Fun, pleasure and appreciation

Well, this is a very delicate subject especially for artists. The desire of recognition and appreciation is coming so naturaly and we believe that this will define us as musicians. I`m not so sure if we are teached in this way, or this desire it`s coming more from inside. 
First, let`s try to explain the terms of hobby and profession. It`s a big difference between a child which takes private lessons and is learning to play an instrument just for fun and pleasure and a child which takes lessons in order to pursue a career in this field. Until now, I didn`t hear teachers from the schools telling the students to play WHAT they want and WHEN they want, just for fun and for their pleasure. This can happen just into the private classes. 
Later, those students who are doing music for profession will become teachers or maybe orchestra players. This are stable jobs and are good for a regular income. But remember, this are jobs! In the orchestra is almost the same. Somebody is organizing a schedule with the pieces for the entire season. So the musicians can`t choose the program. We play what we SHOULD play. Maybe the most happy musicians are those who are amateur or freelance. They have not a stable job and an irregular income, but in the end they are more free to choose their program for performances. 
I don`t know if I was very precise, but the idea is that the professional musicians are not  FREE to play WHAT they want and WHEN they want. It`s more about DISCIPLINE instead of pleasure.
About the appreciation I can say that this is a strong desire for all artists. Being the best, the most talented and famous can be a goal for many musicians. I don`t know if the most famous or talented musicians are more happy. It seems that NO, they are so busy with concerts, so obsessed to work hard and maybe sometimes they are more UNHAPPY than the amateurs who are playing what they WANT just for FUN! 
My message will be: Let`s keep the music also for fun and pleasure and don`t transform it completely into a job!

Expectations vs Reality


I will start this interesting topic from the point of view as a performer. We all have expectations before a concert, audition or exam. We know the program, we practiced enough (or not) to be good prepared and this gives us the feeling of predictability. Most of the times, the result is more or less right with small variations. Sometimes it can happen a big surprise like for example to be very good prepared and suddenly your performance is very bad or the contrary, to play much better than you expected. Why? Our feelings are very exposed in the moment of performance in front of a public. It is not so comfortable for everybody to be so open. Some of us will experience nervosity, fear, anxiety. For some of us little from this feelings will be perfect to push us to perform at our best level but for others will be an inconvenient. So, it is absolutely clear that we are different and here is the beauty! Still, I believe that the results are quite predictable in our case, as a performers.  

Now I would like to speak also from the point of view as a teacher. It`s almost the same. Our students are facing also anxiety before playing and they have also some expectations, but I saw one difference. Their results are not so predictable as our results! Simply, we can see a lot of variations between our expectations and the reality. I can give you an example with one of my students which was good prepared. Before the exam she was so happy, so full of energy and so excited to play! I was expecting a good performance, but the truth is that during the performance she played really bad. A weak tone, lack of concentration, many mistakes and some memory lapses. I was astonished! It was  a change of 180 degree in her attitude. Well, I couldn`t guess what will happen so I was not able to help her. I felt frustrated, but then I understood that she was also surprised about what happened. Now I`m more prepared and from this experience I`ve learned something.  The next time I`ll be more reserved with the predictions and more open to a real result vs an expected one!