Just Do It?!?

I have not been this frustrated in a looong time. Well, maybe when I changed my embouchure. But then I had the "I just changed my embouchure" clause to get me through. I can't say "Excuse me for screwing this up 20 times in a row, I just changed my brain." Or can I?

We just had a recording session of the piece my wonderful colleague WJM wrote for our horn quartet. It's the kind of morning where I feel so lucky to be exactly in my shoes. A guy I sit next to every day is creating new art for a group I play in, and we get to record it, add something creative and good to the world. The piece is really beautiful, I love sitting down bell from these guys, and they even turned the air conditioning on. Not bad, not bad at all.

One thing that's great about WJM is he's very prepared, thorough, and thoughtful (OK, three things that are great about him). These qualities gave a nice atmosphere to the recording session; when we started recording I felt calm and focused, like I could play well even though we only rehearsed the piece once.

We recorded the last movement in one take, more or less. (I think we did a few takes of the last section.) There were some truly beautiful moments and we had a flow. We took a break and then began to tackle the second movement, which is much less hornistically (come on now, why did my spell check highlight that word, isn't it about time hornistically is in the dictionary?!?) challenging, but much more mentally challenging. I had been having some trouble with it in the rehearsal, but I had looked over the part, felt more confident about the technical aspects and thought that this would allow me to focus all my attention on the mental part- the counting. Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken.

It's true the writing is complicated- a 5 beat melody, in 3/4 time, that phases cyclically, so it falls in a different place and in different relation to the accompaniment every time. But still, I should be able to count to 3 and put some eighth notes in their correct place. Something about it though, I just could not get through without getting lost. And once I got lost, I could never ever get back on.

Everyone was very understanding and sweet about it. I think I will have to shake off the feeling that they secretly resent me for my incompetence, because it won't be good to carry that around. And I think there are some extenuating circumstances. I trust that I still can learn the part with a little more time (unfortunately, we didn't have time for this particular portion of the project...).

It's just frustrating to bump up against your limitations. I don't really know how to deal with it. I'd like to blame it on my recent change of brain, but realistically that's not any sort of option. In this instance I'm forced to do the very uncomfortable- admit I just cannot do this thing in this moment, take the time to learn how to do it, and move on. Ugh, I don't like that feeling.

It seems an American value to be able to do anything, that it all depends on how hard you work. I still believe that to a large extent, and I'll keep at it, but the all American slogan "Just Do It" doesn't give a hint as to what to do in that period in which you are working. After all, it's not "Just Do It and If You Can't, Open Your Mind to Options, Do the Best You Can and Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself While Still Staying Committed to Doing It Eventually."

Yeah, I guess that doesn't really have the same ring to it.