Silence is golden

This weekend we played a gig at one of our favorite places in Treviso. It's a real treat for us to play there. Not only because it's a really cool place with friendly staff, but also because unlike many smaller places they provide you with a sound technician and all the gadgets and monitors you want. Also, they feed you really well, which is important for a starving artist.

The gig went really well, we had lots of fun, played well and got lots of compliments. Still, I woke up in the middle of the night to a certain sadness. There was something that bothered me about the gig. I started to think about it, and came to the conclusion that even though the gig went well, I felt to have failed in one department.

I didn't listen.

I sung, I performed, but I didn't listen.

This has always been my problem every since I jumped from classical music to popular music. When you grow up studying classical music, you learn to make music from a very theoretical point of view. Classical music is full of rules that are followed to a tee. Not much room for improvisation or changing the order of things. Having piano as my first instrument didn't give me access to orchestras, and so I always played on my own. I learned to listen to myself (actually I hardly did that either, I just played like a mechanical monkey), but not others. And this defect of mine has always followed me, and it still causes me problems. Now that I sing, I'm always playing with someone, and if I don't listen to the other person, well... we're screwed.

My guitarist is this marvelous dude who plays really well. Any genre, any song, any-thing. He's very intuitive as a musician, and I often miss his subtle hints of "I'm going to continue with my solo" or "let's go to the chorus again" or "let's play this softer". It's actually not because I'm not interested in his part of the performance, it's not about me being selfish or egoist, it's about the fact that I'm worried about not doing my part well. So I tend to concentrate too much on me, and forget to listen to what he's doing.

Oh, wait. Actually, I AM being egoist.

It's egoism that doesn't come from an evil place where I'm convinced to be the best and so I should be the center of attention and the one that other's should follow. It's egoism that comes from my insecurity as a musician, and fear of failure. In the middle of my fear of personal failure, I'm failing as a partner. I'm letting down my fellow musician. I'm not being a team player. Inside my head I'm still that lonely piano player, that mechanical monkey, wrapped in her own artistic performance.

This is what separates me from the real musicians. They listen first, and play second.

Not listening is probably my problem in life in general. I could do a lot better if I just learned to listen people. And not just listen, but understand and interpret as well. I've always been the talkative one, maybe it's time to shut up for a while and just listen. Give space to others to tell me their ideas instead of forcing mine on them.

Shutting up and listening goes well with my New Year's resolution of being more empathetic. Seeing that it's already February, it would be about time to get with the program.

Or just buy a muzzle.

1) find the microphone in this picture
2) then throw it away because it's time to shut up