Part I of this essay is here:
UPDATE: I got all the stickings figured out, and they’re beautiful. I’m calling that a win:
My work on this beautiful thing (an excerpt from the vibraphone part of George Lewis’s The Deformation of Mastery) is going way better than I expected, which is to say… better than tripping on my shoelace and falling in the mud. Thank you for texting me to tell me I’m not alone, and for watching the sped-up practice videos, and for sending heart-mojis of solidarity.
We (meaning me and my band Alarm Will Sound) have just finished the first week of our annual festival for composers. On Thursday night we’ll play this and another piece by George Lewis, along with music by Mary Kouyoumdjian, Andrew Norman, and Stefan Freund. On Saturday, it’s a separate concert of 8 world premieres.
I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s actually… a lot.
Here’s the first run-through of that excerpt, what it felt like, and an accuracy assessment:
I’ve got a couple real world preparation stories for Part II. A lot of this is automatic brain-voice stuff that I don’t endorse, but share just to show what one might be up against. I’m thinking of this as a sort of tragic second act. Part III will be positive and uplifting, promise. 🙂
… the process is different every time (Scenario I)
Scenario: Broadway subbing.
aka: "do absolutely everything in advance"
Twelve times in my life I have gone through the process of preparing to be a sub musician on a Broadway show. If you aren't familiar with how this works, the regular chair-holder is responsible for having a handful of subs prepared to play the show at any time. As a potential sub I get the book and a video of the music director conducting one performance. I sit in the pit and watch the regular play it. I do my best to estimate when I'll be ready, agree on a date, and then set off alone… to Prepare.
At the point where I start this process, every aspect of the show has already solidified into an infinitely repeatable machine that every other musician has basically memorized. To do anything even the slightest bit different would mean being noticed, and my goal for continued gainful employment is to go unnoticed.
As a percussionist, I've typically budgeted about a month1 of part-time work, culminating in a "first show." This is not a first show for anyone else. Just one example: the first time I ever played The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, I was sitting next to someone who had played it over 5,000 times (and she would play it 5,000 more).
But what I describe as "part-time work" doesn't completely represent the feeling of those days. I now have a date on my calendar when, ready or not, that plane will take off with me in the pilot seat. I get no rehearsal with the other musicians: no stops and starts, no question-and-answer, no chances to make consequence-free mistakes or to work things out in real-time. At 7:04 pm on that ever-approaching night the show will start, and it absolutely will not stop until it's over. For me, the buildup of pressure is intense and relentless. So while the actual hours add up to something resembling "part"-time, the weight of the feelings are decidedly "full"-time.
The process of that preparation involves much more than just learning the notes. I need to study every detail in advance: knowing tempos precisely, style, feel, cues, vamps, and the big picture of the show flow are crucial. In most other musical situations, I can wait and refine all of this during the rehearsal process. Here, that one little thing I missed in my preparation can result in the professional of equivalent of a head-on collision.
I go into the empty theatre early mornings and "dark days" to do endless flight simulations — full runs of the show alone with my recording, waiting to find out what mistakes are possible, where are the holes I might step in.
I can't stop thinking about it — and the clock is ticking.
My brain starts to sabotage:
I tell it: I just played that one really exposed section five times in a row in a practice room.
It replies: "Do it twenty times more if you want, you’ll crash and burn when it matters.”I remind it: last time I was relying too much on muscle memory — this time I’ve made sure I can visualize every note.
It replies: "Here’s a high-definition video of the moment you’ll fall off the horse.”I explain to it: I've rehearsed with every variable in place: the setup, the recording, even the conductor monitor.
It replies: "Here are ten more variables you were too lazy to deal with, any one of which will bring you down in the show.”
"You didn't do enough," it lies.
And when I'm finally standing in that percussion setup at 7:04pm on the day of my first show, the conductor says "ok we have the light" and the reality slams into me: I'm about to get pushed off a cliff.
… the process is different every time (Scenario II)
Scenario: contemporary music festival.
aka: "do absolutely everything everywhere all at once on the fly"
Twelve times in my life I have gone through the process of preparing to represent my group Alarm Will Sound at our annual "Mizzou International Composers Festival."
At the point where I have all my parts for the year’s 12-15 works (majority of which are world premieres with the ink still wet) it's already too late. Even if my schedule were 100% empty between that moment and the first rehearsal, there simply would not be enough time to get this mountain of difficult and radically diverse music performance-ready.
There's no disfunction here… it's exactly how the timeline of the festival has to work, by design. I'm cool with it. I've accepted that my own highly methodical preparation process is going straight out the window every single time, replaced by flailing and chaos.
