This past Sunday, I traveled to Sacramento with fifty members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles for a historic performance.
The chorus was invited to perform for the swearing-in ceremony of California’s first openly gay State Assembly speaker, John A. Pérez. The chorus sang America the Beautiful, followed by Brand New Day from The Wiz. Amazing song choice for the occasion, don’t you think?
Governer Schwarzenegger was there. Mayors Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa (of San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively) were there. There were TV cameras and countless other high-flying government officials in the room. And, for the first time in a very long time in a live performance setting, I got extremely nervous!
My hands got cold and my heart started racing. A couple of years ago, these physical reactions would have completely crippled me, preventing me from being able to deliver a successful performance. Nowadays, however, there are two factors working in my favor in situations like this.
1. I have performed in live settings so much over the past couple of years, and each time it becomes less of a ‘big deal’. Also, I’ve done a couple of live performances where things have gone horribly wrong. Once that happens to you a couple of times, you realize that the world doesn’t actually come to an end when something goes wrong in performance. Then, in future performances, you worry less about things going wrong, and so fewer things go wrong. It’s a Zen thing. Like, how many babies fit in a tire.
2. Nowadays, when I perform, I don’t consider myself to be making the music; I consider myself to be embodying the music. This is even more of a Zen thing. When I shift my focus in live performance from doing to being, I find that my left brain quiets down a bit, my right brain takes over, and I am free to let the music flow from me uninhibited. This only works, though, if I am truly 100% prepared for a performance. If I’m not, then I have to switch back into think-analyze-do mode to get through unscathed.
Well, I’m back in LA now and these days am occupied with preparing arrangements for Reverse Osmosis. I just finished an arrangement of I See You by Leona Lewis – it’s the credits song from Avatar – and am currently working on Black and Gold by Sam Sparro and the well-known standard Killing Me Softly.