Hi Friend!

This issue is all about an idea that helps with letting go of the outcome whilst you play. I use the concepts discussed as a way of managing performance anxiety and channeling the music I hear in my head. All in pursuit of making the best music I can. I think of this strategy as letting the music be what it wants to be. Let’s dig in.

Something To Think About

Let the music be what it wants to be

So often we as musicians want to control the outcome of what we play. We want to play the right notes at the right time, ensure our lines come out with the perfect shape, and in essence play without errors. This self imposed pressure can make performing stressful and less enjoyable. Over and over again I see the effect of it in lessons with my students, in myself when I was having Saxophone lessons, and when I perform live. I find the irony of being nervous performing for my sax teacher the most amusing. You’d think given the empathy I have for my own students when they perform for me that I’d be able to relax knowing my teacher wasn’t going to be upset if I played something wrong. Yet the anxiety remained!

This problem lead to the following realisation. Whilst I’m sure that if you could guarantee what you play could come out without errors you would. In practice it’s more complicated. Counterintuitively the more you try to control the outcome of your playing the more likely it is to go wrong. I’m sure you’ve experienced moments where something has gone wrong, so you try harder and it gets even worse. It’s like grasping onto sand. The harder you squeeze the more it slips between your fingers

This paradoxical phenomenon is something that all performers deal with. Be that musicians, athletes, or even students in an exam hall. It’s all too easy to get in our own way because we have expectations about what the outcome “should” be. I’ve found the best way to deal with this is to let go of the outcome. To stop trying to force the outcome I want into existence through shear will and instead try to be ok with what comes out. In other words, let the music be what it wants to be.

I find when I put this idea into practice I enjoy performing more. I get to be an audience member to my own performance. Waiting with curiosity and excitement to hear what the result of my practice will be. As a result I’m more relaxed and that comes across in how I play. This benefits the music, the audience, and of course me as the performer. I have more fun and if things do go wrong it’s ok because that’s how the music was meant to be today.

In short, I think of it this way. If you’ve done the work there’s little you can do to control the outcome in the moment. So it makes sense to get out of your own way and accept that it might go wrong. Strangely you’ll end up with a better result at the end. 

Something To Practice

Free form improvisation

One way to practice this is to try and put the mindset into action next time your performing. Be that in a lesson or live. If this kind of opportunity isn’t available to you another way is to practice the mindset at home whilst playing music you know already. I particularly like doing it while improvising. Here’s how.

Put on a backing track and improvise over it in a free form manner. Don’t judge what you create. Instead allow the music to come out as it wants to be. This way you can get used to not trying to control the outcome. If you normally play in a very theoretical manner where you target chord tones or stick to scale shapes instead try to simply play what you hear in your head, without consideration for the underlying theory or the mistakes you make. 

Here’s an example of me putting this exercise into practice. 

Something To Enjoy

Don’t judge what you create

In the spirit or letting the music be what it wants to be i’d encourage you to check out the following track. Mike Dawes has been on tour with Tommy Emmanuel. Can you hear Tommy in this composition? It would have been easy for Mike to throw this music away for being too similar to Tommy’s. Instead he’s shared it with the world because there’s nothing wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve and allowing the music to be what it wants to be.

That’s it for this one.

See you in two weeks!

Alasdair 🤘