A Musician’s Search for Meaning

I recently finished reading Viktor Frankl’s inspiring book “Man’s Search for Meaning”. It had quite a profound impact on me. It’s a relatively short book, about 200 pages, split into two parts. The first part documents the author’s (an Austrian psychiatrist) own experience in concentration camp during Nazi invasion; the second part expounds on the author’s theory of logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy which essentially states that the main concern for man in life is meaning, and not power (as Nietzsche stated) or pleasure (the Freudian perspective). Not only did I find this idea extremely attractive and comforting, since it steers me away from the existential void I inevitably walk towards when contemplating death, but I can also see how logotherapy–or at least aspects of it–may be applied to piano playing. Or put it this way: finding meaning is crucial to piano playing.

Reflecting on the past year and a bit, or ever since I started my full-time studies in piano performance, I am pleased to say that my playing has taken off tremendously. But when I think about why that is, I am not so sure. I did not spend hours at the piano, drilling constantly to attain perfect technique. Nor were my practice sessions filled to the brim with Chopin etudes or Czerny studies. My practice time hovers between 2 to 3 hours a day, at most 4.

So what is it that has caused this tremendous improvement in playing, without trying to sound arrogant?

I think it is more to do with the mindset, of what I believe piano playing is, than to do with the actual technique of playing the piano. In his book, patients often come up to Frankl with a difficult problem, grand problems their therapists were unable to solve; existential problems. This often had a damaging impact on how they live their lives, and often cause behavioural problems as well. Nevertheless, it did not take Frankl years of sessions with them to change their behaviour, nor did he have to go all the way back to their childhood to uncover some trauma that had lain hidden for a long time. All he did was re-orient their thinking(“perhaps you could see it in this way…”)–in other words, direct them towards their own meaning in life–and suddenly the problem, along with all the side-effects that came with the problem, vanished.

And I think a similar thing took place in my mind without me being too conscious about it. When I think back on how I used to see playing the piano, I remember feeling a great deal of anxiety, especially when it comes to performing. It’s all fun and good to play the piano, but when I actually had to perform, or play for my teacher, I tense up, I cannot relax, I trip in some of the easiest passages; the semiquaver runs suddenly become insurmountable Everests that I lose all hope even before I reached their feet.

This is no unique problem. Everyone, literally everyone, even professionals, face performance anxiety. The problem is, not a lot of people can overcome them. Even at conservatoire, I still see people freeze in fear on stage, or manage to struggle to the end before running off stage crying. The thing is, now that I’m in a better place, and am able to reflect retrospectively on my past mentality regarding performance, I can clearly see a perspective which was totally misguided about piano playing. You see, whenever I prepare for a performance, I suddenly start focusing on every tiny detail. Instantly, every spot seems insecure, and I fret about my interpretation: is this the right way to play Bach? What if I haven’t practised this passage enough? Look at Zimerman; the only possible reason he plays so effortlessly is probably because he put in hours of work on this one little passage, something I did not think of doing all those weeks gone by. I felt more and more distant from any of the greats, because I was so worried about tiny things that were probably of no concern to them.

And of course, when it comes to the actual performance, I focus solely on producing a perfect performance, making sure the notes were right, because that was my only anchor. It was my only objective measure of what a good performance was. Without that anchor, I would be lost in sea, unsure of what all that practice had led up to, all that time spent trying to read dots on a page and then reproduce them on ivory keys. And then I would probably drown in a sea of self-doubt. I may sound dramatic but when anxiety seizes you everything is exaggerated a hundred times.

One key word I remember from Frankl’s book was hyperintention. He coined this term himself, noting that patients became incredibly obsessed with what they feared and in trying to fix their problems, only exacerbated them. If someone was having insomnia, he would try really hard to fall asleep, which as we all know will only make things worse. The same, I believe, happens with wrong notes. In focusing on not playing wrong notes in a certain difficult passage, we create anticipatory anxiety and end up playing only wrong notes; or worse, we play wrong notes in other less difficult passages. On the other hand, when we focus on something else, these passages often resolve themselves, and sometimes the ease with which we executed a certain passage might even surprise us after we land on the other side.

The question then is: what should we focus on?

The reason why performance anxiety used to be such an issue for me, and for many people, is probably because of the way we were taught to play the piano. Playing the piano, especially classical piano, requires one to start young, and with guidance from an authorial figure. Often we are told to “get the notes right”, which is of course a legit statement. I find myself saying that to my students when I teach. However, classical music and the way it is being taught and institutionalized nowadays means we no longer have to really think about it even when we play. There is a whole system established to ensure solid technical foundation, objective criteria for high-quality performance, and ranking of what is classified as superior that one doesn’t have to do much except practise in order to become a classical musician. There is no room for self-discovery, and I do truly believe self-discovery is one of the most important aspects of art. Without asking questions about the music you are playing, how can there be any meaning to it?

