Skip to main content

Why am I Nervous?

It’s finally the week of my Moveable Feast performances!  I’ve been working for months to prepare this version of this show, and am excited about finally bringing it to fruition.  I perform a lot, and I do recitals with some regularity, but this spring performance every year is the one that makes me the most anxious.   

This is the set that I self-produce.  It’s not part of some other series, it’s not a South Bend Symphony event, it’s just me.  

I am highly trained as an oboist, but I have no real idea how to produce or promote a concert.  I am making this up as I go along.  Every year I magically find just enough audience members to make it a performance (and usually a few more than the year before), but every year I am terrified that I won’t.  That the combination of Facebook posting and poster hanging and email blitzing and event calendar filling out that I labor over  in the month leading to my event will fail me. 

I’m really not nervous about playing the music.  I know my material, and I love it, and I am a  performer. 

The logistics don’t scare me, though my to-do list is still pretty long - print programs, create  signage, get change for my drawer, buy ingredients for the cookies, bake the cookies, find serving plates for the cookies, make a reed, go over my script…

I’m not worried about my collaborators, who are outstanding musicians and reliable human beings and will help me to create an enjoyable evening for the audience.

But I’m always nervous about the audience.  That they won’t come.

It’s difficult to be a musician in 2012.  I really have to be entrepreneurial with my career - speaking to everyone I know about what I do and staying visible (neither of which comes naturally to this introvert) and thinking always about the bigger picture, when my actual schooling has all been in the tiny details. The note endings, the accents, the purity of the interval.   This spring recital, which I put on by myself, for MY friends, colleagues, and neighbors in my home town(s) is a different experience altogether from practicing in my room, and certainly from performing in orchestras which have  subscribers and official marketing materials and staff whose job it is to get people to come.  Even the orchestras have trouble filling their seats - why should I have any success at all?

And yet I keep at it. Maybe this is the year that I slink home in shame after performing for three audience members, two of whom are related to me.   Maybe this is the year that I go platinum.   I can’t wait to find out.

Thursday, March 22, 7:30pm
LakeView Lutheran Church
835 W. Addison, Chicago

Saturday, March 24, 3 pm EDT
South Bend Christian Reformed Church
1855 N.Hickory, South Bend

Tickets and further information HERE.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...

Beauty of Sound

In our dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, the conductor did exactly what I often do to my students - he asked the violins to play more beautifully, and they did.  He didn’t tell them how, or give them a flowery expressive speech, he just asked for more beauty of sound, and they immediately gave it to him.  To a great extent the sound we produce is set, based on our equipment and the shape of our mouths and our bodies - but it can be altered, too.  Adjustments in reeds and instruments can go a long way, but the key change we can make is in our own minds. I don’t know how to explain it physically, but if you determine the sound you want to make you can produce it.  Or at least you can lean in and approach it.  This is something I’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately in my own playing.  As I prepare the Saint-Saëns Sonata to perform on our Oboe Studio Recital (tonight at 7 - details HERE ), my approach is largely about beauty of sound and vibrato....