What's the similarity between an Astronaut and a Lead Player? In space, no-one can hear you scream!

I'm currently reading Cmdr Chris Hadfield's 'An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth' which details his space adventures, and the intense preparations for those adventures. How does this fit in with a blog about trumpeting? Well the thing is, it's all in the preparation. The old adage goes 'Fail to prepare, prepare to fail', but to Hadfield and his colleagues, with billions of dollars of United States Military hardware in their charge, failure simply isn't an option. As musicians, we're in the fortunate position where sometimes, we can cut ourselves some slack when things go wrong, which lets face it they do. But, as the astronauts prep show us, meticulous attention to the smallest details is essential for success. Sweat the small stuff.


The process of sweating the small stuff enables us to have the solid ground to tread when we are in pressure (performance) situations. When we are in practise mode, 'anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying' (Cmdr Hadfield). If we spend our musical lives worrying about, rather than solving (non life or death) problems then we are fighting against ourselves for all of the journey. Likewise Cmdr Hadfield deals with attitude. The 'attitude' of a space vehicle refers to the orientation of a craft in relation to the Earth, the Sun and other spacecraft. 'If you lose control of your attitude, two things start to happen: the vehicle starts to tumble and spin, disorientating everyone on board, but it also strays from it's course. We never want to lose attitude, since maintaining attitude is fundamental to success.' This example can be useful when dealing with the human mind. Keeping our focus, and maintaining a good 'attitude' in our practise and performance is essential to our cause. Working through problems uses more positive energy, whereas taking things out on yourself for not achieving your goals sooner uses more energy in a negative way. Dealing with natural talent vs hard graft Hadfield has this to say, 'Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how.' There comes a point in our musical lives where we can no longer 'wing it'. We have to learn to regulate our preparation. Make notes on what parts of a piece we've studied, so we can keep a track on what is left to do, and what needs looking at again. As an MD once shouted at us from the podium, 'Concentration (preparation) is freedom'. This preparation, the sweating of the small stuff give us the foundations to go on the platform with the knowledge that we've done the hard work, and the confidence to perform freely.


25.04.15