Perfect

What an ugly word.

I often hear people relate that they can’t play a tune yet, because it’s not ready – it’s not perfect.

Pfffttttttt

There is no perfect. There is just today. There’s as good as you can make it just now. Be the star you are.

I get it. It’s ouchie to perform. It can make anyone anxious to get out there. Especially when some of the repertoire doesn’t feel near ready, much less perfect. And that’s a shame, because I can’t think of any music that was generated to not be shared!

But then there’s that endless loop inside heads that sort of goes:

 it’s-not-good-enough-I’m-not-good-enough-it’ll-never-be-ready-why-am-I-even-trying-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and

How can we get past that – because really, music is meant to be shared! Here are five things to keep in mind:

One. Don’t be anxious (I know, easy for me to say). A lot of the time we are afraid and/or anxious – the tune isn’t perfect and I’m going to look stupid, people are going to know I’m faking it, I can’t withstand the humiliation of not being flawless, etc.

I hate to break it to you, but it’s not about you. People genuinely enjoy music. Even more, people love to hear live music. And they can get ecstatic being in an audience which is small enough that they can actually meet and have a conversation with the artist. You truly are offering a boon to someone, and you should acknowledge that!

Two. Playing perfectly is a failure. If you actually play perfectly, it likely means that you missed the mark for the audience. Every audience is different, even if it’s the cat and curtains or the same people on a different day, so you need to play differently for each of them. People who are listening to you play want heart, to make a connection, to feel. None of that is included in perfect. Perfect is mechanical, static, and dead. Ick.

Three. Rise to play again. So you missed a note or two (or a hundred), got off the tempo, got flustered, or otherwise felt like you didn’t do well. Maybe I haven’t swayed you off being perfect yet, so, here’s another harsh reality – you’re going to play those tunes jillions of times and there’s never going to be perfect. And that’s ok. Ref 2 above. Instead, think about how you got where you were (when something fell apart) and…

Four. Focus. Learn from the foibles of your wobbly performance and use that to focus your practice. Learn from your mistakes and go forward to make new, bolder, more daring, more creative mistakes! Learning goes both ways too. Sometimes your fingering deserts you and you can’t extricate yourself from a bad situation gracefully – then spend time evaluating your fingering and making repetition your friend. Sometimes you miss the chord you were aiming for and you get some glorious, jazzy sound – remember that stuff and mine it for more cool ideas!

Five. You are amazing, right now, right here – just accept that as true (because it is). Concentrate on comparing you to yourself. Every time I get off stage I am struck by two things – how many mistakes I made (I’m not going to lie – I am human) and how much better/easier/less terrifying it was than the time before and definitely since I started! This metric helps pull me through those times when I’m pretty sure I played with rented fingers all the while allowing me to be kinda pleased with my progress (no matter how slow it has been!).

At this point, you might be thinking that I write about this a lot. Well, I’m going to keep writing about this as long as you keep telling me about how you’re not perfect – and until it sinks in that you are good enough and that you should just shut up and play!*

When does the need to be perfect get in your way? Have you ever had that need cause you to seize up (I have!)? Never had that happen? Great – how did you get there? Let me know in the comments!

*Please don’t be offended, I say this to myself any time I start to feel me pulling back. We don’t play for glory or perfect-ing but because we love it, so we should all sit back, enjoy the ride, and shut up and play!