sharing music, not perfection

I remember the exact moment as a child when I was told not to play something in public because it wasn’t ready yet. It was a new piece and I had learned just half of it and it definitely needed some more baking time. But I was shocked and a bit sad about the idea at age 7.

But it was an idea slowly baked into me along with the conservatory tradition. Don’t share music unless it’s ready, polished, perfect, memorized. And make sure you look good, and the piano is tuned, and you’ve practiced performing it first……….the list goes on. And we wonder why we have stage anxiety!

And I don’t think that’s all a bad thing. The pursuit of art, beauty, and authentic communication are all high ideals I believe are necessary for a healthy and functioning society. But it’s so easy to hide behind the guise of perfection and to worship the music as elevated on a stage or a certain record label. Let’s not even get into instagram piano; the level of filtered perfection with carefully curated insta models usually crushes all my confidence of posting anything on social media or youtube.

I started this blog because I wanted to start sharing so many thoughts that I used to hide behind the music. That was step 1. Step 2 suddenly happened tonight when I turned on my camera and told myself to film and share whatever the first take would be. Because Mozart is beautiful and ultimately….does it matter I didn’t have shoes on in the video? I’m not sure but anyway if you want to join me in my unfiltered practicing, you can head over here. (Who knew Mozart was so perfect for instagram-each theme was exactly 60 seconds!) Together we’re going to be building a slow movement of Mozart theme by theme with an unfiltered look behind the scenes. My out of tune piano is trying to be quirky….we’re blaming the cold snowy weather and bribing my technician to come sooner.

A photo shot on my iPhone in the middle of a blizzard in upstate NY. It’s currently snowing outside and the beauty of Mozart mixed with snow is filling my head with ideas well past midnight.