Every collaborating musician involved with the Classical Music Connects project I initially encountered in the social media and it’s no exaggeration to say that making contact with with this diverse talented bunch of musicians has completely changed my focus both professionally and personally over the last couple of years.

The power of group energy in the process of creating positive change in the world is really something quite extraordinary.

Each has freely offered their time, material, expertise and support without any thought to commercial gain or what’s in it for them. This is really something quite special these days especially as they work within such a highly competitive market.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing throughout 2012 – ego and greed are out; the collective and sharing is in!

UK composer Jenni Pinnock is no exception to the typical CMC collaborator profile. The first I heard about the new clarinet sonata she was writing for the project was when she casually mentioned the possibility in a Tweet one night!

I’ve been very privileged to be part of the composing process this time – how I wish the same could be said about Brahms and other long dead composers! It’s been a new experience for me as a performer and quite addictive as I witnessed the work take shape.

Snatches of Skype

Having communicated via email, Twitter and Facebook up until now, this week we finally got together our schedules and managed a lengthy Skype chat.

I wanted to discover more about what being a composer actually means as well as asking some questions which were important to me in arriving at some decisions on interpretation.

The following are snippets of general interest cut from our conversation…

Satisfy my curiosity – how old were you when you first started writing music?

You’d find me “doodling” at the piano from aged 7 and making simple arrangements at 9 but I suppose I didn’t really get going until I was 14 and sitting public school exams.

What’s the story behind the clarinet sonata – what inspired you?

In the summer of 2010, Tom – my husband – and I finally moved out of central London into the suburbs. Living in the middle of the city you take for granted how easy it is to move around using the Underground. Now outside it, our lives became dominated by trains and timetables!

Sitting on the train taking my usual trip into Town one day I became very aware of the passing scenery and thought “Wow – this is amazing! I must write a piece about this some day”. When the CMC caught my eye last year everything kind of fell into place and it became obvious what I should do.

The piece is based around three particular ‘scapes: the hustle and bustle of London – including its mixed architecture and extreme contrasts – the suburbs with their surprises and the beauty of the countryside once you pass the M25.

I’ve always been involved in collaborative work and love sonata form but had never completed  a whole work in that format. The character of the clarinet just lent itself to the subject matter and I do play the instrument myself which makes it easier in some respects.

If you’re interested in reading a blow by blow account how Jenni went about this composition, head over to her Creative Pact

How do you make a sustainable living from composing?

*Laughs* – you don’t! What I can say is that at the beginning of 2012, I’ve at last got to the point where the majority of my income is now produced through music – that’s a mix of teaching, editing, arranging or writing. Although not as much of this as I would like is through composing it’s still a huge step forward career-wise.

My next goal is to build a private studio of students. I’m working with an autistic pupil at the the moment which has me fascinated in exactly what’s involved when we humans create.

First Impressions of the Pinnock Clarinet Sonata

It’s always very exciting to play a piece that’s completely virgin and being touched for the very first time but I was particularly thrilled to be presented with an entire sonata.

Jenni’s natural compositional style doesn’t betray her roots – it’s very English and at once reminded me of Finzi and Vaughan-Williams. The rich harmonies throughout are wonderful and some chord progressions are just gorgeous.

While largely tonal and accessible to the average listener, it most certainly isn’t trite writing or dumbed down for mass consumption. On the other hand, the work really does conjure up images of trains – a feat which seems pretty amazing to me!

This isn’t an easy sonata to play. There are multi-rhythms, a lot of work around the clarinet throat area – challenges with voicing and intonation – plus some “surprise” phrases which don’t lead where logic would dictate but work well nevertheless.

As a performer, I love the fact that Jenni has resisted the temptation to “over-annotate” which leaves me room to play with articulation and dynamic. She’s also very easy to work with and happy to take up suggestions.

You can discover more about this modest UK composer on her web site: http://jennipinnock.com/ or hang out with her on Twitter (hint – you’ll usually catch her 0900 or 1600 GMT!).

