect with a listener, the perfectionist’s style is concerned solely with their own achievements. The listener remains outside the artistic equation as the artistic goal is to prove one’s ability to attain perfection to oneself.

I see a familiar analogy of this mindset in the Olympic athlete whose goal of acing a perfect ten or nailing a triple jump fulfills the performer’s own desire; the audience is only an observer or witness. Performance art, however, includes the audience in the goal. Actors, for example, judge their ‘rightness’ or the value of a performance on Did I get them? Did I connect to the audience? Did I move them? The value received by the audience is a priority. A perfectly spoken, paced, and acted scene has no meaning and no value if nobody ‘got it.’

To perform on stage in front of listeners and present art in a manner of an Olympic athlete is stingy. One can admire a player’s intense drive to continually improve, but when the listener is removed from the equation, this behavior become self-gratifying and conceited. For a musician who touts having high standards and a relentless - even heroic - drive for being perfect, it can be a crushing blow to realize how perfection can cripple one’s art.

When a player is stuck in this mode, perfection paralyzes artistic development. Only note-production remains. Such players tend to approach a piece as an engineer would, seeking the one correct way, exacting the notated data, calculating the required technique, refining the logistics; counting, measuring, redesigning.

So how do you coach a perfectionist? I try to re-frame the drive for perfection to a drive for excellence; artistic, communicative excellence. When perfection paralyzes, the artist becomes pre-occupied with inner-dialogues related to technique, the bits of music which are measurable, countable, and tangible to the ear. So my comments direct the player to consider the listener’s version of the event, something much more difficult to grasp. I try to redirect their concern of “Was it perfect?” to include the audience’s needs and help players develop the skills to understand “Did it work?” This may require a frank discussion about music-making and the role of the performer. (Most perfection-driven players will resist re-direction because it goes against their way of approaching music – and, I suspect, way of life, too. In such cases, I respect their human-spirit and offer to be a neutral ‘third ear’ in their endeavors.)

When the drive for perfection dominates a performer’s mind set, music loses heart, poetry, and depth. Surprisingly, if not tragically, I have worked with musicians who are unable to grasp the poetic, metaphoric side of music. Notes are just notes. They tend to be well-programmed, extremely sensitive and finessed machines with acute ears, but lack a sensibility as to how sounds might relate to qualities other than what is scored on the paper. They can realize the composer’s blue print with precision and ease, yet the concept of conveying meaning is foreign. Perfection paralyzes the soul and chills the muse.

(A player with this type of artistic preparation usually finds a niche in modern repertoire where a correct performance tends to require a literal reproduction of the notated instructions. The more technical challenges a piece offers, the more satisfying the preparation process and final performance.)

What causes some players to pursue perfection rather than artful performance remains unclear to me. I’m hardly qualified to speculate, either. However, what is most concerning is the player’s detachment from their audience. Musicianship differs from a sport that awards medals we take home around our neck. Rather the artist sets out to win the sort of medals which every audience member takes home and carries with them forever.

Cheers! A wine-tasting approach to music benefits performers.

Wine-tasting and listening to music pair well, of course, and share some important traits. First, both are perceived by a ‘hidden’ sensory organ. Tasting and hearing happen inside the head in a way that makes it very difficult to point out to another person just what, where, or how an object is to be perceived. Unlike visual perception, there is nothing to nail down for all to witness. Second, wine-tasting and music are both about metaphor. When speaking of wines we use words and phrases such as: silky, lingering, steely, intense; rich in blackcurrant, vanilla and spices; shades of damp leather; notes of dark chocolate. All this from grapes. With music, we may speak of golden sunsets, cold solitude, remorse, lush pools of color, stark terror, or possibly re-live an earlier moment in time, or discover a sudden recognition. All this from sounds. Clearly there are no gooseberries in a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, nor majestic mountain peaks in a symphony, yet we connect to wine and music through these types of metaphors. Music, especially, is full of metaphor. Call a note ‘high’ or ‘low’ — and we’re already in the world of metaphor.

Nonetheless wine and music are matters of serious human concern – and affection. For me classical music is an art to enjoy, explore, and savor. Just as you can explore the palette of your taste-buds, you can explore the palette of your ears.

This is exactly what I do as the Classical Connoisseur, a program series I began over two years ago, and now present at four public library districts in the Chicago and northern Illinois area. The Classical Connoisseur is about awakening the palette and finding the connection between sounds and meaning. The format is very much like wine-tasting, where music is ‘tasted’ with brief samples of 10 seconds to two minutes of duration. The excerpts are short, but we may repeat listenings numerous times.

