uncollaborative piano

Imagine a gradient of psychological states on stage:

At each end of the spectrum is an avoidance technique. Both ends are used to avoid accounting for your real abilities. Arrogance avoids reckoning of skills because they’re too little. Aloofness avoids reckoning because a person fears the freedom of their total capacity.

This is a lopsided system. At one end you’re trying to avoid failure and do so by seeming to care too much. At the other you’re trying to avoid failure by trying to not care at all. But inside of each feeling state is the seed of the opposite. The arrogant person is actually weak and overcompensating. The distracted person has strength but they rarely access it, making everything harder than it has to be.

There are more bad terms on the anxious side because the traps are more insidious over there. A person might actually be okay and get through while being arrogant. It might catch up to them, but they’ll be in a good position to succeed. Things on the right get “dark and twisty” for the performer and can create long term problems.

Somewhere along the way you have to embrace being a little conceited on stage. The attitude is something like “watch this.” It’s a matter of taking fear and being aggressive toward it. Anywhere in the conceit-confident range will get you through a performance with a clear mind and conscience.