Performance Plans

Before I undertake more detailed study of the Pinnock Sonata, I want to visit the UK and take the train journey that inspired the work. My idea for the première is to play it with a relevant background of photos. The idea of this trip is not only to take plenty of pics in preparation but also experience what lies behind the work.

Funding for the UK stage of Classical Music Connects is still way short of target – all apart from one donation so far has been from the US – and while I already know that the gig will take place in London, I’m reluctant to make a firm date until I’m confident that there is some interest in the country.

So – if you live in the UK, are keen to promote classical music and care enough not only to encourage an emerging young British composer but also support the increasing number of homeless – 40% of ticket proceeds will be destined for relevant good causes, please consider contributing to Classical Music Connects. There are other gigs pencilled in for Kent, possibly Nottingham, Huddersfield and Edinburgh which will also feature UK clarinettist Peter Cigleris.

To find out more, click HERE. All main currencies accepted via PayPal or credit card.

The Rewards Programme is scheduled to go up at the end of this month and ALL monies sent from launch will qualify.

We started playing our instruments when we were young – some when mere toddlers. Amassing various accolades in our teens, the next stage was successfully navigating our way through conservatory training which is supposed to prepare us for a lifetime of joy performing in public.

With an innate talent, positive strokes and education pedigree behind us, engaged in our passion, you would have thought there should be no reason for being eaten up with nerves prior to and during a gig.

And yet…

I’ve lost count of the number of private conversations I’ve had over the last few years with outwardly successful pros who are constantly in work but confess to being consumed by anxiety.

When you don’t have this problem, it’s easy to forget how dreadful it feels until like me, it suddenly strikes as it did at the last Classical Music Connects event and when you do suffer on a regular basis, it most certainly isn’t in public view.

In this article my focus and curiosity is attempting to unearth the underlying reasons why it’s so difficult to find personal accounts, audio, video and open public sharing on the subject.

This wont be a discourse on the “what”, the “why” and how to overcome performance anxiety. If you’re looking for something of that nature – head over to Zero 2 Maestro.

Ego and Image

As far as I’m aware, my on-line and off-line persona is identical. I have nothing to hide and if on the odd occasion I do decide to keep mum, it’s usually to protect the identity of somebody else.

That said, I had a really hard time deciding whether to post on my performance anxiety experiences, mainly because it meant admitting that I hadn’t got my shit 100% together as a musician.

I was…

• frightened that my peers would write me off as unprofessional
• concerned that I’d lose existing and future audiences
• petrified that event organisers would never invite me to play again
• worried that people would think I was some kind of a musical joke and had no business being in the industry

Note that there was not a single thought about the composer, the audience or the music! How egocentric can you get?!

Having taken the decision to come out of the closet, not only was I overwhelmed with kindness, support and understanding from other musicians worldwide on the social media but this week I was invited back to the same venue in the New Year for a full recital performance. My fears were clearly without substance.

My conclusion: sometimes we go to extraordinary lengths to protect our self-esteem especially if it means avoiding confronting a truth – that we’re fallible human beings and not perfect musicians after all.

I also wonder if keeping a sub-par performance out of the public eye – apart from those actually present obviously –  is an attempt to delude ourselves and everybody else that it never happened.

Self-love, on the other hand, means accepting yourself as you are, including our shortcomings and it’s this authenticity that’s so tough for the majority of us to demonstrate.

Few musicians are destined to be Lang-Langs or Paverottis. We might acknowledge that intellectually but accepting it emotionally is another matter entirely.

Tip #1 – Reach Out

I spent most of the weekend after the gig barely speaking and feeling incredibly alone, plagued by never-ending re-runs of the last movement of the Saint-Saens Clarinet Sonata!

It wasn’t until I took the plunge and Skyped a couple of close colleagues – feeling totally pathetic – that I learned they too were either tackling the same issue or had been in the very recent past.

Don’t suffer on your own – talk to somebody!

