Today, I watched Woody Allen's new movie, To Rome with Love. I cannot say that I liked it very much, but it does have some nice points. The movie contains four different stories, each taking place in Rome. One of these stories is about a girl tourist from New York and an Italian lawyer who meet in Rome and decide to marry each other. Another story connected to this one is that the parents of the girl (her father played by Woody Allen,Jerry, a failed ex-specialist in the music record industry and the staging of operas) come to meet their in-laws. Jerry hears the boy's father, Giancarlo, singing in the shower and recognizes that he has a beautiful voice and talent, so he takes him to an audition. However, he sings very poorly at his audition, so when Jerry puts on operas starring Giancarlo, he sets up a shower on the stage and Giancarlo sings in the shower, during the show.
This got me thinking on why we can do something perfectly on our own, until we decide to go and show it to someone. When we solve math questions at home, practicing for the exam, we seem to do okay. But when it comes to the actual exam, we seem to write 4x3=7 and blank out on the formulas we need to use. Most people relate this to getting excited.
For me, except in the case of tests, it seems to be the opposite - for most of the time. I seem to play the most difficult passages of a piece perfectly on stage, while I couldn't get them correct, not even once, at home. But with the sea of people looking at you, the blaring white spot lights, your sheet music neatly laid out side-by-side on the note stand of the piano, this doesn't work all the time.
Even though adrenaline and excitement can push us to do stuff normally out of our reach, they can do the opposite as well - and they do, for most of the time. Everyone sings their audition piece beautifully in the shower, everyone solves the complicated problem at one try at home, everyone can balance the fork on their nose when no one is looking, but the moment one person flicks their eyes at you, all of your extraordinary talents seem to vanish. Only, if only, we could have a shower in the audition room.
I guess my problem is thinking that, to do something perfectly implies being able to do it perfectly no matter what the context is, with an audience or without. I thought I got over that when I surprised my son at his wedding by bringing out a borrowed guitar and doing a song. Maybe I was just too happy to worry about what people were thinking.
ReplyDelete