Striking a balance

The path of a musician is one of constant self-discovery, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. Our time in the practice room is usually one of nitpicking and self-criticism, trying to reach new heights in our playing while we are expected once on stage to be brimming with confidence and authority. There is quite a gap between those two states of mind.

This fragile balance between humility and confidence is one I am keenly aware of. We may all be on one or the other side of the equation at any time in our life yet both buckets need to be filled to strike a balance between our own enjoyment and the quality of the performance given to the audience.

Humility is a required quality as a gateway to the idea that there is progress to be made in our own playing. A player who sees no improvement possible in their own playing is bound to stall and stop making any progress. A player who sees options for improvement may indeed keep improving over the long term. Which is why in my opinion hard work almost always dwarfs talent. One may also feel a sense of humility for the chance to be on stage, performing timeless and beautiful pieces of music. However, humility should not transform itself in its worst version, which would be low self-regard and a lack of confidence.

Confidence is a required quality in our ability to perform and our ability to be fully ourselves. In a classical music world that has so many opportunities for comparison and so much expectation for consistent perfection, you need confidence to even put yourself out there in the first place. You need confidence to present the results of the work you did privately beforehand in a convincing manner. And you need confidence to be able to be your true self on stage. Since the best version you can present from yourself is what makes you uniquely you, any attempt to imitating others or achieving artistic ideals that are not yours in the first place will fall short of a meaningful and interesting artistic contribution.

In the end, we need both qualities, humility and confidence, to be able to make consistent progress and yet perform in a convincing manner on stage. Throughout our life as musicians, we may always be in danger of an imbalance between those two elements but just being aware of their existence should help us handle this life-long balancing act.