Since the beginning of time performance anxiety was the norm in whatever we did as species; from an orator speaking in an ancient agora, to a lutist playing in the local market, humans had always had this issue to address.

Through the centuries, the seeking of musical perfection and the rise of classical music as the “serious” music, as opposed to the “unserious” other musics, has made us talk about performance anxiety more and more in our musical lives, often stopping us from the very thing that a bit of stress is supposed to help: performance. In consequence, recently, literature about performance anxiety has reached heights of enormous gravity.

We need to be concerned about performance anxiety, since many musicians have been discouraged from this condition to even perform live. We need constant scientific progress in defining performance anxiety in musicians and treat it (if possible). Even though I’m not an expert, I strongly believe that, sometimes, having a little “helpful” stress when performing is normal; and, to take it a bit further, somehow, it’s a necessity in our quest of becoming complete musicians.

I, for example, remember sometimes being extremely anxious before an important concert or an exam performance. I had to use all the things from my musical bag-of-tricks to fight this anxiety feeling; and I always came to the same conclusion: I needed deep knowledge of the repertoire I had to perform.  Because, I knew, that if I had sorted out the muscle memory and the finger agility on certain passages, that would have helped me to see the performance through regardless of the intensity of the anxiety.

Here are Some Suggestions to Help Us Eliminate Performance Anxiety

First, we have to understand that performance anxiety is different from normal levels of stress that we all experience before performing live.

In order to fight performance anxiety we have to deeply understand one core thing in music: that there are no bad musicians (If you want more details read my related article here). I believe that all musicians are equally “valid”, are equally important and are equally good.

Then, we have to start considering that live performance has always been an adventurous act that entails the element of surprise and the feeling of uncertainty in its outcome; and that’s why performing live is so beautiful.

We also need to realize, that in life nothing is perfect. Similarly, in a live performance there are no perfect people (audience) that judge imperfect ones (us, the performers).

Then, we must appreciate, that as much as we have the urge to judge everything in everyday life, from buying good quality milk, to find a good tennis coach, we also have the inherent right to judge a performance. Judging or evaluating something is a human quality that exists in order to improve us. So, in a way, when we are being judged in a performance, we improve.

Also, we need to develop the “talent” of not caring about trivial things in life; like opinions about our playing. Some people are very good at it. When I was a student at conservatoire level, but even earlier than that, I would experience some not-so-valid performances which were strongly advocated by their own performers, and I was thinking that I wasn’t going to be happy if I had played like that. And then I thought that, likewise, someone else wouldn’t be happy if they played the way I did. So, musical consensus is ever-changing and could be subjective.

Last, make sure you remember this word: preparation. Just make sure you are as prepared pianistically as possible. Play your pieces to your family as a practice, ask for different opinions on your playing, listen to what your friends say about your own playing and keep the good things they say, but not the bad ones.

Remember that there is no perfect performance and keep going.

Do you have to be a moral person to be a good musician? Does character and personality count in order to be considered a successful musician?

Well, if you define a good musician as a person who is what we call moral – with good standing in society, irrespective of their ability to play a music instrument – then great, there are a lot of musicians in this world.

However, if you think a musician is someone who makes nice sounds by manipulating a piece of material, irrespective of his or her moral values, then that’s a completely different ball game.

So, it depends on what you, as a unique individual, define as a musician; For instance, do you believe a musician is the greatest person in the world, regardless of his level of music mastery. Do you think a musician is a person that uses an instrument wonderfully despite of his personality traits?

Let’s see…

Recently, a fellow pianist was telling me the following story: Many years ago while he was still at college studying piano, he had a classmate that he despised. Apparently, she was pompous, she was a know-it-all person, she was quick to criticise and condemn her fellow musicians, and her facial expressions were always giving an aura of pitifulness and snobbishness.

He remembered with skepticism her ironic chuckles in the corridors of his college, and he was changing paths when she was walking like a diva in his direction.

He was certain that she didn’t deserve to be called a good person, let alone a good musician.

Then, one day, he attended one of her recitals. He remembers he was full of rage about her and expected to be, at the least, tormented by her performance. However, what he experienced was in contrast to what he had envisioned.

