keeping the vault closed

Today I learned a hard lesson or two about what it means to be an artist in the professional world.  I could tell you the entire story in all its gory details, but I won't... for both of our sakes.  I'm sure from what I'm about to share, you can gather enough to get the general idea of what happened.  And no joke, tonight I came home, realized there was a severe shortage of milk in the fridge, and left the house again to make an additional grocery run so I could eat half the bag of homemade gluten-free chocolate chip cookies I'd made the other night.  I truly felt that defeated...

And then I thought, "Well, if I eat enough cookies, I guess I won't have to worry about making dinner..."  I guess the bright side is that I drank at least eight ounces of milk (maybe more?) which doesn't happen very often.  Good thing I started running again yesterday...

Anyway, what I learned today was this:  when I play for other people, I have to play what they want... the way they want it played.  And if they, as the consumer, are paying me money to play for them, then I have to do what they want, regardless of my own opinions regarding the music I'm working on for them.  Sounds simple enough, right?

But it was such a painful lesson.

Because not only does it mean that I have to play what they want, the way they want it played, it also means that I have to...
a. let them have control
b. look like the idiot, even if they're wrong
c. keep my mouth shut, regardless of how I feel
d. realize there's nothing I can do about any of the above

... none of which I did today.  At least not very gracefully.  And there were ways in which I was wrong too.  I know that I will need to make an apology at some point, but I'll be honest, I'm not quite ready seeing as how the whole thing rattled me to an extent that few things have recently.  Neither of us involved handled it very well at all.  And don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrendous.  Neither of us said anything horrible to the other.  But there was a brief period of time where the tension in the room could be sliced through with a knife.  I hate that.  There's no reason for it.  And it bothers me that I let it happen that way.

And it took me the rest of the day and a trip to Forest Park to sit and think after I was done teaching and three phone calls (two to my mom and one to Megan) and the drive home and an extra trip to the grocery store and half a bag of chocolate chip cookies to recover from the whole ordeal.  But what I also realized in the process of all that was this:  Just because I play something for someone a certain way doesn't necessarily mean I have to agree with it being played that way.  It doesn't mean I agree with their artistic decisions, however absurd or stress-related they may be.  It doesn't mean I concede to or trust their artistic judgment about the music we work on.  It doesn't mean we are in agreement about anything, other than the fact that I let them have control because they are paying me to do so.  And yes, maybe that means I put up with their crap.  But they're paying me to put up with it and I certainly don't have to lose my dignity over it.  And this is where I have really struggled recently.  It's high time I realized there are certain parts of my work that are not personal:  they're business.  It's not personal, it's business.  But it's hard when you're an artist.  Because your business is personal.  It's a part of you.

And it will take a great deal of humility and graciousness and, ah yes... patience, I daresay?  With both myself and the people I play for... all three of which qualities I hope to cultivate better in the future.  I think the best pianists are those who can do whatever is asked of them without a fuss, but without foregoing their artistic integrity either... something I definitely did not do very well today.  But I hope to be like that some day.  And some day I will get there.  Because some day I will finally learn to keep my mouth shut and let other people have control when they really really want it.  There's dignity in keeping the vault closed... much more so than letting it fly open when you're upset or frustrated.

And ultimately it's important to remember that in the end, it's really not about me.  It's about the music.  And it's about relationships.  It's about graciousness, which is definitely something I think Jesus would say "yes" to.  Because he is about relationships and graciousness.  And yes, he's about good art too.  But more so relationships.

And he's the one I want to be most like.