While it seems very obvious to anyone who performs as a musician, either professionally or as an amateur, I don’t think that everyone else is aware of the vast difference between performing and practicing. Probably at least once each month, someone expresses shock that I – having made music professionally for forty years – need to practice! They usually say: “Oh, I thought that once you’ve learned a piece, that was it; and that, when you get good at what you do, you no longer need to practice.” My experience has actually been the opposite. OK, I admit that I don’t practice scales or arpeggios anymore, but I’ve found as I’ve gotten older I, I’ve become less tolerant of mistakes in my performing, not more. Consequently, my practice time is spent refining repertoire that I’ve played before – as well as learning new repertoire. I’ve never subscribed to the theory that I should have a basic handful of pieces that I perform regularly – and build my reputation on those. Instead, like cooking in the kitchen, I want music always to feel new to me. That means learning new pieces, dusting off ones that I haven’t played for years, and mixing these with a few pieces that I do perform regularly.
The other day I was sitting in a rehearsal with choral director, Ragnar Bohlin. He was rehearsing the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (and several of the symphony players) in the Stravinsky Mass. Like any choral rehearsal, and much like what I would do at my own private practice sessions, the rehearsal was notable more for its many stops than for its continuity. Ragnar is a total master at helping the singers discover an exact issue that needs to be addressed (tone, diction, pitch, rhythm, affect, accuracy, ensemble, volume, balance, etc.). As I was observing the rehearsal, it suddenly dawned on me how very different the performance would be (which I would not be able to hear)!
Rehearsals are about stopping and starting; performances are about continuity.
Rehearsals are about notes and accuracy; performances are about overall musical affect and emotion.
Rehearsals are left brain, analytical; performances are right brain, non-analytical.
Good rehearsals are hard work; good performances are such that one ceases to be aware of time.
Rehearsals are about understanding; performances are about communicating.
Rehearsals tend to be rooted in the body (consciousness of technique); performances tend to be rooted in the soul and spirit.
It is not possible to have a good performance if rehearsal skills are lacking. But a solid rehearsal technique is definitely no guarantee that a performance will be transformative. One learns to perform by performing. It sounds obvious, but it’s actually not. Most of us who went through music conservatories thought that we learned performing by practicing! Miles Davies once said: “music is what happens between the notes.” So, if “notes” are happening in the practice session, “music” happens in the performance session.
At the moment, I’m performing a concert set with the San Francisco Symphony, the Chorus, the Pacific Boychoir Academy, soloists, and a host of tech people focused on videos, lights, choreography, etc. We’re performing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, semi-staged. It’s an amazing concept, one which Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas has been formulating for several years – really bringing to life this monumental work in a way that 21st century audiences can interact with emotionally, spiritually, and musically. I’m the unique musician that plays my instrument offstage, using a video monitor and headphones – yet the instrument is heard onstage. I’m about 100 feet from the pipes (right next to the stage door where soloists come and go, the boys’ choir comes and goes, continuous cues are given for the changing lights, instrumentalists come and go in preparation for solos, etc.). The pipes speak directly into the back of the chorus (at the back of the stage – front wall of the concert hall), so I am far from incidental – especially with 38 pages of music. If the organist makes a mistake, the entire audience knows it. Yet, in spite of having a part so significant, my headphones were unable to pick up the organ sound at all. I was effectively playing blind. For me, a performance of this nature feels like it is somewhere between a rehearsal and a performance – kind of a no-man’s-land for a musician. I have to tune out the steady flow of distractions and trust my instincts for playing in synchrony with the orchestral players. The organ at Davies Concert Hall has a slight time delay from when I touch the keyboard and when the sound emerges from the pipes. Normally, organists learn how to compensate for that but we do so using our ears. When I, as the organist, can’t hear what I’m producing, it’s a bit scary. It removes me, somewhat, from the desired feeling of a performance – and especially that of working with my fellow musicians.
The most difficult part of this is the emotional let-down I experienced at the end of each concert. While the applause is raging in the house, backstage is already engaged with pack-up. I’ve been thinking about what it is, exactly, that irks me about this. It’s not that I’m needing the applause, personally, for the contribution that I’ve just given the world; it’s more that I’m feeling un-recognized, invisible. Yes, I’m a professional. But I define “professional musician” as someone who makes a living from music; that doesn’t mean that I don’t seek connection in what I engage in.