The power of letting music rest
For the past few months I’ve been working with a composer on the birth of a brand new piano solo. I know this composer’s music well, and am passionately attached to this piece, yet it refuses to settle in my hands. Furthermore, it’s refusing to settle in the mind of the composer. We’ve worked it one way and then another. Finally, after one last grand push, we admitted the truth: we were too close to it. We’d lost perspective and could no longer see what needed to be done to work out the final details. It was time to, in the composer’s word, “put the piece to bed for the winter” and let it rest until we could go back to the notes with fresh eyes and ears.
This isn’t an uncommon thing in my creative life. Most of the music I learn (and all of the writing I do) is inevitably stronger when I don’t rush its release into the world. There’s a special kind of alchemy that occurs when I stop trying to force the notes to bloom and mature. Problems have a way of resolving themselves once I step away from the work.
When I was a younger pianist I found this terrifying. I still feel uneasy when I don’t keep slogging away at something that clearly isn’t going to work no matter how much attention I give it. It’s hard to remind myself that I can’t force the music to mature. It’s a living thing that does so at its own pace, and if I’m patient, it’ll bloom without my constant interference.
It’s an act of faith to choose to let go. Doing so requires me to push back against my desire for completion, my fear that I’ll lose all the hard work I’ve done up to this point, and my suspicion that I’m giving up on the piece. I’ve worked diligently. I can see the finish line shimmering just out of reach. When I find myself in this place it takes courage to back off and wait. Waiting feels lazy. It feels like giving up. The only reason I’m more patient with waiting than I was when I was younger is because life experience has taught me the price of rushing a piece and the reward of letting it rest.
There’s a difference between active and passive waiting and I tend to favor being active. When a piece of music is resting, I play other things. I spend more time outside, indulge my passion for cooking, get coffee with friends, attend concerts and read good books. I travel. All of these things feed my creativity while keeping me from ruminating or fussing over the music. Sometimes I can return to it after a month or two; other times I have to wait six months or more.
How do I know when it’s time to resurrect the piece? I find that my intuition starts sending me flashes of ideas, or sometimes the music starts creeping into my mind. When I return to the notes I do so cautiously and respectfully. I practice the music as if I’ve never seen it before. I let it lead me where it wants me to go. If it still feels closed off, I put the piece aside again. If, however, I’ve grown enough to be granted its secrets I find that all the former problems that felt insurmountable have melted away and I can cross the finish line of the piece with assurance.
How do you know if a piece you’re working on needs to rest? When you know the piece is solidly learned but the music isn’t spilling effortlessly from your fingers. Perhaps you find that you’re tensing up. Perhaps you aren’t quite sure what the music is trying to say to you. Knowing that you’ve been meticulous in how you’ve learned the notes provides reassurance that you’re not taking a break from the music because you’re simply tired of working on it. A high level of preparation also guarantees that when you return to it you’ll not have to clean up any poorly learned sections.
Have you hit a wall with a piece that you just can’t move beyond? If so, perhaps it’s time to put it aside for several months. If it’s not something you’re scheduled to perform in the near future what’s the harm is walking away from it for a while? Maybe you’ll go back and find that you’re still stuck. I suspect, however, that with enough time away from the music, you’ll return to the notes and find that the problems that stopped you now seem surmountable.
The music we play deserves our patience and we owe ourselves the gift of letting the pieces we play mature naturally. The ego trip of dashing off an almost-done piece offers little satisfaction. The artistry of playing well, and our joy in the finished performance, is obtained by surrendering to the piece’s timetable. This is the path to wearing the music like a second skin. This is how we know the heartbeat of the piece as intimately as our own.
Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic, courtesy of UpSplash