This Book is Filled to the Brim

Look out, this is an infomercial.

I just finished reading The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self by William Westney. It is such an amazing book on so many levels that I feel like it has contributed not only to my practice room behavior, but also my mental state while performing, my style of teaching, the way I listen to other players, and my overall approach to life. All of this in just a few weeks. I plan on reading it, or pages from it, once every couple of months for many, many years.

When I read a book I dog-ear the pages that hold something I want to remember, something profound, something I want to share, something I want to write down and put in a place I will often see. I know this practice offends some book-lovers out there, but it's what I do. Don't worry, if you lend me a book I won't do it to your book.

This book has basically doubled in width due to all the dog-ear-ing.

I'm just going to highlight a few, and ramble about what they encourage me to think about.

"...the reason so many of us lose our bearings about practicing early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot--and healthy practice would simply sound too obnoxious, intrusive, repetitious, and unmusical for others to hear without annoyance...most of us would practice correctly just by instinct if we weren't in living rooms..."

In junior high I practiced piano in the living room while my mom was making dinner. In high school it was the horn (and wherever you practice the horn, people are going to hear you). Sometimes I would practice in the music wing at my high school. In college, the practice rooms in the Humanities building. Four years, four hours a day, virtually every day. Summer festivals, practice areas for all participants. Yucatan, my house that I shared with two co-workers. Now, the room I rent where co-workers often hang out.

Basically, I’ve spent my entire life practicing within ear shot of people whose opinion I value.

This fact in itself is not particularly important. The realization that I’ve spent my entire life practicing while thinking about what other people think is priceless. First of all, it’s taken over a significant portion of my brain. Secondly, it puts me in an automatic state when I pick up the horn- holding horn, thinking about what other people think. Thirdly, it’s an absolute waste of mental energy.

Letting this go gives me an incredible sense of freedom. Of course it’s a process and a challenge to face every day. But even considering letting it go opens doors.

"Again the performer is gently reminded to stop trying to control the outcome, but to stay flexible and focus instead on how the moment actually feels."

I performed Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony every night this week. That is a difficult task in its own right- the music kind of disappears and it becomes a series of notes. Of course the best is to continue to find the music, but sometimes you just can’t. And you begin to feel like you are playing accuracy exercises, and you can’t figure out why there is an audience present.

What I discovered in this process is that playing the horn is just inhaling and exhaling with purpose. I’ve played for long enough to understand what produces and what doesn’t. So I began focusing on just inhaling and exhaling. Much like in yoga, when you really focus on the breath, you find a very pleasant space in which to exist. In which to play.

I can be a control-freak. I’m interested in letting that part of my personality slide, at least while I’m playing.

"It would help tremendously if book-smart people thought of music more as a sport and less as an intellectual activity, but this is often not the case."

I have a beginning horn student for the first time ever. She is nineteen years old. She’s smart.

In her lesson last week she had a lot of trouble getting the notes out. Not sure what to do myself, I trusted a hunch, and ended up telling her to just allow her body to find the notes. I played with her. I told her to ignore her mind. I reminded her that her mind knows way less than her body.

As I told her these things, I realized that I was telling them to myself. Being smart, while beneficial to one’s experience of life, is not actually an asset in the performance of music. OK, that’s not entirely true, it helps sometimes. But more often than not, it simply gets in the way.

"Perfectionist expectations lead to detachment from one’s body…"

This excerpt comes from the chapter that seemed, for me, to be all about me.

This was nice for a few reasons. First, there’s no one I’d rather read about than myself. (Ha ha.) Second, it helps me get over myself and realize I am not the only one with these characteristics. Third, the suggestions are incredibly useful for, well, ME.

"When the good student chooses the honest path, free of perfectionism and faking, music study becomes something refreshingly new: a calm oasis of self-acceptance for those who are so used to driving themselves and trying to please others."

What if every time I practice, every time I play, it can be an exploration, not an ultimatum?

"One thing is for sure: to get up onstage and perform is to plunge oneself instantly into living in the moment."

This is one of the top three things I love about playing music. And yet I forget about it, especially when I’m nervous. Or am I nervous because I forgot about it?

"To accept responsibility, to achieve and maintain total self-honesty, requires mental energy, focus, and—above all—a kind of courage."

This is a good reminder that everyone, from your beginning student in their lesson to the soloist of the week to the guy sitting next to you, deserves respect for just doing it. For putting themselves out there, no matter the result.

"…the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and always has been a principal appetite of the soul… (Aldous Huxley)"

This is, I think, what we’re seeking. And what audiences are seeking. And yet we can’t demand it, can’t expect it, can’t be disappointed if we don’t get it, and can’t give up on it. We can just pursue it, and enjoy the pursuit. Often, we will achieve it.



I would highly recommend that all performers, music students, teachers, amateurs, professionals, and enthusiasts read this book. I hope that my generation of musicians can approach things with more of this mentality, for our own health and well-being, and for the continued improvement of the experience and quality of music-making.

For me, this book was a discovery. I’m just at the beginning of the whole thing. I’m freshly inspired and excited about practicing and I don’t want to hoard this experience.

Check it out! (And let me know what you think.)