I took a nap before the concert tonight, and it gave me an ease at the outset of the performance that I don’t often feel without a great deal of concentration and (non)effort. Last summer I blogged about trying to play with utter looseness, a la Perlman. I felt it oddly unnatural and unsatisfying to not exert much effort, perhaps due to the contrast from what I am accustomed to. Tonight I remembered another phase I went through – Krishnamurti immersion. He frequently talks about non-effort, non-conflict, non-worry and non-thinking. They are tantalizing concepts, but the last time I perused one of his books I was less than taken by his philosophizing.
I like the idea of extending the technical issues I have on the cello out to the rest of my existence. That’s of course been a great quest and fantasy of mine for decades.

As the concert progressed, I gradually lost that pleasurable ease. It tends to be fleeting like that. It’s as though I like to have something to butt up against. I like friction, resistance. I need them, more to the point. I realized that I also like to hear other performers with some of that taste for friction. I am unmoved by totally comfortable, unperturbed players. It’s like watching a piece of cardboard play music.

originally published on 1/26/08