Apparently, her tone-control was monumental. Her technique was at such an extremely high standard that he felt hypnotised by her total energy at the keyboard. He suddenly felt detached by her peculiar personality and he started experiencing some new personality angles to admire. He was thrilled. Somehow, in the course of a few minutes, his perception of her character changed dramatically. “Was that even possible?” he was wondering.

After the concert he kept asking himself how it was possible for an “appalling” person to be a skilled performer, and why his perception of her character changed just because she was delivering a couple of notes with flair.

Morality Helps Musicality

Even though I strongly believe that moral people have an advantage when it comes to succeeding in becoming good musicians, here are my thoughts:

1. I believe that just because someone has a not-so-great character, that doesn’t mean that they can’t use an instrument wonderfully. Otherwise, only good people can be good musicians, and this, logically, is somewhat far-fetched.

2. Morals don’t necessarily strengthen your technique; practising does. Well, except if your music teacher says that you are a bad person if you don’t practice scales for half-an-hour a day.

3. Immorality doesn’t make you a good musician either. Again, I have a suspicion that good-all practising helps a lot.

So, an immoral person, or a “bad” person as we say, can often interpret very well because his morals are, more often than not, disconnected from his effort to study music.

Also, the ability to physically “connect” with masterfulness with the workings of an instrument is not particularly connected with the respective morals of each society.

Sometimes, perhaps, rogue personalities can be interesting musicians too, since their questionable personality traits have inevitably shaped their musical language. For example, some rock stars have created music that is appealing to many people, because their “dark” pasts have shaped their music creation; so, what they’ve created can resonate with other people’s experiences and views. Don’t forget that the end user of music (the audience) is the ultimate judge of the quality of an artist. So, what we consider as “good” or “bad” music, often relates to our own morals and cultural references to life.

Musicality Helps Morality

Unquestionably, moral values can inspire you to become a better musician. Creating desirable sounds through an instrument shows our innate need to create beauty – and this in itself can only lead to good things in life. But morals cannot be a substitute for studying music in depth.

To finish, yes, personality can shape an artist’s musical language but it cannot characterise it as good or bad.

Musical language is unique to every person, and it’s neither bad nor good, or better; we need to understand this for our future musical development. When it comes to decide what is a successful musical performance, we must distance ourselves from trivial matters such as an artist’s political beliefs, moral references, choice of personal style, and we must concentrate on the musical aspect of …music.

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© Nikolaos Kokkinis – 24/September/2013

“Criticism!” No one likes this dreaded word! Nobody likes it when a fellow musician tells them “you should have done this”, or “you must do this”, or “I think you shouldn’t have done this in your performance”…

As I said in a previous article (read here), criticism is great and must be loved by all musicians and artists in general. But, even if you are one of those people that like receiving criticism about your work, however, do you know how to give it?

Why Musician Despise Criticism

Musicians are “peculiar” people. They consider what they do musically an important part of their character and their personality. They subconsciously, and rightfully in my opinion, think that what they musically offer must be appreciated and must be honored. So, that’s why it’s very difficult to tell them that they need improvement.

Another reason for why musicians don’t particularly enjoy criticism, is because it’s very hard to scientifically and precisely assess musicality; take for example the alleged judgmental “fiascos” that often happen in international music competitions. Frequently, great musicians don’t get to the next round, because there isn’t any “musicality-meter” around to “count” with precision their performances; and, as many people believe, most of the musicality of a musician derives from within.

Scientists, biologists, mathematicians or engineers like criticism, because you can prove to them something in a “concrete” way. For example, you can criticise an engineer, by telling them that they forgot to use wheels to make that car, or you can correct a chemist by showing them that in order to make aspirin you don’t use cement. (Did you like how beautifully I crafted those two examples?) Those people will, in all probability, thank you for correcting them because you proved them wrong with evidence through a scientific, and dare I say, an obvious way.

However, how are you going to persuade a professional singer that she didn’t deliver wonderfully her aria in that opera? How are you going to say to a pompous violinist that his “take” on the Paganini caprice no 5 is a tad fast? There’s no real consensus when it comes to performance.

