Archived under: Deep thoughts, Performance & Playing
What Makes a Great Performance?
We had a guest artist at ASU yesterday, Lydia Van Dreel from the University of Oregon, who presented a great master class to the horn studio. At the end of the hour I had her bring up something that she mentioned to me before the class that she had her students do recently at Oregon. First, they were to think about the last great performance they had heard, and to think specifically about what made it a great performance. Write those things down on a piece of paper. Then think about and reflect on your own playing, which of those things that you just wrote down do you need to work on? Get to work on those.
Related to this, she mentioned something earlier in the class, something that I have noticed as well. Listening to some performances you just feel nervous. Those things that make you nervous listening to a performance are the things the performers need to work out better. As hornists we all have to work those things out with the goal of making our audience not feel nervous, that they can have a comfortable, enjoyable experience listening to us play.
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