Day 94: do it perfectly OR fast

Dear my students, this entry is not for you. You’ve already mastered the technique I’m gonna write about, so don’t waste your time. Move on to the next entry.

I’m thinking it’s maybe okay to throw caution to the wind and just play FAST once in awhile. Not often at all, but just occasionally. The rest of the time, as in, 90ish% of the time, we should be working slowly and striving for perfection.

…maybe because I’m a pedagogue and sort of obsessed with how we learn best, I work slowly pretty much all the time. I’m thinking that once in awhile I need to break it up and just GO. It’s a good way to find out where stuff falls apart, and also to remind myself that I can actually do it. I can actually play fast stuff.  Anybody with me? Let’s work perfectly OR quickly; at some point the two shall meet.

Day 76: Play fast and loose.

Play fast and loose. But read this first so nobody gets hurt.

I’ll start with what the traditional meaning of this expression: ‘to be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions.’ This idiom goes back centuries, originally referring to a sleight-of-hand trick. But for me, today, it means something entirely different.

When we do something very difficult we have a tendency to get tight, even if we know better. And we DO know better: beautiful poetry doesn’t come because the poet is squeezing the pen. Brilliant painters don’t create masterpieces because they grip the paintbrush tighter. In fact, the opposite is true: we can only be our greatest selves when we let go of the tension. I’m realizing that this is true for every aspect of our playing: tension helps NOTHING. Any work we do beyond what is necessary is actually inflicting pain and harm against ourselves.

Today I (perhaps mistakenly) checked the prescribed tempos of some Lillian Fuchs etudes I’m learning. Now I realize that in spite all of my relaxation work, I have more to do. Or less to do. Never mind. Play fast and loose.