The process of that preparation involves learning endless piles of notes. The priority is quantity, and I am now in survival mode — what do I absolutely need to know in advance, and what can I figure out in rehearsal? What needs to be transcribed, or blown up and pasted on to giant cardboard panels? What can be looked at once, and what needs multiple-day visitation to solidify?
What's "the thing" for the year — that one passage that's super exposed, or that one piece that is such a huge undertaking that everything else gets smashed under its psychological weight?
If preparing to sub a Broadway show is like meticulously building the perfect house, then preparing to play a festival of new music is like boarding that house up for a category 5 hurricane — and the clock is ticking.
My brain starts to sabotage:
I tell it: the other musicians will be way too preoccupied with their own world to notice what's going on in mine.
It replies: "no, they'll know you're struggling, and they'll lose every last shred of respect for you."I remind it: I usually actually enjoy the process once I settle in!
It replies: "no, don't delude yourself, you know you'll never get comfortable — every day will just be a reminder of your inadequacy. You'll be miserable."I explain to it: composers and conductors are usually kind and understanding. They are actually rooting for me to succeed! They want me to look good.
It whispers: "you’ll get fired at intermission, and you'll probably deserve it."
"You didn't do enough," it lies.
Once the rest of my life is factored out, I typically have about 3 weeks, culminating in a "first rehearsal." This is the first rehearsal for everybody, and at that point everybody is living on their own private spectrum of internally freaking out.
Wait… catching myself here. What I've just said is conjecture. Do I really know how anyone else is feeling?
… it's often really hard to be honest about
Arriving at the first rehearsal for the festival, I’m so happy to hug you. I ask “did you practice?”
I'm asking not because I'm hoping you did, but because I'm hoping you didn’t. I don’t feel I’ve done enough, and I need reassurance that I’m not the only one. Is this the same for everyone? Do we all know that this is what’s happening when we have these conversations, but do it anyway?
For this reason, if someone asks me “did you practice,” I never let myself be the person who says “yes.”
I might say (truthfully) “oh man I sort of learned the first 7 pages but totally ran out of time”
I might say (exaggerating) “oh man my part is completely unplayable, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
I might even go (unadvisedly) straight to the top of the food chain, so as to set expectations as low as possible. I whisper seventeen excuses into Alan Pierson’s ear, three minutes before downbeat. He’s so kind — he nods with understanding.
It’s okay, he says. “Everyone’s in the same boat," he says.
But that's not how it feels. I look around: nobody else is in this boat. This boat is sinking. Everyone else is "prepared." I'm about to make a complete fool of myself.
… it can be a mental health minefield
I should qualify this: it isn't the work that's the mental health hazard. The work itself is neutral. It's my attitude toward the work. My attitude is the minefield. And my attitude can spiral real fast.
5 'Til
House is open, 5 minutes to downbeat, and I'm standing in an alley behind the Laguardia Performing Arts Center, Queens. Haruka is smoking a cigarette, smiling. She's excited. I'm in agony — searching for any way to get through this moment: I'm now sharing that smoke. It's not helping.
I was so stoked for this concert in the abstract. It's all my favorite music. I'm playing with my favorite people on earth. It's a friendly audience. 6 months ago it seemed like such an exciting idea.
But now… I just don't know how to explain this feeling. It's like tunnel vision. I'm floating. I tell Haruka “I can’t believe I’m in this situation again. I can’t handle it. I need to find something else to do with my life… I can’t handle this. I feel like I’m about to walk in front of a firing squad.”
Would I feel this way if I was more Prepared?
A couple years ago, I wrote some music about this moment. It's a tough one for me. It isn’t "nerves.” It isn’t "stage fright." It's a kind of sadness… it's mourning the temporary loss of a certain outlook on life. It's disappointment: “this doesn’t feel how I hoped it would feel.” Why can't I experience this moment the way I imagined myself experiencing it? Did I blow it somehow, by not doing enough?
Here's the music I wrote about that moment:
Haruka laughs. She knows me. She knows it will go how it was meant to go, and she knows that in 90 minutes we'll be on cloud nine, sitting at the bar planning the next one.
What does she know that I don't?
Read on to Part III -
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1 The total amount of time it takes varies with the show, but I actually kept track on the last one I did: to learn the percussion book for Back to the Future, I logged 85 hours of work total, over 3-4 weeks.
Of that time, I estimate that less than 5% was actually spent "practicing.” The rest was study, and simulation… sitting in the setup, running through the show with the recording as if I was in the thick of it.