At the same time, musicians find it extremely hard to be criticised by other musicians because, undoubtedly, they are naturally competitors. Somehow, all musicians “compete” with their peers. And subsequently this “competition” creates beautiful music.

Teachers, on the other hand, get away with criticism, because criticism, in a way, is  an integral part of their job; they must constantly “criticise” a student’s performance in order to improve it. When you are assessing a student you are, more or less, allowed to say anything because your ultimate goal is to make them better musicians. Some teachers even take it a step further by criticising a student’s personality on stage or even the choice of garments, and often students don’t mind.

However, we must be really careful when criticising musicians. Not only for their own good, but also for our own “good standing” in the music business.

Your Goal Must Always be to Improve Your Fellow Musician

So, here are my suggestions on the criticism “etiquette”:

1. Never criticise negatively a fellow musician. To cut to the chase, there’s no need for it. If they are below the age of twenty, you must be extremely careful of what you say, because you can be held responsible for ruining a young person’s confidence in becoming a musician. If they are over thirty, be equally careful, because generally musicians over that age subconsciously believe that they are complete musicians and not students, so the ego kicks in – Unbelievable, isn’t it?

2. If you must criticise, you need to be asked at least four times before you start in an extremely tactful way to criticise their performance.

3. Never criticise something in a direct way, but craft some indirect ways to make your point (except, again, if you are a teacher); let’s say you want to criticise a pianist’s slow delivery of some arpeggios. You don’t say “oh, you should do a bit more practicing on the b flat major arpeggios in the cadenza”, but you say “lovely arpeggios in general. I loved the speed and brilliance that you were trying to show on the b flat ones”. (naughty!)

4. Always, always, and I mean ALWAYS, find the performance of a fellow musician great. Do you know why? Because they are going to believe it; which can result in their improvement. Even if a musician is showing distress after a performance, hidden inside them is always the belief that their performance has its merits; and, shall I ask, what good may come from finding negatives in their performance, anyway? At best, they will remember to practise a bit more, at worst you might lose a friend.

5. When criticising a musician, you should maintain eye contact. Never look on the floor or in the wall or in the side.  This way they get to perceive your feelings about their performance in a more “warm” way and get the gist of what you are saying more clearly.

6. Don’t have a serious a expression when criticising, because, after all, we are mammals and we take body language seriously. A serious face shows that your judge is serious about your musical “failure”, and that he is, in a way, trying to perhaps prove something with their judgement; like some personal issues with you that are unrelated with your performance. Why would you criticise in a serious manner it’s beyond me; except, of course, if you are writing a university critique or you are a professional critic, so you think that you have the self-appointed right to criticise harshly.

7. Always stress the positives in a musician, because, after all, your ultimate goal should be to improve them and make them better musicians. The negatives? Leave them for their teachers or for others to point out or show them discreetly somehow; professional musicians know this very well. I know I sound a bit diplomatic, but this way you will not only remain popular, but you will, unbelievably, be considered a good musician. So, more students, more concerts, more good friends, more meaningful things in life will start coming in.

All best.

So… if you are a “bad” performer that means you are a great teacher? Well, let’s not oversimplify things… It’s not really black or white.

To start, we have two sides; the performer’s side and the teacher’s side. Let’s see what is happening in their lives.

Let’s quickly define (as if that’s even possible) both first. The great performer is naturally doing concerts all over the world. It goes without saying that he is a virtuoso*,  and that’s why he is considered great, however, mostly to gullible non-musicians. As a result, this type of musician has limited time to enlighten the young and learning people.

The teacher, or the one who makes his living mostly by teaching, is the person that is NOT, most of the time, a virtuoso; otherwise, he would have just given concerts all over the place to celebrate his talent. (You wouldn’t call Vladimir Horowitz a teacher, would you? Even though he has taught during his illustrious career); let’s stop kidding ourselves here for a second, please. At the same time, a teacher might or might not be a very competent performer – it doesn’t matter; remember also, that there are different levels of teaching abilities and, unfortunately, in this world anyone can teach an instrument even without formal qualifications.

