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Clam Chowder

March 19, 2006 at 4:01 AM

How do you all treat "spur of the moment" performances? I always have a horrible time when I'm hanging out with friends or something and somebody just asks me to play. Can you just whip the instrument out and play what you've been working on or just completed? Today, a friend asked me to play and my fingers felt like total clams. I didn't even have the muscle memory for shifting to third or fourth position. Sixteenth notes were out of the question, coordination none existent...I was afraid to touch a very simple student concerto I studied four and a half years ago (I have kept it up - I'm about to record it for a SAA teacher scholarship audition). It's not like I don't know how to play - the Conus Concerto and Wieniawski D min Concertos are not exactly beginners pieces, but this happens whenever people ask me to play...any help? After playing most of my life, these things shouldn't happen. I played Amazing Grace, Brethren We Have Met To Worship (another Christian hymn), one line of Meditation from Thias, and half of the second "mvt" to the Conus concerto (couldn't even get through it!).
Jenna, I agree. Whenever we visit friends, etc., my mom's like, "Honey, you want to play for them?" I practically die right there because I'm not brave enough to try Bach or anything that I've been working on. Anyway...

I just read one of my friend's blog posts, which tells about how she was at this wedding, and was sitting down to eat her salad, when the mother of the bride comes to her, asking, "Do you play the piano?" Somehow the pianist never came and she had to play something...her mind totally went blank (sound familiar?) and she ended up playing the theme from Forest Gump. :)

It's good to have something really simple and short for such an occasion, something that requires no warmup or concentrattion, and will be over before people start to get bored.