What goes on in a performer’s mind during a performance? Well, lots of things, from the sublime to the salacious. From thoughts and feelings whose only expression is in soaring flights of melody to very real concerns about whether or not Vinnie’s Pizza delivers after 10:30. Is it a paradox that a violinist can be fully absorbed in the concerto he’s playing while still being perfectly conscious of which fingers he’s putting down where? No, its’ not. Can you really be moved while concentrating on what you have to do to be moving? Yes. It’s not hypocritical, it’s necessary; and it’s normal. And in fact the capacity for combining the subjective and the objective, the capacity for simultaneous processes and simultaneous levels of awareness, is what defines not just “what goes on in a performer’s mind” but human nature itself. What throws our understanding off is language – we can only say or write one thing at a time, therefore we can only describe the mind’s processes consecutively, linearly. And by the way, this is exactly the same problem we have in using language to describe music.
A Minute with Miles- a production of ETV Radio made possible by the JM Smith Corporation.