For example, I was once asked to explore "loving and longing in music" with a woodwind quartet of flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. We explored not just how a composer might create loving and longing in music, but how musicians can shape music to make connections between sounds and meaning. We can try out the character of individual intervals, for example, and hear how small changes will create completely different characters and gestures in the music. We can hear varieties in breath, vibrato, articulation, dynamics, energy levels, pacing, color, phrasing, etc. The tool box for creating and expressing music is wonderfully bottomless when guiding performers through how they can create metaphor and how the composer may be asking them to create metaphor. Why is this passage written in the lower register? How does the melodic interval create a distinct quality? Why would too much vibrato kill the mood? Which note carries rhetorical weight? Would a faster bow make the sound less personable? How long does a sustained note carry meaning?

One of my favorite aspects of music is time. Music uses time, composers use time, and listeners are asked by music to relate to time. I love exploring time because it is a very personal and human part of every musician’s and listener’s life. This important and musical art of using time is a skill which can only be learned in front of an audience. Most musicians play, and are trained to play, according to the clock. In other words, the clock or ticking pulse, dictates events rather than the musician or composer. But how quickly is quick enough for this moment? How does a split second of silence shift the inflection of a phrase? At what tempo does color fade into texture? How do we create and pace expectation, or prolong anticipation?  

Conductors often make such choices of metaphor building. For example, in a presentation on Sound Qualities working with CD recordings,I offered two versions of the opening of the Andante of Bruckner’s 7th symphony. One conductor stacked the viola/tuba line with the brass tucked homogeneously inside the violas, resulting in a very passionate, pulsating, and human effect. We heard full viola vibrato performed in a mid-range, resonant tessitura. Another sample, however, offered the five tubas as the main event, stacking the top tuba line as a solo melody. Without the viola line and its flavor exposed, the result was very different – muscular and majestic. Here, instead of the influence of string vibrato, we heard the breath required by the brass players and how it adds its own expressive nuance. When working with live musicians I provide hands-on opportunity to explore musical choices and offer insight as to how these choices affect a listener’s concept, enjoyment, and understanding of a piece.

The goal of making classical music meaningful to our listeners and ourselves is a vital artistic endeavor. Unfortunately classical music and wine have a common ability to terrify those who feel uninitiated or “uneducated.” In the wine world, Leslie Brenner has a book called Fear of Wine. The opening sentence reads perfectly for the world of classical music:

“How in the world did we manage to get so far in life and still wind up so terribly afraid of something that’s just – dare we say it – a beverage?"  -- Leslie Brenner, Fear of Wine.

Indeed, how did we manage to get so far in life and still wind up so terribly afraid of something that’s just sounds? My presentations as the Classical Connoisseur demonstrate that listeners are highly perceptive. A wine-tasting approach gives them the skills to overcome what previously had been carried as a burden of ignorance or fear: “Well, I didn’t like that, but if it’s a superstar performer then it must be good. The problem is me - I must not understand music.” The benefits of a wine-tasting approach to music include developing an ability to discuss and articulate what was heard, a better understanding of ones personal tastes, and an increased comfort level -  what I call being ‘many-eared’ -  when hearing new works and varied styles.

For professional performers whose studies are focused on technique, historical-traditional, and textual correctness, the Classical Connoisseur approach provides concepts for recognizing how composers use their tools of metaphor and how a performer’s musical choices may affect a listener. Musicians then develop a process for seeing beyond the notes to a deeper layer of musical intent and meaning. With this insight a performer has a rich array of communicative tools and a direct understanding of their implementation.

Today’s musicians want to reach audiences in a way that creates a vivid experience for the listener and an artistically satisfying moment for the performer and composer. The Classical Connoisseur events allow me to coach listeners in the art of experiencing the magic of music, and to coach players in the art of making magic out of sound.

I leave musicians with these three wishes as they continue on as a Classical Connoisseur:

♦ Be driven by curiosity and wonder, rather than the need to be right, or knowing.

♦ Be many-eared, as there is no single style of listening that reveals the whole.

♦ Insist that music and its practitioners – composers, performers – honor the metaphor.

It is through this imaginative realm of metaphor that we, perhaps, become less of a stranger to our self, each other, and the human experience.