Performance Journal - A Space to Think
Sitting in a concert a few weeks ago, I thought: “I should keep a journal of all the performances I go to and my experiences with music!”. A stroke of genius - what a nice way to reflect on my musical experiences and how they make me feel! This is ironic because at music school we had this assignment where we had to keep a “performance journal” and hand it in to be graded along with our program notes at our end of year recital, and I often complained about it. I have slightly repressed memories of trying to plagiarise my friends’ performance journal 2 hours before it was due and ordering Ubereats to the Uni library. Alas, it was one of the lowlights of my time at uni.
The concert I attended that sparked this idea was a New Zealand School of Music lunchtime concert with Gillian Ansell, my ex-viola teacher, and Deirdre Irons. Gill played Salina Fisher’s Reflect and Hindemith’s Sonata for Viola and Piano op 11 no 4, which is important because these are two of my favourite pieces I’ve ever performed, in the two recitals I am most proud of. While watching the concert I thought about Max Richter’s NPR tiny desk concert on Youtube, in which he talks about how he is interested in the idea of a piece of music as a space to think. While I watched Gillian perform Salina Fisher’s Reflect, the music brought back memories of my time at music school and made me think about my future as a musician. Recently I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by that feeling that I never have enough time for everything I want or need to do. What follows is a somewhat messy account of what I thought about in this concert, and the ways concerts are meaningful for me as a place to self-reflect, think, and feel with a bit of clarity.
It’s been a particularly busy time at work recently, which has meant I haven’t been able to take time off for gigs. The more gigs I turn down the more uneasy I get about what I’m doing with my life. What was the point of studying music for 4 years if I’m turning down gigs to answer emails and update spreadsheets? I’ve been feeling stressed, like I’m running out of time, or not using my time well. I know I’m just tired, because when I’m healthy and happy I will go on about how much time we have and how we don’t need to rush. Recently though, I’ve been questioning what I’m doing with my time, if I’m making the most of it, if I have enough of it, why am I spending it the way I am. It’s the time of year for uncertainty about what the next year or next chapter holds, and I’ve been looking for ways to break out of this obsessive pattern of thought, regardless of bigger life decisions.
Something I love about going to a concert is that you give up control for as long as the performer is on stage. Just like Hayden said from a performer’s perspective, that when you’re on stage you’re in control. In the audience, you sit there in your seat and you experience the performance, you think and feel and you get bored and you’re moved, and you just let it all happen. This lunchtime concert was exactly what I needed, to give up control. In the act of giving up control for that hour, I felt like I could give up a bit more control in my life, which was a big relief. It’s important to remind myself that things will happen the way they do, that to let go of almost obsessive thoughts about my future and what it holds is to let go of control, and that leaves me more open to any possibilities.
This leads me to think that perhaps one of the biggest barriers to enjoying and experiencing classical music is the sense that we have time and space for it. As our culture of productivity grows out of control, the idea of sacrificing even one precious hour during which we can only do one thing feels more and more unattainable. This is only exacerbated for those who have more societal pressures and obligations: lower classes, those of racial minorities, and women, who have higher standards placed on them and are paid less for their time. From conversations with my friends, more and more of us are craving time and space, we want things to be simpler, we romanticise times before technology and talk about deleting instagram to get back in touch with the real world. However we simultaneously feel like we’re running out of time to accomplish what we need to, faced with global crises like COVID-19 and climate change. What we need more than ever is concerts/a space to think: surrendering control, having time to sit with our thoughts, and to let ourselves be moved. This is what I want to nurture in my life - no matter what career I am pursuing or what I choose to do with my life. I want to carve out a space to think.
