Hello, friends! Here is a recap of the previous year:
- I finished my dissertation. It can be read here, if you're bored.
- I graduated with my doctorate in bassoon performance
- I went through post-partum dissertation. The dissertation was, more or less, my baby.
- I filled the void with a trading card game called Magic: The Gathering.
Fast forward to current day.
I just finished ten performances of the Nutcracker in Madison yesterday and I'm still playing A LOT of Magic (the dissertation left a very big void).
During one of my commutes for the show, I was listening to The Girlfriend Bracket talk about Lexie Mettler's article on different types of tilt.
What is tilt?
Tilt, tilting and being on tilt are all phrases describing a negative mental state caused by error, which leads to less optimal decision making.
Act I, Scene 1 of the Nutcracker is a tilting nightmare. Trying to recover from messing up this passage is like trying to recover from falling down a flight of stairs. After you land at the bottom of the stairs/finish the passage, you have two options: tilt or forgive.
Examples of musical tilt
- Tension: Grabbing the instrument like it owes you money after messing up a technical passage, leading to slower and clunkier movement
- Make-a-point-issimo: Playing everything shockingly loud because you want to singlehandedly save the sinking ship that is your ensemble.
- Tired embouchure: Overcompensating for pitch so far that your endurance is affected, leading to even worse pitch.
- Lack of focus: Being so overcome with grief over missing a note that you proceed to miss every entrance to come.
- Amnesia: You basically forget how to play your instrument/how to read music/how to do anything.
Overcoming tilt
Lexie's suggestions are absolutely applicable to playing. Her five step process is as follows (with musician commentary):
Readers, I leave you with the following things to consider: How much does it take before your performance tilts and are you ready to forgive yourself and keep playing?
- Recognition: What is making me tilt?
- Deep breaths: Take a second (when possible) to calm yourself down. If need be, drop a note to breathe and then pick the music back up.
- Inject logic: What can I do? Is this something I can fix for next time?
- Refocus on making a good decision: Reset and forgive yourself. You've got many more notes to play that are completely unrelated to whatever garbage just came out of your instrument.
- Repeat: It will probably happen again. Be prepared!
Readers, I leave you with the following things to consider: How much does it take before your performance tilts and are you ready to forgive yourself and keep playing?
Take a deep breath, turn the page, and mulligan for a better land base in the second game.