I'm going to be performing at Wine Time Restaurant in Chico next weekend, so I thought I would say a thing or two about live performances. And yes, it has everything to do with elephants. Anyone who has read more than a few of my blogs should be confident that I can successfully relate the two. (Hashtag: "Enough with the analogies already, Thor!"). But I'll get to the elephant later.
In the mean time, it should suffice to know that I've regularly performed at three different venues in Chico: Wine Time, Monk's Wine Lounge, and La Rocca Wine Tasting Room (I don't know what it is about mixing wine with piano music, but people seem to like it). I also performed at The Eagle's Nest Art Gallery in Quincy (Plumas County) for a retirement party, and at the Drunk Brush Wine Lounge (again, these people with their wine and music). The other out-of-town gig I've done is a restaurant in Yankee Hill called The Rock House. It's actually a wine tasting room, beer tasting room AND a restaurant, all rolled into one.
Surprisingly, my experience with these venues didn't differ very much from one another. There were some acoustic differences where I had to adjust for the sound, but not much. The set-up and sound testing took about the same amount of time in all places (about 45 minutes -- a short-ish time, since all I have is a digital piano to plug in and some kind of sound source to connect).
There are several experiences that I keep having in all of these venues, and the main one is that there are always distractions. Some venues have more than others. It would be fair, I think, to mention a few examples of these distractions, and to then explain what I call "The Elephant Test."
Hearing versus Listening
To understand the nature of these distractions, it's important to know that casual "live performances" are usually different from actual sit-down concerts. Casual live music is more like "dinner music," or background music, which has usually been the case with the gigs I've been doing here in Chico. A "concert" is often thought of as a little more formal, planned, organized, and focused, where people actually purchase tickets in advance and have to wait in line to see the person perform. In casual live performances, the audience members (who are often eating, drinking, socializing, etc.) are often just "hearing" the music and not so much "listening" to it. This is completely okay, and actually it's sort of the point -- it's background music. In this type of environment, I expect people to merely "hear" the music while they're relaxing with their fancy wine glasses, and I've learned to keep the volume level down just enough so that they can clearly hear it, but at the same time the music doesn't drown out their conversations.
A concert is a bit different. In a concert, you can be the spotlight. You're expected to be the spotlight. You're allowed to be a little bit of an "attention whore" and you're expected to sometimes talk between songs. The volume level can be louder and more attention is directed at you. The interesting thing is that these two types of performances -- the "background music" and the sit-down concert -- sometimes overlap with each other. Sometimes a casual live performance can turn into a sit-down concert, if people get drawn enough to the music. They will start turning their chairs to face the musician, they stop their conversations, etc. I've had this happen several times, and it does happen quite often in general, depending on the dynamics of the audience, the quality of the music, and how much wine the people have had (I've found that when they're about three or more glasses in they usually go on yammering for at least another hour).
I just got distracted from writing about distractions...
Okay, so onto the actual distractions. Seeing as I have had a couple of small sit-down concerts in Chico, I can tell you that there are far more distractions that happen during a "casual" live performance than there are at a sit-down concert. What are they, you ask? Well, here they are:
1) Background noise. This includes things like chatter, people socializing, laughing, the clunking of silverware and dinner plates, people coughing, etc.
2) People moving around. This surprised me slightly when I first started performing, but it is a significant distraction. People walk in front of you quite a bit (or sometimes behind you) and sometimes they stand right in front of you, blocking any view you had of the audience. This is especially true in small venues. There is a surprising number of times when people stood in front of me with their big butts right by my face. After a few glasses of alcohol, a live pianist kind of becomes a piece of furniture; the wine-intoxicated patrons still hear your music but they sometimes "forget" you're there.
3) Street noise. Very often, people hire me to play on a patio or a courtyard. These wine tasters don't always get enough with the wine and music, so they need to absorb the wine and music outside for a pleasant atmosphere. Monk's Wine Lounge (which has closed now) was right in the heart of downtown Chico, and when I used to play there I was constantly bombarded with traffic noise -- cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, etc., even though the patio was at the back of the building, and not in front where the main street was.
4) The staff at the venue. This, of course, is not a criticism against the staff, since they have to do their jobs and also since they are the reason I'm getting a paycheck in the first place. But yes, they have to walk around a lot and serve the guests. Sometimes they ask me to "pause" for a moment so that someone can make an announcement, or because they have a guest wine maker who wants to talk to the patrons about the grapes he used, where they were grown, etc. I actually played at one venue where the door of the restaurant's kitchen kept swinging open when the servers came out with the entrees, and inside the kitchen the cooks were blasting their own music on a CD player, not realizing that there was live music going on in the patio. See, distractions.
5) Temperature. This one is huge. Like I said, I often play outside, and Chico can get baking-hot in the summers. Even when it's in the mid 80's or anywhere in the 90's, when you're playing outside, you sweat. The people who come to listen to my kind of music usually expect to see someone who's dressed up, too, so I typically wear nice clothes, even if it's warm out. This can be an issue inside as well, depending on whether the building has good air conditioning, or sometimes it's crowded and the body heat starts to add up. One solution to this is that you can bring a small fan to keep you cool (and you can make jokes to the staff about it being your "number one fan" in the audience).
6) Smells. Not always an issue, but sometimes. At a restaurant there can be a variety of smells, like delicious shrimp, or something like a stir fry. Even the appetizing smell of gourmet food can distract you a little. Sometimes people can smell, too. You know, body odor, too much perfume, too much cologne, or they just flat-out smell funny.