Tip #2 – Keep a Grip on Reality

Musicians are their own worst critics. When we practice we’re engaged in continuous nit picking analysis and there can be a tendency to take this same skill into a performance situation.

It often amazes me how we’re seen and heard by others. What you may think is a bum performance is not necessarily how an audience hears it and on the odd occasion when you are satisfied with a gig, a critic will come out of the woodwork and attack you unmercifully.

Everybody has times when they play less than their best and it’s unlikely that you’ll find your career in ruins after a single bad night. Work out what went wrong, truly forgive yourself as you would a best friend and move on.

Tip #3 Accept What Is

I had a very interesting conversation with @CMSPtweets on Twitter last week (do look at the web site: Chopin and My Saucepan which has the most fabulous food photography!) who confirmed my own thoughts: audience expectations are getting higher along with the general standard of playing.

There’s nothing wrong with this per se as I truly believe a music career involves a lifetime of learning and we should all be striving for excellence regardless of the standard we’ve reached.

Remember though that the media, recordings and videos now give us access to the best live performances from top performers and as a result, it’s easy to put yourself under so much pressure that you forget why you became a musician in the first place.

We each have something unique to offer and just because we’re not the greatest pianist/singer/violinist in the world doesn’t invalidate our music making.

Tip #4 Plot a Recovery Strategy

It seems that it was a lack of regular performances that lay at the heart of my unexpected brush with performance anxiety. What I have to avoid is a repeat of the same experience the next time round otherwise I can see a potential phobia developing.

With that in mind, I’ve changed the date of the live streamed Málaga gig to February 25. In the meantime, I’ll be arranging as many low profile events as I can – retirement complexes, a busking effort in a local shopping mall and a house concert are a few of the ideas I have.

My pianist Heather has very generously donated her time and energies free despite the fact there’ll be no financial gain from these gigs and for that I’m extremely grateful.

You Are Somebody Else Other Than a Musician

It’s having a life that makes an artist. How can you possibly interpret and communicate musically unless you allow yourself  to experience a full range of human emotions, the struggle of spiritual growth, triumph and disaster?

Welcome challenge. You will survive – perhaps a little batter but unbowed – and ultimately it will make you stronger.

While there seems to be volumes of theory on the subject, I can’t find a single article written by from personal perspective by another working musician – read non A-lister – apart from flautist Alexis del Palazzo and pianist Erica Sipes.

We seem to be so protective of our egocentric “reputation” or image – worried sick about what other people will think – that the result is a collective silence.

So what is this thing that scares us so much that the majority are too frightened to own up to it? Performance anxiety – “stage fright” or “nerves”.

If like me, you’ve been rather smugly trotting out advice to other people thinking it could never happen to you or believe that a string of paper qualifications will adequately equip you to deal with an anxiety attack when it strikes unexpectedly, take a look at this video and wince along with Mazza:

Nearly a week after the event, seeing that footage still turns my stomach into a tight ball of grief and disappointment.

Textbook Case

Should you follow me on the social media, you’ll know that I was really looking forward to the performance last Friday. I hadn’t played in public for quite a while and I was excited to get Classical Music Connects out on the road at last.

I was well prepared – all the notes sat very comfortably under the fingers and I’d upped the anti in practice by making life a tad uncomfortable for myself by setting up various scenarios that could arise in a performance situation.

The day of the gig panned out exactly as planned: some technical work in the morning with a run-through of the tricky passages – I was done in about an hour and a half; a nap, some meditation, and a walk in the afternoon.

The gig was due to kick off at 2000 and, cutting a long story short, Heather – my usual local pianist – had been elected to play with me. We’d agreed to meet at 1830, do a warm-up separately and then have a play of the single sonata movement at the venue.

Although a great honour for me to be invited to a community event, I assessed this gig as fairly low-key and when we arrived on location, I was in control, calm and reasonably relaxed.

The rehearsal went well which left Heather and I chatting away quite happily in a make-shift green room waiting to be called to play.

