Triple Time

June, 2007. Three performances in two days marked last weekend as a milestone in my gigging career. I’d fantasized about such an exhilarating scenario. Repeated every week, it would ensure that I’d never need a day job again.

Enhancing my excitement and terror was the knowledge that all three performances would occur in intimate settings (where people might really be able to hear me), and all were booked on short notice. Two weeks’ notice for the Wine Country home wedding and for the reception at the Tuscan restaurant. A mere three days’ notice for the dinner at one of San Francisco’s most luxurious hotels.

To harness my anxieties about the unknown audience and spaces I would be gracing with violin music, I invited myself to observe each upcoming event with detached curiosity, even while playing (I’d heard that term in an online meditation given by my HMO and hoped it might serve performance situations). My posture of detached curiosity would allow me to survey the quirky causes and symptoms of performance anxiety.

Private Dining Room

As the last shall be the first, the reception booked just three days earlier began my performance weekend. With such short notice, there would be no time to worry, one might think. But where there is a will, there is a way, and where there are causes, they can be chewed over.

Great unknown. Since our Baylink ferry only runs until early evening, I determined I would need my husband Bert to drive me and my two violins to the sumptuous downtown San Francisco hotel. Even if that meant commuting to work with him and spending more than half the day in an empty office previewing the performance in my head while he addressed other peoples’ anxieties. We arrived at the hotel with several hours to spare—in fact, by the time the soirée began, I’d had 12 uninterrupted hours to think about it, and given the travel plans, no time to practice.

Instrument amnesia. The lack of practice prompted a concern that when I opened my violin case that evening, I might not recognize the instrument inside it (similar to the worry about encountering a word you’ve spelled correctly your whole life and imagining it suddenly foreign and slightly ridiculous).

Surprises. The client had called two days earlier with repertory requests (her father, the guest of honor, was picky about music and would likely have further requests, she had warned me). I’d managed to download his special ballad and assembled a number of his favorite continental love songs. The event, a surprise birthday and engagement party, took place in the hotel restaurant’s long and opulent private dining room, where I placed myself discretely at one end in the corner (wow them with understatement, Bert had suggested).

Imagine my startled surprise, when the honored guest, upon learning my name, thunderously announced that I was to play Over the Rainbow. I shimmied my way out, explaining I’d only brought love songs for this romantic occasion. Eventually, I was asked to play the ballad I had been requested to obtain and which would set the scene for the marriage proposal. It met with scant sentimental response, and as I was dismissed, along with the serving staff, for the moment of the proposal, I wondered, with detached curiosity, whether I’d delivered the right song. Summoned back ten minutes later to finish the set, I was again requested to perform a special selection, this time a piece I’d already played. I was grateful to oblige with another round of La Vie En Rose.

The arrival of the second course was my cue to stop playing. As I began to leave, the guest of honor urged all to applaud, and before exiting the narrow dining room, I returned to shake his hand and to congratulate him on his engagement, which resulted in hearty laughter all around. Had I encountered royalty whose hand I was not supposed to shake?

Unwelcome Guest. In what guise did performance anxiety visit during the first of my three musical adventures? Though aggravated by the novel circumstances of this gala event, my repertory of symptoms felt all too familiar:

Sticky left hand. Left-hand perspiration had an immobilizing effect, tightening vibrato, especially on the fourth finger, and hampering free shifting, which in turn affected intonation.

Dampened creativity. I routinely switch octaves to add variety to ballads, but the left-hand impairment prevented me from applying this technique as frequently as I would have wished to. I also felt less adventurous in my ability to add cadential flourishes.

Inelastic bowing. As one hand goes, so goes the other. Though my bow arm did not tremble, I noticed that spiccato bowing was adversely affected, rendering certain passages of Schön Rosmarin not nearly as schön. Bowing tension also aggravated rhythmic inaccuracies and made it more difficult to improvise legato bowings.

Did anybody else notice? Probably not—as background dinner music, this adventure was largely a success and may well result in future engagements.

Vineyard

The following afternoon, headache intact from the previous night’s revelries (even though I didn’t partake of them in a true sense), we departed to Napa for a small family wedding. Bert said he was quite sure he knew where the home was—a modest development on the outskirts of town. Today, I came armed with a small vial of talcum powder to address the previous night’s sticky hand syndrome).

Maze. Winding through the maze of narrow streets, flanked by vineyards, we soon realized our idea of the location had been entirely incorrect and were glad we’d given ourselves an extra hour to arrive. The roads turned hilly and reclusive, and eventually we arrived at our destination, a spectacular vineyard home whose fruits supplied the ingredients for a premium cabernet. I exited the car to ring the security system at the gated entrance and was buzzed in. Halfway through the entryway, the gates shut on each side of our car in Venus flytrap-like fashion. A perilous beginning--we hadn’t been fast enough. With detached curiosity, I considered what damage had just been done to our late model vehicle.