7) Positioning. This often depends on what kind of instrument you play. For me, I use a sustain pedal that attaches to the digital piano, and the petal has to be taped down or it will move around too much when I use it. I sometimes tape it down in the wrong spot and my foot has to be in a position I'm not used to, but I still do fine. As long as I practice enough, this isn't much of an issue. This same thing can be true with the position of the piano bench,whether or not the ground or floor is at an incline, etc. All kinds of things like this can come up, because the spot you're playing in is always going to be different than the spot you play in at home.
8) Nerves. Some people get nervous, and this can be a distraction, although this has never been an issue with me so far, mainly because I've done this enough times that I've grown numb enough to it. Having worked as a teacher has also helped because I'm used to standing in front of a bunch of people and talking, so stage fright is not so much of a thing with me. The key to solving this problem (no pun intended) is an ample amount of practice, as well as experience. Just as it was in the case of my teaching career, the more you do it the less nervous you get.
How you will never have to worry about ANY of these distractions
Yes, the solution is exactly as simple as I'm making it out to be. All of the eight distractions I mentioned above (there are probably more) can be conquered and rendered inconsequential by doing one thing: practicing your set list, over and over, every day, until the songs become so automatic that you can virtually play them while nodding off from not having enough sleep. When the distractions happen, you will notice -- but your fingers will keep playing. Just acknowledge the distraction and stay focused, while letting the fingers automatically do what they've done a thousand times already. It's somewhat similar to having someone talking to you while you're driving. Most of us can still drive and make a left turn, for example, while a passenger is in the other seat talking, because we've done this so many times that it just becomes automatic. In the same way, if you practice your music enough, the distractions will fail to throw you off your game. Unless the distraction is a fiery meteor that comes crashing through the ceiling and sets the building on fire -- and even then, keep your focus and keep playing. If you only practice once in a while, and it's not enough, the distractions will throw you off a little bit, and even if it's in some subconscious or insignificant way, some audience members may notice a little bit.
This is where the elephant comes in handy. The "Elephant Test" involves the necessity to get into the "zone", which means that you just get into your music emotionally, while you're playing it -- close your eyes, become a little bit uninhibited, pretend that you're practicing by yourself, pretend nobody's watching, etc. This is very healthy, and -- assuming you've practiced -- it will help you play better. It can also help those people who get nervous when they play in front of others. The "test" to see if you're really focused, and that no amount of distraction will deter you, is that an elephant should be able to walk across the room, and you should still be able to stay focused. The only problem with the Elephant Test is that, for some reason, I've had a really hard time finding an elephant. What would be really great is if the elephant walked up to the musician and made that squealing elephant noise, and it still didn't distract the musician.
Can't find an elephant? Then play like Hilary Hahn
The idea of the Elephant Test came to me when I watched a performance by an American violinist named Hilary Hahn. As a professional, she clearly practices her violin on a consistent basis, because you can see how focused she is when she plays. During her performances she is completely absorbed in every single note she plays, as if the audience is totally blocked from her mind. I really think that an elephant walking across the room during her performance would fail to get her attention. That's how you should play an instrument. I maintain this argument even in light of the fact that Hillary Hahn (as far as I know) typically performs at formal, sit-down type concerts, where there are minimal distractions to begin with. Anyone who watches her would undoubtedly agree that she gets so much into the "zone" that a little chatter or breaking of plates at a restaurant would not throw her off one bit.
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| Hilary Hahn |
Running out of practice
I've come across a few people that seem to have a misconception about practice. They believe that if you practice a piece to a certain degree, you will always be able to play it flawlessly, even in the midst of multiple distractions. I have found that this is far from true. A musician may be able to remember the piece, and may be able to actually play it quite well -- but playing it and performing it are two different things. Performing a song involves having to multi-task even more, because you have distractions to deal with and, for some people, nerves, or even sound issues. Not only do you have to practice a piece but you have to keep practicing it on a regular basis to make sure you don't get "rusty". After a number of months of not playing a piece (even if it's a piece you wrote) you'll find yourself hesitating in certain places, playing parts a little "sloppily", or pausing slightly in parts of the song because you're thinking about what needs to come next. So yes, you can play it, but to be able to fluidly perform something, you have to keep practicing it regularly.
The same thing is true with running. What do you think a marathon runner does? He runs regularly, presumably every day, along with any other exercises he makes to prepare for a marathon (stretching, aerobics, other types of cardio to keep in shapes, eating the right foods, etc.). If he does all these things, runs the marathon, and wins, he is obviously thrilled and is entitled to full bragging rights for all his endurance and hard work that helped make him win.
But let's say he stops running completely, right after the marathon, and doesn't run or exercise at all for the next five years. Do you think he would be ready to win a marathon again? No, he wouldn't. The same is true with music. You have to keep playing certain pieces, or keep playing music at that same difficulty level to maintain those skills and not get rusty. Yes, music is like riding a bike (you can go years without playing, then pick up your instrument and play like you never took a break), but to keep being able to perform with one hundred percent confidence you have to play regularly. Again, the distractions that present themselves during a performance are a whole new thing you have to deal with that you won't experience when you're practicing at home.
And on that note, here's a link to a Hilary Hahn performance. And yes, that pun was intended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnIrE7_1YA
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