It's Not About You.

Recently I came across a YouTube video of Joyce Didonato giving a masterclass to a group of Juilliard singers. While the focus of the masterclass was on performance and technique, the video featured only her question and answer period following the music. She took a standard question from a student: "What advice to you have for aspiring performers?" Her answer was something I hadn't heard before: "It's not about you."

It's not about you. Our education and training as musicians is almost always all about us. Technique, intonation, phrasing, expression, balance, blend- it's all about your playing, how you interact others, how you tune with your stand partner, how you execute that passage, etc. I'm not faulting any conservatory or training style, this mindset is natural. We must focus on ourselves in order to achieve technical mastery. But somewhere the ultimate goal as an artist gets lost. Somehow, along the way, between all the Schradieck, Kreutzer, and Bach, we forget that actually, it's not about us.

So, you're asking, who's it about then? As artists, we are called to give. We are called to inspire, to change, to emote, to affect- to give, to give to them. So often, we get caught up in all the little things, in beating ourselves up for our mistakes, in worrying over  our existential existence as artists, that we forget that it's always about them.

But, who is them? I'd say that ultimately, them is the audience. Be it 50 people at a small chamber concert, 2,000 people at a Broadway show, or just your parents listening to you run through your recital repertoire, our audience is them. It's all about the audience. Yet even in our giving, we can lose focus of the appropriate them. Are we giving to our colleagues, in an attempt to impress? Do we give to the conductor, in hopes that he or she will move us to a higher seat in the next rotation? Are we giving to the contractor so that he'll be sure to hire us again? You see, giving to them is a fragile platform, unless we dedicate ourselves to giving to them, our audience. Otherwise, the work becomes frantic, desperate for approval.

Simply, it's not about you, though it can become about you very quickly. And once it is about you, your work is no longer a pure gift to them. Allow your giving to inspire your work.

It's not about you, it's about them.


For further inspiration, check out Joyce's blog. http://www.joycedidonato.com/journal/