A week or so ago I played a solo at work--not a concerto, but a solo from within the orchestra. It didn't go as well as I would have liked, and in fact I was embarrassed by it. Thankfully t hat really hasn't happened to me in the ten years I've been in the orchestra. I've had mistakes, of course, but this time was very disappointing to me. It wasn't terrible--I really only missed three notes, but they were enough to make it 75% instead of 95%. None of my colleagues really said anything afterwards, which didn't surprise me. There's an understanding among musicians: you just don't say anything when you know someone is disappointed at how they performed, or if they didn't play as well as everyone knows they can. No platitudes are given, or acceptable. We've all had moments and solos that didn't go well, so more than anything what's going in is empathetic silence.
The nice thing: it didn't really matter. I've lived in a state of fear that I would have an "embarrassing" performance for the past ten years. Now that's it's happened, nothing's changed. My colleagues still respect me, my conductor will allow for one of two of these, since it's human nature. It's sort of a relief, actually.
Yesterday I had another solo performance, this time a duet concerto performance down at WMU. I was pretty nervous about it, but I was determined to play well this time and try and knock this one out of the park. Thankfully, it went really, really well. I felt like it's a clean slate again, and the performance of a week or so ago is wiped off the record books. We got a standing ovation, and three curtain calls.
I'm back in the saddle, and it feels good.
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