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Looper's Delight
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On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, BC wrote:
.......so now I record everything, and the next morning I listen to it again. That's when I have a clear idea of whether what I played the night before is good, or whether it's a "What on earth was I thinking?" moment. In the creative process, there's nothing like walking away completely and then coming back when it comes to gaining perspective.
I'm glad you mentioned this, Brian.It reminded me that years ago in the band Tao Chemical, we had musicians (including myself) who suffered
from a fascistic self critical element in their personalities.We would be really emotional after a gig, especially if there were fuckups (and we were rehearsing 5 nights a week, religiously without cease so we were really, really tight and really, really critical) and arguments and fights would break out if we talked about things in the heat of the critical moment.
It just kept happening and it was really, really unpleasant. Finally in the band, we instituted a rule that stated simply: "You cannot discuss and critique the night's gig until the next day."This really worked for us and for the most part I've tried to remember it (even with regards
to myself doing a solo show) ever since. ****************************About liking and disliking one's music, I do also have to say that a couple of things have helped me with my own extremely self critical attitude towards my playing and the constant unhappiness I experienced
at one point.1) I just kept noticing that the audience's perceptions were so vastly different than my own.
Frequently, things that I thought were disastrous would be viewed by audience members as being really excellent. I even began to see that audience members would actually root for me if I had technical failures, especially if I didn't visibly freak out on stage when one was happening (lol, which just has happened very frequently all of my performing life with electronics).
I then began observing others with an eye towards this phenomenon (the loop festival has been a godsend
in this observatory regard) and discovered that it seemed to be universal.I noticed that a very large percentage of performers (indeed, a very large percentage of people in our culture) have low self esteem and don't really perceive themselves or their performances objectively.
As an audience member, I observed that many artists seemed to steal their own pleasure from their performances because they were looking at the proceedings with 'shit colored spectacles', as it were.
It's much easier said than done to "just take a deep breath, put a smile on your face and try to have fun." on stage, but I did see that people who adopted that strategy seemed to perform better and certainly seemed to be happier.
Of course, not everyone can escape the confines of their personality. I certainly couldn't, so, at one point
2) I went and did a lot of professional psychological therapy around how bad I felt about myself. I learned how the gestalt of my own very unhappy family that I grew up in had contributed to the way I felt and importantly,
the way I framed the way I felt. That therapy changed me and I can honestly say, saved my life.In the group I was in for a few years, there were adults of all ages, so I got to watch people transform their lives for the better because they did the very hard work and addressed the issues of their own unhappiness.
I have to say, everyone that I saw who did the work, got better........they didn't even necessarily raise their own self esteem but they all gained valuable tools to help them deal with those feelings and how to act given that re-framing.
Through all of this I came to a radical change in the way I view emotions from the way I viewed them until I
was almost middle aged.I came to believe that we are not our emotions, but rather that our emotions flow through us.
I began to realize that I might feel devastatingly depressed about a performance one day and that I might feel completely and even diametrically different about it the next day or week. Given that discrepancy what emotion was I? The answer is I felt one emotion at one point and another emotion at another point.
I've come to believe that attaching ourselves to our current emotion, especially if it is a really unpleasant one ends up insuring that the emotion will stay around for a long time. People in recovery call it 'white knuckling'. I can always tell now when I am stuck emotionally........there is always that 'white knuckling' aspect to my unhappiness. I've also learned that I get really narcissistic, the more miserable I feel. It's really helped me to identify that..........and to purposefully and even knee jerkedly try to reach out to other human beings
as a way of breaking my own unhappy cycle.I learned that cliched but for me, effective phrase, "This too, soon shall pass" and it's helped me a lot.
Do I still want to beat myself up after a particular snafu or unrealized expectation at a gig..............sure, but I've learned that I only rob myself of my own pleasure if I hang on to it for very long.
For now, I try to breathe deep, be gracious if anyone compliments me (contradicting my own experiences of the performance) and to NEVER listen to the recording of the gig for a couple of days afterwards.
rick walker