I know I’m stepping on thin ice here. You might argue that one doesn’t have to truly know the meaning of the music to play it well. The classic example would be that kids are sometimes better at playing Mozart than professionals. But my point here is that getting the notes right isn’t the be-all and end-all of classical music, even if years of learning and practising the piano and being judged while playing it may drill this mindset into you. We all know that being note-perfect isn’t the goal of musical performance; we’ve been told that so much it sounds cliché. But when we are at our most vulnerable onstage, all this can come back in such a rush it’s a wonder we don’t get knocked off the stool. Though this may seem glaringly obvious to you, the trouble isn’t simply identifying what performance isn’t about; it’s to steer oneself away from this problem–one which can only lead towards performance anxiety–towards finding meaning in performance.

I remember my first term at university while I was an undergraduate studying literature. I was told to write an essay on a certain play we were studying. I was told not only to give my own argument, but to also argue against other critics in order to give my argument credibility. I remember reading through some of the essays of great literary critics and telling myself there is no way I can argue against their ideas. I look back now and realize the point isn’t to create an argument that trumps the literary critics’; it is to articulate my own response to the work of art in a credible manner. Reading another’s interpretation on a literary work is not to show how wrong I was, it is to understand how others respond to a work of art. In music, we don’t articulate our responses through words and arguments; we play the music differently. It is a very personal affair; no matter how much you like the way one person plays it, you will never be able to replicate it. Music means something different to everyone, and that’s what’s beautiful about it. When I listen to the greats play a piece I am learning, it is not in the hope of copying them, but to see what the music means to more sophisticated minds and hopefully learn a trick or two. It’s by understanding the uniqueness in each one of us that we can appreciate different responses to works of art and not feel that there can only be one correct interpretation. Without acknowledging this individual uniqueness, how are we to begin our search for meaning?

Frankl says in his book that even though the goal of logotherapy is to orient each person towards his finding his meaning in life, every person’s life has a different meaning. The aim of logotherapy is to align the man with his meaning. From a philosophical standpoint there is a lot to debate about this, but I think the statement itself applies closely to piano performance. Music means something different to each and every one of us performers, and the goal of performance is to realize this meaning. Sometimes we don’t even realize what it means to us until we play it. Sometimes this meaning deepens in complexity the longer we look at it, or the more we spend time on it. Sometimes this meaning changes when we look at it from a different point in life; maybe it’s a mirror of ourselves and how we see life. But always performance should be a musician’s search for meaning.

Viktor Frankl states clearly in his book that said “meaning” in life cannot be clearly defined. So not only is it unique for each person, it’s also impossible to clearly define. I mean, there wouldn’t be much joy in your life if its meaning is clearly stated to you from the get-go, would there? The point is to reorient oneself towards this meaning, I think. It’s not a definite goal that can be reached, but something that is constantly giving meaning towards one’s life.

So it is with life, so it should be with music.

I found my own meaning in performance when I stopped thinking that only a note-perfect performance can be worthy of a performance. The idea that we can only be performers when we first get the notes right is wrong. The notes are always there simply to give shape to meaning; they are not an ends in themselves. It took a lot of performing and reflecting to shift my focus, but I think it also came with being thrown into the deep end and having to find a way for myself which accelerated my growth as a musician. I hadn’t had intensive musical training for three years, and suddenly I was told I had to do an hour-long recital by the end of the year; I was paid for playing the piano; I wanted to reach the level of my peers; I had to suddenly really think about what it means to have a career in playing the piano. All of these things I believe contributed to my shift in thinking about piano performance. So yes, in a way playing the piano is quite an existential matter.

But I’m glad I changed my way of thinking, because suddenly new worlds opened up to me. I was able to appreciate others’ playing much more, because I could see what the music meant to me, and even if it didn’t always have the same meaning to me, I understood how one does not have to exist at the detriment of another. I loved the way the masters could see between the lines what I couldn’t, could be so good at their craft they could almost bend the music to their will. I was inspired by the way different performers had different views on what it meant to play the piano, and how that was reflected in their playing. I rejoiced in the fact that I could always discover something new in a piece I had played a thousand times (of course, one will still get tired of a piece at times–it’s only human!).

Viktor Frankl’s book is not a manual for getting rid of performance anxiety, and logotherapy is so much more than a magical spell to rid you of all’s life troubles, but I do see parallels between its concepts and piano performance. I say what I’ve said not because I believe myself to be completely rid of performance anxiety. I’m sure there will be times when I doubt myself, when I suddenly tense up while performing, or when I look at my moving hands mid-performance and wonder what on earth I’m doing, but I wanted to share with you what I believe a change in mindset can result in.

This post is not a guide to solving performance anxiety, nor is it a dictionary definition of the meaning of music. How can I tell you what the meaning of music is when I’m only starting the journey myself? Nor can I dictate what music means to you. As Viktor Frankl says, and as I reiterate, the meaning of a person’s life is unique to himself; he can only find it out for himself. Just so, the meaning of music is specific to the person himself.

Performance is the musician’s search for meaning.

But remember: I did not reach this conclusion by thinking myself logically out of my old mentality. It is after a wonderfully eventful journey of doing, trying, reflecting and finally thinking retrospectively that I am able to write this little piece.

Just in case you think life’s great problems can be solved by simply thinking.