Do what you do.

I was reading over my blog posts from the past few months and I realized I've strayed a bit from the blog's original intention. In fact, why don't you take a look at the top of the blog just so you're refreshed on the intention as well. I'll wait.

Go back a read it one more time, just for good measure.

Good. You see the subtitle up there? "a string player's guide to artistic survival." Well, here's a post that deals with that specifically.

If you've gone to music school, you'll get this, we're trained as players to be perfect. Sorry, not to be perfect, but to be obsessed with perfection. We run these horrid lines through our heads while we perform like, "I'd be such a better player...if I could just nail that passage...if I could just play with better intonation...if I could just have better bow control...if I could just vibrate every note...if I could etc etc etc." And we think that's supposed to help us become better players, right? Wrong.

I'm not saying that these lines aren't helpful if used in the practice room. After all, that's what practicing is for. We practice to achieve perfection, right? Or is that just another lie we've created? True, we want to eliminate errors from our playing, for it is the errors that take away from our overall ability to connect and communicate with our listeners. Pause for a moment. Go back and reread that last phrase: to connect and communicate with our listeners. That is our goal as players. It is NOT to achieve perfection. It is connect and communicate with our audience.

So from this young string player to any young musician reading this, my advice is to play passionately. Pour your heart and soul into your playing. Make mistakes, make them big, loud, and ugly. Allow your early work to be raw, because when you're young and passionate, you can get away with it. Start out too fast, be too rough, make mistakes. Because it is through these mistakes that true progress is made. Learn what stands in the way of your connection with the audience and work to fix that. Don't strive for perfection. Perfection only gets you to the finals of an orchestral job. While it might help you win the job, it does not make you a good player. Haven't we all sat through technically perfect performances and tried so hard not to fall asleep? Perfection only goes so far. It's passion that takes both you and the listener to that place of musical nirvana we all seek.

So do what you do, and do it with passion. Embrace your youth, make mistakes, and take ownership of your work. Love what you do.

There's plenty of time to iron out the wrinkles. Save the ironing for the practice room, not the performance hall. Make your work speak.