Read this story called “The Day I Pooped My Pants” as you listen 🙂
What’s the connection between that and the music of J.S. Bach? Well, I’m glad you asked!
This story is about my experience at age 15 – as I attempted to perform this same Bach piece for the first time (the Courante from the 3rd Cello Suite) without having practiced it enough! Oh yeah, you know where this is going!!!
Boy did this piece teach me a lot about preparing enough for performance.
FYI – this story excerpt is from my book “The Inner Game of Fingerstyle Guitar” which I bet you’d love.
It’s available on Amazon as a paperback and Kindle E-Book ► CLICK HERE
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It was a sunny springtime Saturday in New York City, 1986. For all the students at our little music school, myself included, it was a very big day.
Little did I know that I’d always remember this day as “The Day I Pooped My Pants.”
At that time, I was fifteen years old and deemed to be one of the promising, young, classical guitar students who was destined for music college.
Ten days prior, I had just started learning a piece by Bach (the “Courante” from the Third Cello Suite, in case you are curious) and figured “What the heck. I’ll give it a go on stage!”
Mind you, ten days is nowhere near enough prep time for a classical piece. “What could possibly go wrong?” I thought.
I warmed up in a practice room beforehand, and everything sounded pretty good. I was ready.
When the time came and I was called to the stage, I went up, sat down, took a deep breath, and started to play.
But suddenly, it didn’t feel like the practice room. People were looking at me, the guitar felt weird, lights were shining in my eyes, and it was hard to think. Uh-oh!
And then the first uncontrollable thought came: “Hey, I played this just a few minutes ago. What’s happening to me?” Reptile-brain fight-or-flight mode started kicking in… my heartbeat sped up, and my hands shook involuntarily. I was going off the rails.
Then my mind went completely blank after the first few bars. For the life of me, I could not remember what to play even though I’d played it perfectly in the practice room fifteen minutes before.
An extremely thick and uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. I made two more futile attempts to start over only to have the same train wreck happen.
I saw parents hiding their eyes with their hands and burying their heads, writhing in the shame I was experiencing.
It was as if I’d pooped my pants, for all to see.
The cringe-worthiness and self-loathing got deeper and deeper with every second. The skin on my face was burning hot.
I was then instructed to play a different piece…something I’d already played a thousand times – by the school director. I got through it, gave a fake smile and bowed, then scurried offstage.
The crowd gave me their obligatory applause which cut even deeper. I knew it was fake, and that I really had screwed up.
That day I was the poster child for onstage musical failure. I left with my tail between my legs and licked my wounds for weeks.
It’s unfortunate but true: we learn from our most painful experiences.
This was the day I realized that practicing and performing was far more serious business than I had imagined. I had to admit that my preparation was not thorough enough, and my overconfidence did not take into account the different way I would feel onstage.
I was determined to never, ever let that happen again!
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