Listen to “Brahms Opus 25” below.

Have you ever been to a live concert? I’m sure you saw the musicians’ faces, all peaceful and yet expressive, usually looking like they’re amazed by the sound coming out of their own instrument. Don’t they look like they don’t have a care in the world, like they’re not thinking about anything else other than the beauty of the music, the dance of the rhythms, the harmonies of the chords? How exhilarating, right?

Ugh. They’re all fakers. 

Let me tell you; I literally have a concert right now, I’m getting ready to go onstage and I am fucking stressed! People will say, “Oh, but the stress is good, you should be able to canalize it and transform it into positive energy” or, even worse, “You know, the more you work the less you stress; maybe you should’ve practiced more!” HAHA. Thank you so much for your constructive comment Kevin. Fuck these people.

The worst part is: I’m playing chamber music tonight. Which means I’m playing with a few other musicians. This is horrible. See, when one plays alone and fucks up, it’s sad for them, but at least it only concerns themselves. When one plays in an orchestra and fucks up, it’s not great but normally it can be pretty much unheard by the public (even though the conductor will let you know he heard it, don’t worry). When one plays in a small group, say, four people (like me tonight) and fucks up…everyone hears it, you’ve ruined the piece for your co-musicians, and maybe you’ve even made them fuck up by distracting them with your own fucking up. 

So yeah, I’m stressed, and not really thinking about the peaceful harmony of the music right now. 

It’s gonna be my turn soon. Just after this piece. The wait is so long. The piece playing right now just before me is the kind of piece where you think it’s over, you’re even ready to applaud, and then surprise, a new movement starts. It’s fun once, okay twice, and bluntly annoying thrice. 

I hear applause, lift my head and realize the piece is finally over. I get up automatically, my mind is blank. I pass the musicians who just played and by habit congratulate them, even though I barely heard a note they played. I follow my fellow musicians and go onstage. It’s only once I’m sitting down, the light on me and the public in the dark in front of me, that I realize where I am and what I’m doing. And of course, a thousand questions flow through my mind at once. Am I well-tuned? Do I have all my music sheets? Are they really in the right order? What’s my first note? What’s the melody in this piece??

As usual, I feel the stress come up and I know all the negative effects it has on me. I worked so hard, I can honestly say I’ve been working for years now, and everything is always ruined by the fucking stress. You see, when you play the viola and your hands shake because of adrenaline, you can’t possibly have a pretty sound. It’s physically impossible. And I’ve scientifically repeated the experiment a number of times.

I’ve had enough. I don’t want this stage fright ruining my concerts again and again. I’m sick of it. So, I decide to try a little routine to keep the shakes and the short breath away. I shake my arms like I’m shaking off bad vibes, I close my eyes, take deep breaths and massage my temples gently. I’m onstage and everyone can see me, but I don’t care. I open my eyes again, see my other co-musicians smiling at me, patiently waiting but clearly in a very understanding way. The violinist, the cellist and myself put our bows on our strings, the pianist his hands on his keys. We breathe in together and finally start playing. 

Right away, I feel that this is one of these good runs. We’re connected, we often look at each other, breathe together, listen closely to one another and are completely in sync with nuances and expressions. It’s like we’re telling the same story at the same time, each playing different characters living through the same event. I feel we’ve created an iridescent bubble. I don’t even see or think about the public right now: all that matters is us, onstage, and the harmonies and rhythms we create together.

I think it’s the applause that made me come out of our bubble. All of a sudden, I remembered that we weren’t alone in the world creating music together, but that we were in a room full of people listening to us. I looked at my co-musicians, we smiled at each other and walked together to the front of the stage to salute. Once we were backstage again, we spent minutes and minutes just laughing together; all the stress was coming out, mixed with the happiness of the intense moment we just shared together. 

When I got out of the concert and met the people who came for me, one of them told me that what he found especially fantastic was the fact that when I played, I looked peaceful and yet expressive, like I was amazed by the sound coming out of my own instrument, like I didn’t have a care in the world. With that remark clinging to my mind, I left the concert hall smiling.