Apparently, I had been told that evening that TV cameras were going to be present but consciously this went unacknowledged. Neither was I prepared for a room jam packed with at least 150 people – even all the standing room had been taken! – and members of the local press.

Adrenaline Tsunami

Show time eventually arrived after a delay – quite normal here in Spain – on we went. As soon as I walked into the hall it me like a ton of bricks – a massive wave of adrenaline, the like of which I have honestly never experienced before ever.

After that, the best way of explaining it is that my brain went AWOL into some kind of shock. The result was a very sub-par performance indeed. From my perspective the only positive thing about it was that I managed to finish without stopping!

I failed to follow-through on my normal routine right from the start – why on earth didn’t I kick off as I used to do and start some banter with the audience? I allowed photographers and cameras to distract me – whatever happened to my laser focus? At the first fumbled note I couldn’t drag myself back on track – my concentration disappeared completely and mind chatter took over.

At the end I wanted to scuttle away in a corner, pack up my instruments and head home for a stiff drink but I couldn’t – there were two numbers with the choir and afterwards it would have been extremely discourteous if I’d hidden myself away which isn’t my style anyway. This was supposed to be a Christmas celebration after all.

Aftermath

I remained in a weird suspended state of consciousness from that point for the next 24 hours and at the post-event gathering I can only vaguely remember two conversations with people I already knew.

My worst nightmare – and probably that of every musician – had come true. I ached with the guilt of letting down the people who had kindly asked me to perform and also the audience, felt completely humiliated through my own actions and worst of all, the hard won robust quiet self-confidence was in tatters.

This was death of the ego big time.

How am I moving on from this pitiful performance and can my experience help you slay your own anxiety dragons? Find out next week!

As I sit writing this two days before what will be the first time I’ve performed in public for some time, I find myself contemplating a question I’ve never yet been able to answer: what is it that motivates individuals to voluntarily put themselves in front of an audience?

Given that most people try and avoid situations where they are vulnerable and/or under public scrutiny, I wouldn’t blame you if your conclusion was that musicians must be complete masochists!

Joking aside, I believe that the answer is far more complex psychologically than the simple reason of wanting to share the joy of classical music with other people.

Being the Centre of Attention and Adrenaline Rush

Although I don’t really like to admit it, evidence suggests that ever since Toddler Mazza discovered the joys of emptying Mum’s kitchen cupboards and setting up a makeshift drum kit complete with wooden spoons on upturned saucepans – the lids made great cymbals by the way! – I’ve got some sort of kick out of making a noise in front of other people.

This carried on throughout my childhood when every Christmas I press ganged my two unwilling brothers to take part in some sort of show that I’d concocted and then subjected the entire family to a forced viewing in the main lounge complete with entrance tickets.

Here’s an example which was rescued from a very stretched cassette tape and saved for posterity *ahem* on MP3:

Audio: The Marion Le Verger Christmas Spectacular 1980

Entering local music competitions had the same effect. There seemed to be something addictive about creating from scratch, the buzz of seeing it all come together, the excitement of the performance and then, ah yes, the applause.

Clearly I was, and still am, an adrenaline junkie although paradoxically you’d never catch me at a fair ground!

Seeking Approval and Validation

For somebody who periodically struggles with self-esteem issues and self-doubt, it may seem bizarre to continuously offer myself up to public judgement but that’s exactly what we do each time we perform as musicians.

My explanation is that what we’re seeking is approval and validation of our talents and art. Perhaps it fulfills a deep seated need to feel worthy as a human being?

A Burning Desire to Communicate

In an effort to shut me up one day, my suffering partner of 14 years quipped “I’m sure your mouth must give a sigh of relief when you go to sleep because at least then it can have a rest!”

She’s right. Once I first learnt to talk, I carried on.

The same applies to my music, writing and editing. I feel I have something to say to contribute to making the lives of others a little better in some way.

A Testing of Ourselves and the Sense of Achievement

Taking yourself out of the comfort of a practice room, playing live when conditions may be less than ideal and effectively anything could happen, takes courage.

