Hi Everyone, happy Chinese New Year!
And my new year's gift is ......
Successfully playing TWO concerts in ONE day for the first time!
First one is at 10.45am, Faversham, St.Mary Church:
Second one is at the Battersea Place, 5pm:
I have always quite envied those pianists who could do two (or even more!) concerts in one day. What a great achievement (I am not praising myself...🤪) and what an energy level! Doing a concert is not easy let alone doing two in the same day! (Again I am just barely stating the fact not praising myself...)
Based on this thought, when I got the email saying that there was a replacement needed to be filled on the morning of my late afternoon concert day, I said YES YES YES YES immediately.
Without knowing how hard this is going to be.
Briefly speaking, I played the first one quite badly, the second one quite well.
I feel I owe my audience of the first concert...
To be honest, my techniques, control of the keyboard, shape, structure, musical character, and acoustic, these fundamental elements were still there. That's why I cannot say it is very very very very bad. But Kreisleriana No.3 I made a huge mistake at the end and Waldstein, a very wired one in the first movement ....
Well, if I were to find some excuses, then firstly I have to blame my phone, failed wake me up on time (or maybe it did but I turned it off unconsciously), resulting in my rushing into the church at the last minute of the concert and never had a proper chance to move a finger a little bit.
Secondly the church was soooooo cold, really really cold, freezing cold. I sat down feeling freezing and kept feeling more freezing during the concert. By the end of it I could barely feel my feet, apparently they were abused by their owner's bad decision for the sake of beauty -- wearing sandals during a miserable weather day in February, and in LONDON!
However, if I were to be a bit more responsible, and be an adult (at least trying to), I would say my brain thought too much about irrelevant ideas rather than simply focused on the music itself. This probably is a barrier that every single musician has to face and overcome on the stage. Sometimes we just couldn't stop our brain from thinking bullshits!!!
My brain bullshits went like this:
Ah this is so cold.... ah my fingers are not moving properly.... ahhh I should have practiced in the morning... wait what's the left hand chord in Kreisleriana? I really cannot make mistakes again in this piece... otherwise the audience would throw me out of the church and will never let me come back again and my performance career will be hanging on a thread and I will end up teaching 2 years old forever and I could never become a successful concert pianist and .... shit!!!! Where am I???!! What am I doing????! Gosh what's the next note?!?!?!??!
PIA PIA PIA......
🤬🤬🤬
It also might be that I cared too much about it. Cared too much about not making mistakes and ended up making even more. I know I could play really good music, but sometimes I really have this obsessiveness of being perfect, and the result is often not very satisfactory.
Being perfect is impossible; trying to be perfect is poisonous.
Neither of them leads to the true enjoyment.
Clever as I was (this is definitely an ironic joke just in case anyone who read this does not realise it and quietly murmurs "what a disgusting narcissist!), I quickly reflected on the problems, analysed my mistakes, and adjusted my attitude to the right channel for the next concert, as I for sure did not want to write here something like "I did two concert in one day, first one is bad, second one is very bad."
I doubt I would get any student enquiry in the future if I really did so.
Fortunately! I am NOT doing this now!
My second one was a success!
🤗🤗🤗
Of course it is not perfect, but I enjoyed it immensely, and my audience seemed to enjoy it immensely as well. One of my audience kept saying that my music lifted up the spirit of the whole room, which makes me feel being a pianist is something very divine.
And you want to know how do I feel after doing 2 concerts in 1 day?
Hungry.
Hungry enough to eat up all four dishes in a Chinese restaurant and still felt like wanting to lick every plate for the last drop of soup.
Or ...
Maybe this is not the aftermath of the concerts after all.
Gosh.
Horror story.
😱😱😱
Next concert at the beginning of March!
And I have not memorised a single note yet!
How exciting!
🤯🤯🤯
Good Night.
XinRu
Who is feeling hungry again right now and wishing so fervently to have a gigantic pizza
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