I Got Schooled!
Dude! I pissed off the head of the jazz department at PSU this morning. I had my piano jury, right? And so I sat down to play this piece I'm preparing for my recital, and what did I do? I messed up a note in the opening measure. Now, all I had to do was play a simple unison melody line in my right hand, nothing difficult, you know, so I really shouldn't have messed it up, but I did. So I hear this "STOP." And I look at him, and his eyes are smoldering. He's sitting with his arms crossed looking really thunderous, like he was going to strangle me. He says, "Play it again. Try harder." So I started over, this time more nervous than I was to begin with. Although I didn't mess up that particular spot, there were other little plinks and plunks here and there throughout the piece. I couldn't help it! There were little pauses, and lapses, I got lost once. So I get to the end and sit back, my heart thumping. Silence. Finally he says something like (I'm paraphrasing) "You're too casual. These little mistakes are really annoying. They mar your good intentions. You shouldn't tolerate them. You're better than that now. Until you get as angry about your mistakes as I'm getting, you won't ever improve." This through almost gritted teeth. But then the atmosphere relaxed a bit as I nodded in agreement, melting into the floor with shame. Then he gave me practical advice and we all discussed my improvement regiment, which shall heretofore include a sphincter tight intolerance of mistakes. Ugh. I felt like a little kid who made a poopy in his pants. I got schooled, n'est-ce pas?