A good teacher though, is a totally different ball game. In my opinion, a good teacher has to first be a good performer, because, after all, he is teaching a performing art; so, if he doesn’t know how to perform something how is he going to teach it? However, bear in mind that knowledge of music and ability to communicate it to people are vastly different.

So, let me elaborate by taking for example the scale of C major. There are a few possibilities for a teacher:

1.The teacher can play it correctly, can find the student’s weaknesses, and can demonstrate it correctly.

2.The teacher can play it correctly, but cannot find the student’s weaknesses to correct.

3.The teacher can’t play it correctly, but can find the student’s weaknesses, and can correct them.

4.The teacher can’t play it correctly, knows how it should sound though, but doesn’t teach correctly.

5. The teacher can’t play it correctly, cannot find the student’s weaknesses, and doesn’t know how to teach them.

Therefore, sometimes we can see brilliant teachers, that have great relationship with students and can communicate their knowledge wonderfully, however, their lack of the pragmatic depth of the piano can give away their pianistic ignorance. So, their skill, per se, in knowing HOW to teach something might not be enough in recognizing them as great teachers. At the same time though, technical knowledge is not the only prerequisite of a great teacher.

Performers, on the other hand, are responsible for their own skills and body. And for this reason, in many instances, they haven’t learned how to be “responsible” for other people’s skills and body. So, even though they can perceive and do things greatly themselves, they often haven’t “practiced” in explaining those things successfully to others. So, for instance, a virtuoso pianist may know very well how to play a scale, however, he might not be able to describe to the student how to play that scale, because he just does it naturally and hasn’t really thought for a long time about the mechanics of the hand and fingers. Still, he will, in all probability, be able to hear the “wrongness” in a performance of an inferior performer to himself.

1. The virtuoso can play it correctly, can see/hear the weaknesses of a student, and can correct them.

2. The virtuoso can play it correctly, can see/hear the weaknesses of a student, but cannot correct them efficiently.

So, I believe that, more often than not,  a virtuoso will be able to identify a student’s weaknesses. However, this doesn’t mean that he can correct them efficiently.

So, to recap:

Keep practising and keep performing, because this will make you a better teacher? I think, yes.

*Virtuoso: The person who performs super-fastly, with minimum mistakes. He often possesses the rest of the… “unavoidable” and “yawning” for him musical necessities, such as correct tone, intended articulations, respect of composer and style. In the case of singers, he sings mostly repertoire above 90 decibels and has a pompous expression at all times.

———————————————————————————————————</© Nikolaos Kokkinis – 2/June/2013.

What is criticism? Criticism is when you receive judgement on your work. Later, this judgement can be used to improve your work, if you wish. However, even though criticism has been used positively to improve our lives since the beginning of time, humans in general despise criticism and can go to great extents to avoid it.

Please, let me ask you: Do you like criticism? Do you like other people tell you that you didn’t play well in that recital? Do you like the ironic smirk on your friend’s face when he pretentiously suffers from your messing-up the cadenza in that concerto?

Well, you better start liking all this quickly, otherwise you are going to be in trouble if you are planning to make your living through music.

Even though I have been musically and personally criticised countless times and tried to avoid taking it badly, I still struggle to receive criticism with joy. No musician likes to be criticised I’m afraid, even when they pretend to do so. I know that from having often watched the faces of musicians when they’re being criticised by others; they turn from suspiciously bright and interested, to cold and defensive. And when you hear them using the words “yes, but” when trying to defend their performance, it’s when you know for certain that they don’t like others telling them that they weren’t absolutely perfect.

At the same time, musicians and other artists despise criticism because subconsciously they have connected their artistic work with what they believe about themselves, and they feel that when they’re being criticised artistically, in a way, they are being criticised in their personality; which, in effect, can be true. And as we all know, artists have the inherent belief that they’re special and that their work is important and needs to be appreciated.

You can also observe that musicians loath criticism by just pretending that you like everything in their performances. They are going to agree with whatever you say that you liked, even if during the performance you were outside the hall eating sandwiches while watching cricket on a screen. Just say, “oh, I loved your performance”, or, “the ending of the last piece was magnificent”, and that’s it. You are going to be loved, and you are going to be considered a great musician.

