3/18/24 More Than One Perfect

Many string players are perfectionists. Let’s face it.

We have to be. Intonation alone, right? To play in tune on a string instrument requires never-ending vigilance in critical listening.

But what I didn’t understand as a young violin student was that there are actually many perfects. 

For many young violin students, there is something daunting about the violin repertoire.

To be a professional violinist, your playing is expected to be perfect. You either play the right notes, in tune, or you don’t. It's a feat of dexterity in which you either succeed or you fail, to varying degrees. (Which makes it more quantifiable, if you're searching for a way to rate performers and turn it into a sport.) 

What was daunting to me, as a student, was that it was binary—things were either right or wrong--in a way that seemed to be antithetical to music itself. 

There is really, more or less, only one correct way to play a Mozart violin concerto in the sense that it involves playing exactly those notes that he wrote, and in a fairly particular way, stylistically. That's a fairly narrow target.

But the creative life of music, the part that brought that Mozart concerto into existence, is not about meeting a pre-determined expectation, it's a journey of exploration. It's born out of following musical instincts, the muse, wherever it may wander and then trying to make cohesive sense out of it. 

You could take a jazz or rock solo into whatever direction you felt like on any given night. You could do 3 different versions of a tune, and they could all be perfect. 

Now, I know this is not really news to anyone, but it’s kind of news to classical string players.

But it's clear, as evidenced by all the huge variety of great music in the world, that there are not only many right ways of following your own muse, but there are actually many right ways of making music, around the world and throughout history. 

Turns out there is more than one perfect.  

Tough concept for us perfectionists, but worth the effort.