Recovering from a crushingly hard gig.

A few weeks ago, I shared about prepping for a crushingly hard gig. By that I meant a performance where I genuinely wasn’t sure if I was capable of executing the material. I won’t rehash the specifics here (you can just read my blog post), but suffice to say I worked very hard and very strategically on a large amount of difficult music in order to succeed for this performance. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go great. Here’s what happened and how I’m managing my feelings about it.

Initial Prep

In March, I was invited to perform with Music City Big Band (led by Casey Brefka) for the ISJAC (International Society of Jazz Composers and Arrangers) bi-annual symposium at Vanderbilt University. We were tasked with performing for a clinic on the music of Kenny Wheeler. We received music for two pieces we would definitely be performing, and then received portions of a suite (larger musical work) and were told we would perform selections from it. Not knowing which selections or how much of the 30-minute suite we would perform, I spent most of my time practicing some very difficult vocal solo sections in 7/4 time. I knew that if those portions were selected, I would not be able to ‘cram’ for them. I made a gamble, and I lost.

Rehearsal, 5/15 (surprise, skipped those hard parts)

This was our first opportunity to get most of the band in the same room and work with the guest conductor, Nick. Nick is an expert in the music of Kenny Wheeler and was a fantastic director. This was also our first time finding out which selections of the suite we would be performing. Nick called out the measure numbers for the first selection, and we gave it a shot. It went well! He cut off the band at the end of the selection, and my stomach sank as I saw he had stopped us precisely before all those hard sections I had spent most of my time practicing. “Then there are those rather devilish vocal lines,” he joked, as I realized we were about to skip the portion I was prepared to sing.

We skipped ahead to the second selection. I had not practiced it.

Well, Abi, you should have practiced it! I can hear you saying. I’m going to ask you to please trust me that there was absolutely no way to learn all of the music we were given in the time we were given.

Here’s where my gamble came in: the portions we were performing were less crushingly difficult. I knew that I had a far better chance of quickly preparing a vocal solo in 3/4 if I needed to, which is why I spent far more time on the earlier passages in 7/4. I did my best in rehearsal, apologized, and promised Nick I would be ready to go the following day.

Prep, Take Two

I went home and immediately created new practice tracks for the selections I wasn’t prepared for. Of course, I wish we had known weeks in advance which selections we were actually going to perform. I have no idea why we didn’t have that information, or whether the selections had even been decided prior to rehearsal, but regardless of why I didn’t have that information in advance, it was the reality of the situation.

I applied all my same strategies to preparing these new sections. Of course, I had very little time to get it right, but I did my best and I think I practiced very effectively.

Performance Day, 5/16

I woke up at 5AM on the day of the performance to get in extra practice. I got ready and drove down to Vanderbilt with plenty of time to spare. I wanted to do everything in my power to show our guest conductor that I was prepared, responsible, and taking this performance seriously.

Our second rehearsal was held in the performance space at 10AM. I walked in, looked Nick in the eyes and said, “I’m ready!” I nailed the ‘new’ vocal solos in rehearsal.

I failed the new vocal solos in performance.

I tried my best to keep a straight face for the rest of the clinic. I had to pinch my hand to keep from crying on stage while Nick finished his presentation and we performed the final piece. I left as quickly as possible afterward and sobbed in my car on the way home.

Okay, so what happened?

First and foremost, I picked the wrong selections to practice. It wasn’t negligence on my part, but the fact remains that no one could have practiced my part except for me.

During the performance, adrenaline took over. I always get nervous before performances, but it’s usually a manageable (if not pleasant) level of nervousness. Just enough to make the day feel special. But this performance was different. This was “there is a real live bear chasing you” levels of adrenaline.

As a vocalist, there are no buttons for me to press on my instrument. Finding a note means knowing by ear where I fall within the music. It requires an alignment of brain and body—the brain says, “make this sound”, and the body responds accordingly.

I do not have perfect pitch, but I have a well developed sense of how certain notes feel on my voice. I can’t magically spit out a perfect middle C or A440, but I can usually guess a note within 1-2 half steps based on how it feels to sing. Adrenaline throws that sense WAY off balance.