Medley. Safely inside the gate (our car emerged unscathed), I surveyed my play list. For a modestly conceived wedding on such short notice, the bride had made some quite specific demands: The Preludio from Bach’s Second Cello Suite, selections from Vivaldi’s Seasons, movements from several Vivaldi Concerti Grossi (I managed to come up with the D minor theme), and the Rondo alla Turca movement from a Mozart Piano Sonata, excavated from a gig book (only hours earlier, Bert had assured me that the latter sounded awful on violin). For the remainder, the bride had requested mostly Baroque music, except for a Sinatra ballad, a Righteous Brothers song, and As Time Goes By. I wondered how exactly to juxtapose this medley of genres to best effect.

Short season. I like playing Vivaldi’s Seasons by season, but the bride had requested the Largo from Winter as part of the prelude for this late spring ceremony. I rendered it delicately, accompanied by a lusty chorus of vineyard crows. As the minister marched quite suddenly to his purple-flowered pulpit arch on the lawn, I continued to gently usher the Largo to its conclusion. I was waved off sharply—it was time for the bride, who had arrived by limo only minutes earlier, to enter. So much for my teacher’s subtle and interesting fingerings—the remainder of the Largo would languish unheard.

Did my performance anxiety diminish from the night before? The gathering was just as intimate, but the outdoor space with its wraparound deck was more expansive, which helped somewhat. The talcum powder, judiciously tossed at me at various intervals by Bert, helped but was no match against the Napa heat. My desire to play the entire Largo was not helpful—I must learn not to be overly invested in completing a piece, even though it’s been specifically requested and deserves a complete rendition.

Tuscan Table

No time to linger, for I had one more gig tonight. When tiredness sets in, anxiety diminishes. I went home, changed into something slightly more flamboyant, and even drank a half glass of chardonnay. Much of my gear was already in the car, and I did not need to refresh my makeup—the logistics were getting less complicated. I observed with detached curiosity that I felt almost relaxed. I visualized the jazz pianist in the lobby the previous night.

“Let him serve as your inspiration,” Bert had suggested. “He plays calmly, looks around and thinks a little between each piece, then begins again, totally cool.”

Unbearable darkness. The setting was an intimate celebration in the Tuscan restaurant’s courtyard. Alas, in my improved, more relaxed state, I’d neglected to bring my battery-operated stand light, and there was little remaining daylight. The large heat lamp did not promise to be a viable alternative either for me or my violin. Bert once again came to the rescue, dashing off on white steed. With detached curiosity, I wondered whether he would return in time to save the evening. He rose to the occasion, galloping in with an assortment of battery-powered lights purchased at a nearby Radio Shack. Were it not for his heroism, my Tuscan gig might have lasted a mere half hour.

Water music. This time it was not crows that accompanied the music but the fountains of a large reflecting pool that separated the tables on each side of the courtyard. I worried whether water might escape and flood my violin but was assured its trajectory would remain vertical. The wait staff was forced to maneuver around me for the next two hours but took the imposition on their space with good humor.

The talcum powder worked better in the evening setting. I could not figure out how to take a break, and my back was somewhat the worse for that. The group was less intimidating than the private dining room crowd. The splashing water, Bert said, enhanced the performance, making the violin sound mellow while being heard by all, even by the guests inside, who received an unexpected serenade.

Curtain Call

The Tuscan celebration proved the most relaxing of the trio of events, and the music was again well received. Does anxiety decrease with frequency of performance?

Now, if I were to tally the number of errors made during my approximately 5.5 hours of playing time over these two days, I’d really have cause for anxiety. Judging the success of a musical experience by its accuracy alone, I would be too inhibited to perform ever again but would take lessons infinitely with a discerning teacher to ensure that no error trespasses against the sacred score.

I remember such lessons well. Though they frightened me as a child, as an adult student, I greatly appreciated the purity of the experience, the validation in being assigned noble and difficult pieces, the immersion in a few great works rather than the superficial sight reading of many, and last but not least, the therapeutic luxury of having someone’s undivided attention for an entire hour.

But I also remember an observation made to me two decades earlier by someone with a philosophical bent: “The curtain went up a long time ago.”

Thus it may be enough at times to let errors scatter where they may and to trust that sufficient charm remains. And thereby get a little closer to purchasing the violin you may remember from a previous story.