Journey of an Artist: Attaining the Ultimate Peak Performance

At the 2008 National Flute Association convention in Kansas City I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion moderated by Jan Vinci, senior artist-in-residence at Skidmore College.  Other panelists were Tadeu Coelho, artist professor of flute at the North Carolina School of the Arts; George Pope, professor of flute at the University of Akron; and Mark Vinci, a jazz saxophonist, recording artist and composer who teaches at SUNY Purchase and Skidmore College. 

Humorous interactions with our audience and a lively exchange of ideas throughout the hour we spent together inspired me to summarize our discussion in the following paragraphs.  Jan Vinci’s thoughtful questions directed the dialogue and lent continuity as we shared life experiences.  Her questions and my responses appear below, with some commentary from colleagues added immediately beneath. 

Jan began the session by defining an artist as someone who is always striving to better him or herself.  This reminds me of Martha Graham’s celebrated quote to Agnes DeMille:

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique…You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.  Keep the channel open.  No artist is pleased.  There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.  There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
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How does an artist define his/her own personal peak performance?
A performance during which you feel no impediment to communication and are able to access what sports psychologist James Loehr terms your Ideal Performance State.

IPS components, as described in Loehr’s The New Toughness Training for Sports, include:
*Being able to concentrate and focus mental, emotional, and physical energy superbly
*Staying relatively relaxed and calm
*Being confident
*Remaining flexible and resilient
*Giving your own personal best under pressure

How does one achieve a comfort zone in the performance of challenging compositions?
*By recognizing and instantly discarding negative thoughts, which interfere with joyous, spontaneous music making.

*By accessing the personal discipline to give such works maximum preparation, a strategy that engenders confidence.  Program a new work correctly in your ear and your brain the very first time you read through it.  Practice it right and you’ll play it right!

Tadeu Coelho: Julius Baker always said, “If you don’t ever make a mistake, you won’t make a mistake!”

George Pope: Always try to value the ingredient of fun in a performance of a challenging work.  Once before a performance of Berio’s Sequenza I told myself “It’s just music—Dance when you go out there!” It worked.

How does one utilize the plethora of exercise materials to achieve superior technique?
Always remain aurally aware!  It’s not just about your fingers, but also about how you use your air, focus your sound, and shape a phrase when you play scales, arpeggios, thirds, etc. over the entire register of the flute.  Listen and learn, always playing technical exercises as musically as you can.  Engage your brain, breathe, and play in tune.

Mark Vinci: Try reversing the flute!

How does one build the mind to perform by memory with ease?
Memorization is a skill that must be practiced.  Aural memory, visual memory, and kinesthetic memory all play major roles in developing security when playing without music.  Can you sing the piece?  Write it out?  Do you understand the note relationships, harmony, and structure within the piece you’re memorizing?

Mark Vinci: If I want to play music from my heart, I can’t be reading it with my eyes. Other suggestions: Internalize the music and turn off the world.
Revisit memorized repertoire to keep it in your ear and brain.

How does one reach out to the audience during a performance, while keeping your cool?
Why be cool?  Why not be hot?  Or do we need to keep our cool onstage in order to be hot?
Swedish violinist and performance psychologist Ake Lundeberg writes of Baldassare Castiglione’s timeless book Il Libro del Corteggiano (The Book of the Courtier, 1528).  In it we can find the three attributes that are essential for successful performance, namely:

Decoro - maintaining a sense of dignity and professional pride
Sprezzatura -    showing courage or even non-chalance.  Put another way, this would mean possessing the ability to show your audience how easy it is (even if it isn’t!).
Grazie- knowing that the gods will be present, offering divine grace. If you’ve done your part, displaying decoro and sprezzatura, the gods will surely wish to assist you!

George Pope: Daniel Barenboim speaks of the dichotomy that we must embrace as performers.  On the one hand, we must concern ourselves with preparation; on the other, with the emotion we wish to convery.  If we find the right balance, magic and great communication can result during a performance.

Tadeu Coelho: Always feel deep gratitude for what you are doing!

How does one block out distracting life issues, and focus on performing?
As musicians we live in parallel universes: we have personal lives and we have performing lives.  Life experiences contribute to what we are able to say when we perform, and should be embraced, even when painful.  Learning to compartmentalize and focus on the job at hand during stressful times is a necessary and very important skill.  “The show must go on!” is an apt truism to remember whenever personal problems threaten to disrupt your concentration.

How does one eliminate physical distractions: uncomfortable halls, out-of-tune pianos, whispering, movement in the audience, bad lighting, cell phones, personal physical complications, etc.?
Maintain your sense of humor!  Try not to take those things that are beyond your control too seriously.

Remember the words of flutist/pianist Marie Jureit:
“An artist needs to be selfless in order to see through to the real expression.  It’s not about how good you are, it’s about how much you can give and about sharing with the audience.  Just remember that you are in the healing business.”

Those words should help to put minor irritations in the performance venue into their proper perspective.

How does one adjust warming up or practice during times when a consistent schedule of practice is not possible, due to travel, teaching, family, etc.?
Rather than staying locked in a training mindset, put yourself in a trusting mindset. You’ve practiced well over many years, and you’ve built a solid technical foundation. Now you should trust in the work you’ve done, just as a hiker needs to trust the Vibram soles of hiking boots to grip rock on a steep incline.

Also, when pressed for time, streamline your routines and also use mental practice.  This really works!

How does one maintain a basic repertoire, memorized or not, over many years?
Learn a work really well the first time!  Plan to rotate works on recital programs over time, so that you have the experience of performing a basic repertoire again and again, making it your own over a period of years.  Keep learning and adding new works to expand and maintain a sense of freshness in your repertoire.

What qualities do you look for in assisting artists?
*Flexibility.  In particular, this means a willingness to try different ideas and offer a fresh viewpoint (meanwhile not insisting on that viewpoint being adopted).

*Energy, especially in rehearsal.  If a collaborator’s working rhythm is radically slower or faster, it can be difficult to work together comfortably and efficiently.

*Chemistry.  This is sometimes hard to define, but when it exists musical collaboration seems effortless—and deeply rewarding.

*Enthusiasm.  Enough said!