A single performance is the culmination of innumerable work hours and added to that, we also have the responsibility to deliver entertainment for people who’ve usually paid upfront for an experience. That’s a heck of a responsibility.

Only a few are willing to step up to the plate and the chances are if you’re reading this, you’re one of them.

Performing is the ultimate test of our talent, skill and nerve which we repeat again and again and again despite the fear.

The Need to Give of Ourselves

The English poet John Donne (1572 – 1631) wrote:

No man is an island entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

Think back to the last time you gave a gift to somebody – maybe a loved one on their birthday or your kids on Christmas Day morning. Remember the expression on their face as they excitedly tore open the wrapping paper; the way their eyes lit up when they saw what was inside; their words of thanks to you.

This is how it feels when you’re done with a performance and some members of the audience take the trouble to come up to you afterwards and offer their appreciation. Maybe the music has moved them to tears or helped them come to terms with something in their lives.

Wow! As musicians we can function as catalysts for positive change and make a real difference in the world.

It’s a need to give – to make a difference – that’s my main driver and the motivation behind Classical Music Connects. What are the reasons you’re a musician?

My feet have hardly touched the ground this past fortnight: I’ve been out and about in my home Andalusian province of Málaga, chatting to as many people who would listen to me expound on Classical Music Connects.

In retrospect – and here’s a confession – I should have done a lot more of this before the project was launched back in July.

Bearing in mind that the Spanish part of CMC involves few costs upfront, it probably would have been better to have prioritised a couple of initial gigs and live-streams first rather than sitting  in isolation ploughing through endless but in many respects premature funding emails.

And why this temporary mental atrophy and reluctance to push for gigs from the get go?

So many people do it – procrastination. It’s common to find yourself falling all too easily into its clutches especially when you have a task in front of you which means moving out of your comfort zone.

So why do we put things off? After all, it effectively amounts to self-sabotage.

What Causes Procrastination?

In my own case – referring to gig hustling – its’ a good bet that I’ve put it off due to an unconscious fear of failure and being rejected although up until now I don’t think I’ve had the courage to be completely honest with myself.

Here are some more reasons for procrastination for you to ponder – maybe you recognise some of them:

• perfectionism – the attitude that if you can’t perform perfectly there’s no point in even trying
• overwhelm – an inability to prioritise
• protecting yourself – keeping yourself safe from emotional upset
• worrying – instead of doing
• being incapable of delaying gratification i.e., completing pleasant tasks above disagreeable ones. For more on this see Renita Kalhorn’s blog post this week “Can You Pass the Marshmallow Test”
• lack of self-esteem

My fear of failure and rejection is largely bound up with being nervous about people’s reactions and has been knocking around for a long time. What about you and your story?

Digging back in my own life still further…as a kid and teen, outwardly I always toed the line. A model student who always got good grades, I excelled at everything, was described as “driven” and always strove to please. Inwardly I craved approval and suppressed my own thoughts.

This continued into adulthood until I rebelled and quit the music profession altogether the final year before graduation.I lacked the emotional maturity to face up to the fear and get over it. Psychologically, it was far easier to stop right there than carry on and risk disappointing myself, my friends and my family.

After a full blown breakdown in 2008, I started to wise up. All I’d done was to procrastinate for years!

What’s Changed…

It’s one of my dearest hopes that Classical Music Connects will somehow act as a catalyst for change in the lives of all those who come across it. I had little idea that the project would result in changing me!

I’ve finally found something that gives me the courage to move beyond my comfort zone and face up to issues that I’ve been avoiding for years. My music career has ceased to be all about me. It’s about something far bigger and more important – an entire project in which many people are depending on me to fulfil my rôle.

Getting over a fear or phobia of anything seems to be about finding a compelling enough reason to change your behaviour. The fear of not taking action and the accompanying negative results is far greater than continuing to push forward.

I’ve finally found my true voice in the middle of a group activity. Who would have thought…!