Impure

Finally realizing what bothers me when I play a gig where I basically play fine, people enjoy it, but I wasn’t happy with my playing:

My process wasn’t pure. Impurity of process.

That’s a funny word for an American to use at this point in our nation’s history, without being struck by lightning and swallowed up by a sinkhole to hell. Probably it only has meaning to weirdo virginity fetishists in the religious and consumer worlds, and others deserving of being struck by lightning and swallowed up by a sinkhole to hell. People who make product unwrapping videos. What I mean is that I was faking it, playing from my knowledge, forcing it.

“Pure practice” on a jazz gig would involve your musical ear running the entire show— listening, playing what you hear, playing uniquely for the moment, acting as an able, inspiring guide through the arrangement. The other players know when you set them an exquisite table, and they respond. They can tell when you’re giving them something real to this moment. On a recent thing that aspect wasn’t happening, and my playing was more an approximation of what should be played to make an exciting performance.

I have good excuses, I’ve never been completely comfortable with the material, or with the sound of that room, and I was coming down with a bad cold. But there’s a way to handle that with a good process, I just didn’t trust it enough to follow it and let it happen. I think I was about 40% real. Not terrible, nothing that could be called a mistake, people liked it, but I didn’t. My ears weren’t working and my hands were disagreeing with me.

Don’t talk about the gig.
– a pianist

That’s actually me being stupid. It’s a normal part of life in this job— not feeling great about every single thing you do, and (hopefully) having people think you played well anyway. My complaining about it is a sign of my non-professionalism— I’m only worrying about it because I’m not enough of a burnout, not working enough. But since most people aren’t working enough, you/they probably understand my feelings.

The person playing the job is not always the best judge of what actually happened, since its filtered through our dissatisfaction over wanting it to go a way that it didn’t. To a neutral ear there’s just the fact of what happened. The stuff we would have played if things were clicking aren’t the only things that can sound good. Certainly in other people’s playing there are things I like that don’t make total sense to my ears.

And: we do have a job to show up. You can’t not play just because you’re not hearing it, you have to put something in there. I have played with some virtuous individuals who do that, and they’re a drag. You have to play. Through that you can find it, sometimes. Or not, but at least you played the job.

That’s the thing, people want to hear some drums— if you show up and make the arrangements, pick a few spots to make some sound, people are happy. Move on.