Quiznos Invite Code 2018: MaryKee1423
5 years ago
1/17/06
Failure
This of course does not refer to the fact that I didn't win the competition. I had no desire to win the competition. I set the simple goal for myself about two days ago to just be happy with how I played. I had been sounding so good over the past 2-3 days...and I don't mean just on this piece. I mean that I feel like I had really improved my cello playing overall...my tension was at a minimum and I was able to express things that I wanted to. As little as 10 minutes before I played I was feeling really really good about myself. This was HUGE for me. I have not felt good about anything I have played for at least a year...and I felt REALLY good about what I was doing. However...none of this happened when I played tonight. I was tighter than ever...I missed shifts...I played things out of tune...I was un-musical. I wanted to leave about 5 mins into my playing because I was so embarrassed. I had no business being there. I made a fool of myself...which was the one thing I was sure I wouldn't do. I think this was the single most crushing thing that has happened to me. I was so confident going into this competition. I was confident that I would be happy with how I played. But I failed. And there is nothing I can do now. I did what I could...and it wasn't good enough. So what should I do now? After this competition I am less confident than I ever have been. How am I going to get into any grad schools? What the hell am I supposed to do? Everything is telling me that I should just stop now...that I don't have it in me...but I don't want to. {sob}
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4 comments:
Sorry to hear about your experience. Dealing with stress is extremely difficult -- but it does gets better with time and experience. I'm not very good at it at all but I know a lot of tendencies I have and I do things to minimize the nervousness in an audition. Anyway, you've only failed if you haven't learned anything about yourself from the experience.
It's easy to forget that a competition is not a snapshot of your playing as a whole, but your playing a specific point in time under a great deal of pressure. Confidence in your playing over a couple of days, however is a much greater indicator of how you're truly doing. It's true we all need to learn how to perform under pressure, but you know you can; obviously, you've have no problem with extremely difficult cello parts like in, say, the Perle or the Xenakis. So you even know you can play under pressure. So just relax, and remember it's really not so bad, although that is easier said than done, I know.
"Competitions are for horses, not artists." - Bela Bartok
THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN!!!!
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