Perfection is such an alluring ideal. It’s something we should strive for, we are told. The problem with perfection is, it’s subjective. It’s a made up condition, that can never be attained. The pursuit of perfection is, then, a guarantee of failure.
I prefer to say I pursue excellence. It is true that excellence is also subjective, but I think we all agree excellence is a goal that can be reached – even if not everyone can agree whether or not it was reached.
Another reasonable goal is to always “do your best”. I pride myself on always trying to do my best, and to be fair, this is a slippery idea. On any given day, my “best” can vary somewhat from other days, because many things can affect it, or perhaps, restrict the limits of one’s “best”.
Playing music is a good crash course in all these seemingly contradictory, intertwining ideals, motivations and results.
Back in the day when playing music in public was allowed, a band could have an excellent night at a gig. If the band played together well, and the audience was reasonably large and undeniably appreciative, chances are good that those musicians will go to their beds that night and relive the glories of the night, and fondly remember the experience for many years, if not the rest of their lives. This feeling is something musicians chase endlessly.
But, sometimes you have one of those nights and it turns out someone recorded the show. “Great!”, you think. “Now we have a record of that epic night!”. Then you hear the recording.
Things may come crashing down at this point. The night you remembered as being flawless – the night you were “on fire”, turns out to be not the night you remembered. If you’re lucky, the recording only reveals some minor flubs and maybe some awkward pauses between songs. But, does this mean you didn’t have an excellent night?
Of course not! If you had fun, you had fun. If the audience had fun, they’ll remember that night as fun. It’s a distinct possibility that many of the people that were at this memorable show (artists and patrons alike) will share a common memory of what they would term an excellent night. Some people may even hear of this special night, and lie and say they were there when they weren’t!
And so it goes, on and on. Whether you play music, or watch and listen to others play it, every performance has the potential to be transformative for someone, or maybe many people. They all will filter the experience through the prism of the myriad of variables that apply to that particular time and place. They will, consciously or unconsciously, rate that performance in their memories and depending on that rating, it’ll be forgotten, or rarely regarded, or possibly treasured.
If they give that experience an internal rating of “excellent”, well then, who could argue with that?
