One thing I notice every year is how much students get hung-up on and upset about the mistakes that they make. I am a very demanding teacher and expect my students to give me their best, but I have never held them to the standard of perfection. In fact, I tell them constantly that I've never had a note-perfect performance in my whole life. It seems many of the them don't really believe me, but I will continue to shout it from the housetops!
I MAKE MISTAKES TOO!!!
I am human. Humans make mistakes. If you think you once heard a great performer gives a perfect performance, you probably were in the presence of a fantastic faker! And I mean that in the best possible sense. Of course, our goal is to hide our mistakes as much as possible from our audience, but sometimes things just go a little wrong. This is perfectly normal, and we should not beat ourselves up unless it is a direct correlation to not preparing properly.
This is from my first MM recital at the University of South Alabama back in November. At this point I had been teaching and performing professionaly for several years, and my students may gasp in horror that I started over!!! This is a performance "sin" that I am frequently trying to break my students from commiting. However, in this moment, I truly felt it was the best thing to do for both me and my partner. This ten second intro received so many practice sessions, and it still managed to go a little bit wrong. I just wanted to share proof for any doubters out there ;).
I want to my students to learn that a good performance is not one without mistakes, or we will never be good enough. A good performance is where we speak to the hearts and souls of our audience. We have an incredible gift as performers to give to our audience. They come to us bearing all kinds of emotions and feelings. They may have a loved one with cancer, problems at work, relationship issues, or any number of things, and we can use our music to make them forget all of that for a brief moment of time and enjoy something beautiful, majestic, inspiring, or exhilarating. If we can accomplish this, we have performed a feat much greater and more meaningful than playing each note exactly correctly.
If any of my students read this, please stop judging yourself and your performances based on the number of mistakes that you made (unless you simply did not practice and prepare like you should, then go practice :)). Find your voice that speaks to the hearts and souls of your audience and make sure that it comes out every time you perform. Also, know that each and every time you perform, I am always proud of you for doing something that many are too afraid to try, and that would never change because a dumb, little mistake.