Imagine a pianist with her eyes closed. She can’t see the right note, but she has a finely honed sense of how it feels to reach her arm toward middle C. Her fingers instinctively know what it feels like to brush against the black keys in their distinct groupings of two and three, and will almost immediately find the correct spot. That’s me on a good day.

Now imagine the same pianist with her eyes closed, but someone is violently shaking the keyboard back and forth while she plays. That’s me on run-for-your-life adrenaline. I reached for my starting note, D4, and landed somewhere much higher. D4 felt incredibly low. By the time I realized I didn’t have the right note, measures had passed and I was just blindly reaching for something consonant to sing. The vocal solo repeated and I found my starting note the second time around, but the damage was done.

I’m sure it wasn’t that bad! No one ever notices our mistakes as much as we do! I can hear you saying. I’m going to ask you to please trust me that in this room of professional jazz composers, arrangers, and performers, they noticed.

The aftermath.

Like I said, I had to actively hold back tears during the performance. Then I hurried to my car and cried—it was a BIG cry that surprised even me. Driving home, I sent a voice note to my friend Katie who had also played for the clinic. I just vented about how embarrassed and frustrated I felt. I immediately felt some relief from sharing my disappointment. Katie sent back a voice note, affirming my frustration and sadness but comforting me, saying I did a great job overall and that she really didn’t experience it as being quite so disastrous as I thought it was. Talking it over with a friend who knew my situation and didn’t discredit my experience was extremely helpful.

While I was still extremely disappointed and embarrassed, I had to get straight back into work mode because that evening, I had an important rehearsal for another event. I had to set my emotions aside and prepare for the next performance (“Music City Without Borders” at City Winery, which I wrote about in my last blog post).

Over the next few hours and days, I continued to process the experience.

Reflections.

A few years ago, I implemented a simple reflection strategy that has turned every single performance into an opportunity for greater growth. I ask myself a series of four questions, and even responding to just one or two of these questions helps propel me forward. The questions are: What went right? What went wrong? What will I do differently next time? What did I learn?

What went right? After the performance, I was pretty consumed by what went wrong. But the truth is that I did an excellent job executing most of the material. The first piece we performed had a lot of complicated rhythm with rapidly shifting time signatures. The key, our clinician told us, was to internalize the melody and feel how the song is built around its phrasing, rather than rigidly counting beats. I listened to that song so much and so early that I definitely was able to do that! Don’t get me wrong, I was counting for my life, but I would say instinct was in the driver’s seat rather than analysis.

Overall, we performed 5 selections of varying length, and I think I had two notable missteps within those five selections. Sitting here, a week after that performance, I can truly feel how excellent that is. All of the music was very challenging, and I should be proud of how I executed the majority of the material! “Should” is the key word here…

What went wrong? I believe that’s been discussed pretty heavily.

What will I do differently next time? This experience continues to drive home the fact that I must listen to and read through music the very day I receive it. I don’t know that anything could have prevented my misfortune with this performance, but knowing what I was getting into a few days earlier wouldn’t have hurt my chances at success. In this case, I still listened to and read through the music quite early, so I had reason to believe I was being responsible with the opportunity. It just happened to be some of the most difficult music (and a TON of material, with no certainty which selections would be performed) I’ve worked on.

What did I learn? Through the process of preparing for this gig, I stretched my brain so hard I’m surprised I didn’t sprain anything. The music was so challenging for me, and I worked so hard, and I have no doubt that I’m moving forward as a better musician because of it. I learned that I’m still very much capable of being crushed by nerves, very much capable of what feels like a pretty significant failure. I learned that I’m also capable of singing very difficult music very well. I learned that a lot of my practice strategies are extremely effective, but time is a limited resource and has to be used wisely. I learned that I can do my absolute best and still fall short. I don’t think any of these lessons are new, but they’re valuable reminders. I learned about Kenny Wheeler and his reserved personality, his unique time-feel that at some points made him feel like a failure but eventually became a defining feature of his personal sound.

So that’s that. I’m still recovering a little bit emotionally. I’m still sad that I made a big, notable mistake rather than dazzling the audience with my incredible skill. I think I have incredible skills and the chips just didn’t fall in my favor that day. Some days are better than others.