Rachel is in her first year at UCSD's DMA program in flute performance.She performed the flute solos in Edgard Varese's Ameriques in the La Jolla Symphony concert I posted about a while back. She has performed from an early age and claims to have never really experienced stage fright.
"The only time I get close to performance anxiety is when I don't think I have practiced enough."
John, who does suffer from performance anxiety, later said, "One thing I've gathered about Rachel is that she's pretty much fearless."
While she listens to some electronic 'pop' music, the only concerts she attends are of Western art music.
"I attend concerts mostly for the performers and not the music itself. I mostly go to listen to and support my friends."
She turned to experimental music because she grew tired of the older traditions of classical music.
"The flute is always expected to play all this pretty stuff...and that's not me. I was jaded after playing the Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony for the millionth time. I got into a fight in undergrad with a studio mate who hated the people in the orchestra, but came for the music. There was a big difference between him and me. I was more interested in people and what they bring, so I started exploring different composers and got interested in making different sounds."
When I questioned her on her current relationship with "old" classical music, she said, "I've learned to appreciate it again. I still play the old stuff. I approach it differently now than I did then though. I apply bigger mental activity to older music...a new perspective after being apart from it for a while."
I then mentioned to her the 'results' from the interviews I obtained after the La Jolla Symphony concert. I said mostly people liked the Strauss for predictability but felt uncomfortable with the Varese.
"Really? I think the Strauss horn concertos are dreadful - they're nothing like his other stuff. The Varese is great - it doesn't nearly get played enough. I think the audience members you interviewed just weren't ready to accept these new pieces of music (even though it's no longer 'new'). I actually hated Varese for a long time until I was ready to accept it."
Me: "If it's so difficult to accept, why do you think people should try as opposed to sticking with what they know and love?"
Rachel: "Experiencing art music is a way to help me see the world in a different way, in a different perspective. Pop music is fun, but is more of an escape. I don't need to escape. I'm happy reflecting on the world's conflicts and I hope that my performances show that as well even to those who may not like the music."
As mentioned, I also had a chance to interview Professor John Fonville. He is a flute professor and was my former music theory teacher. We mostly discussed performance anxiety as, as far as I and he knows, is the only performance professor at UCSD to suffer from it. He had performed for the undergraduate seminar last year and admitted to his recent struggles with being nervous in front of an audience. Until he was about 50 years old, he hadn't experienced the mental occupations and physical tremors that sometimes come as a result of the fight-or-flight response.
"I don't know why it started and can't predict when it will - it's always a surprise. I feel like there's a certain shame attached to it. It's like...why are you a musician if you have trouble with this? This is something you love, something you do. It's like a contradiction of sorts."
I asked him if he feels certain factors tend to alter these levels of anxiety to which he replied 'no.' Upon further questioning, however, he admitted that it never happens when he plays in a group.
"When I performed for 143 (undergrad seminar), it was very informal in front of my students...there was no pressure. It's something you do for yourself. I can be playing for 4000 people and not feel a thing, but I can play for 40 undergraduates and struggle - it's kind of inexplicable. I've had to turn to medication to control it."
It was then when I found out about his improvisation group The Tone Road Ramblers with whom he's been playing with for 30 years and performs the most with currently. He said he never gets nervous playing with them; they completely understand each other. Instances when is the most nervous are in solo situations.
"There's a shared connection in time in group performance. It's a shared burden and a shared joy. And that's very different from when you're standing on stage all by yourself.
He later said that none of the other professors feel the same consistently, but once in a while may experience shaking or something. Only a few graduate students have confided in him about performance anxiety, but what makes them professional is that they have learned to control, combat, and even utilize it.
"For many, it's hard because it comes from when your expectations are too high and if you don't live up to them.
Turning the tides a bit, I asked him how he feels, as a performer, when presenting experimental music to an audience. I explained to him the situation with Varese and the La Jolla Symphony and wanted to know if there are certain pressures with engaging the audience in music they may have difficulty in understanding.
"For most people, of course they must take the audience into consideration. Otherwise they will starve to death. In our situation at UCSD, even if only 5 people attend a concert, it will not affect our ability to thrive. Being in academia allows you the freedom to choose what you do or don't do. With that said, I only do things I completely believe in. And if people want to come along and believe and enjoy what I truly believe in, that's great...but the ritual is with the object (the piece). It's wonderful when they go along and not when they don't. But I don't believe that you should gear what you believe in based on the consensus of the lay person...as painful and elitist as that may sound. I think you have to think like this if you do new music as the most important thing in your life."
From the audience side of things he explains what he personally looks for in new music.
"Perception is not innate. It takes training and the accumulation of experience. But there are those like myself who have the natural propensity for things that are new. As we become more experienced, we have the ability to infer and reference a big library of experiences. Very seldom do I hear something that doesn't fit into my experiences, so I listen to a few things. Number 1 is that I can tell that there is intelligence and thought behind the piece even when I don't know what that thought is. Number 2, I look for the care and attention to detail. The third, if it happens is the epiphany, ranging from 'aha' to 'wow'. But this is fairly rare for me. Things that don't impress me are things that seem facile and too easy. I tend not too appreciate pieces written by people are overly musical because I can't sense the struggle and grappling of decisions that you have to make as a composer. I may not understand it, but I appreciate it when it shows that the person spent a lot of time and energy on the piece."
I then asked him about his opinions on the value of the live performance when recordings are so much more easily accessible.
"In a live pop or rock concert, you're really being physically assaulted with this huge sound and I understand the attraction to that. There's something about being manipulated with such high decibels - you're physically altered with the adrenaline and all. This feeling can be found in art music as well, though more subtle."
This a very interesting concept that he brought up in light of social psychology concepts. It's been studied that adrenaline really does affect the way you view things. I believe one famous study dealt with a woman on a shaky bridge as opposed to the same woman standing next to you on stable ground. People were then asked to judge how attractive she was and on average, they rated her as being more attractive on the shaky bridge. One would probably only get a small adrenaline rush yet the differences are noticeable. In a concert setting, the difference is huge.
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