I am in Tucson for Odaiko Sonora’s Taiko showcase, in which I performed an Odaiko solo that (internally, at least) felt like crap. Of course the solos I did in rehearsal went perfectly well. It’s hard because it’s like reaching for something that’s always there only to find it isn’t there.
To be more specific, I kept reaching for a groove that I couldn’t quite settle into, no matter which angle I tried. The rhythms were disjointed — to me. Nothing flowed. Nothing ever felt right.
Which doesn’t mean it didn’t have its moments.
I’ve been told by a few different artists in Japan that their estimation is that people play Taiko reasonably well 60% of the time, poorly 15%, very well 15%, incredibly well 5% 0f the time and are completely in the zone about 2% of the time and completely lost about 2% of the time and that final one percent is a mix of transcendent moments and utter failures.
It wasn’t an utter failure, and I wasn’t completely lost, but for me the solo tonight falls somewhere in the “poorly 15%” category. To be a pro drummer in Japan you have to fairly well guarantee you’re going to be in the upper 15% category 100% of the time.
Tonight I didn’t make the cut.
To be fair, I got a lot of good feedback. Positive feedback, actually.
Internally, though, it was excruciating and it felt undisciplined and unprofessional. More specifically it felt fractured and chaotic.
To be honest, though, it is probably an authentic representation of my own internal landscape. That is who I am right now, or how I am right now. Fractured and chaotic.
Since I am relying on improvisational skills that draw as much upon who and what I am in the moment as straightforward technical skill, I have to consider that it just may be that I looked inside and didn’t like what I found there.
Then I have to consider my artistry and what I believe my obligations are as a professional Taiko drummer.
It wasn’t a good, uplifting classically themed and implemented solo, and a part of me feels bad because that’s been held out as an ideal to always strive for, and as a professional I am supposed to be able, at some level, to leave my own personal stuff behind so that the audience experiences something bigger than me and my ego.
It was raw. It was harsh. It was disjointed. It was…desperate. It felt like one of the worst solos I have ever played.
It could be I just choked. What I fear, however, is that it’s me finally starting to feel the grief and the loss of losing my father in July and then my grandfather just a couple of weeks ago.
My life is fractured so the part of the solo that represents my individual spark of experience came out fractured, too.
Or am I just making excuses?
What’s harder is that so many people proffered the feedback that it was intense and profound and moving and varied and textured and …all these wonderful things.
So maybe I am being overly critical and it wasn’t so bad?
But it was only practical experience and learned skills that pulled me out of the depths of it, and it wasn’t satisfying to me. I’m fairly well angst-y about the whole thing.
It could also be that the internal state is driving the crisis of self-doubt I’m going through right now.
Ok. Here’s the deal. I am not posting this for sympathy. I want those of you that study with me to understand that I also have bad days and doubts and misgivings. I want you to see me going through the process of analyzing aspects of my own performance and what sort of lessons I get to take away from the experiences. One example being one can’t necessarily be totally objective about one’s own performances, and that sometimes an audience has an entirely different litmus when determining if a thing is good or bad.
It was authentic. It was well-intentioned. It just wasn’t technically good to my own standards of what I find aesthetically pleasing in an odaiko solo.
I do totally get that my own aesthetics and intentions aren’t the only things that matter, but I am struggling with this one. How can so many people be so moved by something that felt so wrong to me? Unless the practiced skill came through on some level despite my getting in my own way on other, presumably more superficial levels?
I will grant that what came out was intense. Maybe the key issue is that it wasn’t where I wanted to go with it. Maybe the art part happened of its own accord.
I just don’t know.