Quiz for the musicians in the house: How often do you break down in the practice room?
I suppose the answer for me is based on how frequently I practice in any given period, but in general the breakdowns come every two or three months. Today was one of them, and it was an event.
It usually starts when something’s not going quite right: I’m running a phrase over and over and it won’t fall into place, or I keep inadvertently slowing tempo down. The last few weeks it’s been all about evenness between registers and my transitional clunkiness has been getting to me.
So what happens after I start to get frustrated? First I tear up a little and try to keep working. I try to work the emotion into my singing, thinking that maybe this time I will work on characterization and not think so much about technique. At this point technique (and possibly phonation) goes completely out the window and I briefly make sure there is no one outside the practice room window when I plop down on the piano bench, put my head down on my knees, and cry.
Like a good soprano, my small moments of frustration plunge into the downward spiral of neuroticism common to most artists. With my head on my knees I ask myself “what the heck am I doing this for?” And there’s no real answer. People have compared the artist’s vocation to a bad relationship – you love it but you hate it, you want to stop but you can’t figure out what else you would do. There’s no big goal, just “learn this piece”, “perfect this phrase”, “tune this note”, “smooth out the register change in that measure”. You will never have success that feels at all permanent or final. You will work this hard until the day you die – or quit.
After “what am I doing this for?” My thoughts often turn to “what am I sacrificing for this?” because there’s always a sacrifice. Sometimes it’s something simple like an hour goofing off at home – or even an afternoon of cleaning up the apartment. But the hours add up over time. I think of the hundreds of choices we all make every day in an effort to sing better and to have a career. We give up nights out with friends and time with people we love. We have a passion in our lives that by definition will edge out some other passion.
Depending on my mood, the time of day, and if there is anyone out in the hall, I keep my head down on my knees for while until I calm down. Then I start plunking out notes again (after determining how I am going to repair whatever book I threw across the room in my fit). So how often do the rest of you have a good ol’ practice room freak out?
Not since college, really, when I was actually doing real time in the practice room. These days I really only "practice" for a few minutes before Mass on Sundays.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, though, my breakdowns had much more to do with really bad back pain than with the music I was working on. Sitting on a backless piano bench for hours at a time playing classical guitar with your left leg in an unnatural position led to some pretty bad lower back issues. I could feel the tingle starting to creep in after awhile, and then it would turn to pain, and then I'd grit my teeth and try to play through the pain, which only increased muscle tension, which made it even worse, which led to me finally getting so frustrated that I'd lay the guitar down, and then lay myself down on the flat floor and stare at the ceiling for awhile. I fell asleep in the practice room more than once--I remember one day a janitor walking in at 4AM and finding me there; he said "I won't tell anyone if you don't!"