April 9, 2004 at 4:13 AM

Is there a performance ratio of size of your audience vs. how great you sound in the practice room?
y=performance quality
a=audience size
P (practice room quality)=1
r (percentage y is reduced when about to puke on shoes onstage)=.045
y = 1(1-ra)
So if I had an audience of two, that would be:
y = 1(.91)
So I would play at 91% of my practice room quality. Assuming this is a linear equation. What if my playing suffered exponentially from the feeling of wanting to puke on my shoes? Then it would be:
y = 1((1 - r) raised to the a power)
y = 1((1-.09)squared))
y = 1(.8281)
So I would play at about 83% my original quality. BEHOLD THE POWER OF GEEK.

Yay, played the two new Bach movements for my Tech friends, plus the Paganini (a tad undertempo), and didn't choke. Well, I stopped for a few seconds in the fast Bach, but only cuz her cat was about to puke on my music. Bah.