However, saying good things to a performer is so easy, isn’t it? It’s just there waiting, readily available.  Anyone can do it. But it doesn’t help the artist very much.

So, do you have to like criticism? Do you have to like people telling you that your work needs refining, or that you are not infallible when it comes to performance? I think yes.

But before you start loving or loathing criticism and your critics, you are to answer the following question: Why am I being criticised on this performance?

1. Is this critique a form of personal attack? For example: “Oh, John missed two bars in the cadenza, I wish he wasn’t that stingy in his personal life too”. Or, “ Yes, Margaret played wonderfully the fast octaves in bar 23, I wish though she didn’t have such a bad character”. Just bear in mind though that the vast majority of musical criticism in not there to harm you personally.

2. Are you receiving a critique to improve your performance? Is this criticism delivered to get your technique and musicality to a higher standard?

Remember, that sometimes in life we don’t ask to be criticised, even though we need to be criticised in some circumstances; for example, in performance classes at college.

Why You Should Love Criticism

-All types of criticism can lead to your musical improvement. By taking malevolent or loving or personal or, as they say, “constructive” criticism, without knowing it, it makes you better.

–Ad hominem or negative criticism can still help you improve your work. But it can also help you improve and strengthen your character. For instance,  “Nikos gave a most horrific performance. You could have waited for a lifetime to experience this atrocious performance. To his credit though, he managed to remember the order of the pieces correctly”. This type of criticism hardens you a lot. Musicians need to be tougher than a rock in order to succeed in this ever-competitive musical world.

-Don’t take it personally. Criticism is not necessarily to attack you as a person, but also to improve your work. (Except in college by fellow classmates).

-Good comments are just empty words; they don’t help you, other than psychologically, to improve; even though psychological support plays a major role in improving an artist’s self esteem and perhaps improve his own artistry, still, somehow I improve more when someone tells me to sort out this passage than when the same person tells me “well done, great performance, you are very talented”. So, it’s up to you what to prefer.

-Even a non-musician can say: “oh, you played this passage wonderfully”, or, “I liked very much the finale of that piece”. But a non-musician cannot really make you a better musician. (Well, except if  he offers you ice cream in exchange for practising three hours).

-Criticism makes a you good thinker too; you will become better at evaluating different things in life.

-Even though criticism is often used to just show-off one’s knowledge, critics may as well be right; take the chance to see if they’ve spotted any “wrongdoings” in your performance that you didn’t.

-Learn to see critics as necessary “steps” to reach your goals. Don’t forget that music critics and other judges have always their own agenda when judging you (e.g. make a living).

-Criticism, slowly makes you a better critic.

How to Love Criticism

– Start by politely asking for a critique for each one of your performances from a reasonably “adequate” critic; it could be, of course, a professional critic, but since it’s difficult to find one, you can ask a fellow musician to judge your performance. Don’t play it safe it by asking your partner, because it’s near-impossible to get a subjective critique even if they are musicians. (Especially if you haven’t washed the dishes).

-Demand negative criticism from your critics; no performance is perfect, I’m afraid. There is not a single performer that can’t improve a musical composition. So, when your critic only says, “great, everything was so beautifully performed”, just ask them to tell you something negative. If they are musicians I’m sure you can get them to tell you more in detail later on at dinner.

-Force yourself to accept that what your critics say is right. Let me elaborate by telling you a story. Years ago, when I was still an aspiring musician I was playing Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso at a gathering. One of the fellow party attenders and friend of mine, came to me and said: Nikos your sound is so harsh and loud, let me show you how you should play this piece; and she played some of it to me. Well, I would lie if I said I liked it. However, those comments made me to start thinking and debating whether she was right about my sound being so horrific. For instance, it made me think of how to improve my sound and how to make it less “stiff” when playing forte passages.

To recap, I would just say that criticism is perhaps part of our evolutionary necessities to carry on forward. So, start loving criticism, because one day you might want to “judge” too…

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© Nikolaos Kokkinis – 14/05/2013.