Michael Shinn's Blog

Patience, my dear

mas923 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:57:58 +0000

A circus. That’s the way Jessica described it. Think of it: fifty-seven Liszt-crazed adrenaline junkies, all competing against each other for ten thousand euros and a concert career. Attempt to allow only two and a half hours per day of practicing and you have pandemonium.

It would take a butcher knife to slice through the tension. For those like myself, day one sees the twenty minute round one fly by in a nanosecond. For others, a four day wait for the fleeting moment necessitates what must feel like superfluous practicing. If patience is a virtue, we are all much more virtuous.

Round one is over for me. Let’s just wait and see what happens.

Running up to the cadence…

mas923 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:54:34 +0000

Competition. A word with which we musicians all have a love-hate relationship.

How can you say one artist’s expression is deeper than another’s? Does her concept of that phrase in Schubert really better reflect the composer’s intentions?

But don’t we want our art to be recognized as great–perhaps actually *better* than someone else’s? I mean come on, my Dante Sonata is louder than hers, right?!

A constant tug-of-war. Don’t get me wrong, though, I do love competition and thrive on it. Why else would I obsess like I do over triathlon?

So here we are, fining and refining in the remaining days leading up to round one.