We were waiting backstage in The Recital Hall at Purchase College; our percussion ensemble concert was starting in less than five minutes. We were about to play “Antiphonies for Percussion,” by Saperstein. Consider this a “noisy” piece, as the instrumentation is formed by mostly non-pitch instruments, like cymbals, gongs, toms and congas, clashing with unconnected rhythms, and mallet instruments that provide us a melody, a melody that we have to find within that “disorder.” But, from the audience’s perspective, everything happens to be chaotic, uncommon, musical and even terrifying.
I sat right behind the door that leads to the recital hall, and stared at a bright spot on the floor, remembering how I got there. Meanwhile, the rest of the percussion studio was chatting and laughing, trying to beat their nerves in the common way. I don’t know how, but my energy ramped up and all my senses were at one-hundred percent. After being immobile for about three minutes, we formed a line and walked onto the stage. Applause seemed to surround us. I checked if my setup was ready, and waited for the conductor’s cue. For the first time, I was under control and it was not a coincidence.
This piece of music represents part of my life story. Realizing that everything that happens on stage was about shifting my perspective took me a really long time.
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I am a very organized person. I like having control over my time and my space in order to maximize my productivity. I enjoy being alone, sometimes, without excluding my social circle, and I am normally thinking about what I am going to do next. But sometimes I just get tired of the routine, and do everything the opposite way. I become messy, and do not care about my responsibilities. Being worried all the time does not give you a break. In conclusion, I feel like I am always at one extreme or another.
Going back in time to elementary school, my mother often told me, “If you are going to do something, do it well.”
I heard this phrase so many times during my childhood and adolescence that I grew up thinking that giving my one-hundred percent was always necessary. I feel like I got used to pleasing others. I don’t recall too much about my own perceptions back then, but I can say I was feeling stable. It is not until high school that this became a problem.I got so used to having to be good at everything, that a little mistake was enough to make me feel useless. I became a perfectionist, a person who needed to have everything under control in order to avoid the emotional consequences of failure, and a very persistent individual who was capable of blocking whoever was around him in order to get what he wanted. This is how I got admitted to college for the first time in Lima, Peru.
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During my time at the University of Music I studied with my first percussion teacher, who introduced me to the percussion world and encouraged me to pursue a career as a musician. I spent just five months studying in Peru, and I could not imagine staying longer than that. Leaving made me realize that I was doing everything right, except for enjoying my academic life. One of my biggest mistakes was as a performer, not helping the audience to feel something—I was so focused trying to prove what I was able to do, that it became an inevitable disappointment.
During this period of my life, I started to isolate myself, and every social situation became a mental conflict. The only place I felt comfortable was in the practice room. Being in public became a risk. I had three recitals that semester, and the only thing I remember is feeling frustrated. All the hours I spent improving a piece did not reflect on stage, and I felt incapable of showing my talent to an audience, which made me doubt my skills.
Performance anxiety became my main obstacle. Experimenting on stage is like trying to focus on ten different things at the same time—the hard section of a piece, the passages where it is most probable to commit a mistake, the audience’s expectations, your own expectations, trying to act normally and do your best. Having all this in my mind made me unable to express myself at all, because that was the thing I was trying to avoid. At the end, my performance felt empty, forced and boring.
Shortly after my last performance at The University of Music, my family decided to move to New York. Leaving was not in my plans, and I started to think, “What’s next?” “Where will I continue my studies?” “Am I going to see my friends again?” “Am I going to work?!” I was eighteen years old, sitting on an airplane and looking through the window after hugging my friends for the last time.
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Months after settling with my family in New York, my confidence increased and I started stepping out of my comfort zone. New experiences, people, and culture made me see everything from a new perspective. I got my first job, and started to improve my English skills. Believe it or not, working in customer service helped me to deal with the anxiety of being in public. I stayed away from the stage for almost a year, which made me deal with my emotions when I returned like I was performing for the first time.
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Months before the Purchase College percussion ensemble concert, I decided to regularly record myself, as a kind of exercise to beat my performance anxiety. I tried to do it at least once a week, even if I did not want to, and started to listen to the recordings after every practice session, so I could see what I was doing wrong. It was not an easy task, but time did its part.
My first impressions of my videos were awful; I finally got to see firsthand what I was doing on a regular practice session. My arms and wrists were not looking the same, my posture was wrong and there was a lack of musical phrasing, especially on the snare drum. The act of turning on the camera was like taking the stairs to the stage, so I decided to repeat this process over and over, until my mindset changed and I finally started to feel a bit comfortable. Days before the percussion ensemble concert, I was mentally prepared, and more confident after working hard on my weaknesses. The process made me a better artist, and gave me more confidence, and a feeling of control over myself.
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In the recital hall, I was surrounded by silence, holding my sticks over the cymbals, waiting for the conductor’s cue. My parents were right in the middle of the audience, seeing me play after more than a year since my hiatus. The lights were right on us, reflecting on the vibraphone in front of me. The conductor made eye contact with my partner, lifted both arms, gave herself time to breathe, and the piece began.
A gong roll started the scene, the entrance for the whole percussion ensemble. Instruments started clashing against each other, the acoustics of the hall made every part audible, and the chaos had order in my mind for the very first time. My body reacted to the sound almost immediately, my mood engaged with the piece, and my performance became instinctive. My eyes were reading the music and my body was enjoying every movement. The introduction ended and now calm was part of the scene. It was time to count rests, the vibraphone was playing now; I put my sticks over the trap stand and waited for my entrance.
More than twenty measures later, I took the gong mallet, took my position, counted until three and smashed the gong as loud as I could, taking everyone by surprise. Chaos was rising again, we started with a nonstop crescendo and built the ending from there. The tempo got faster and my heart beat increased. The big part was coming, I was excited and my mind was extremely focused.
Another gong roll, this time two of them, appeared with a dramatic crescendo and began the ending. All the instruments were clashing again, I could feel the vibration of the gongs behind me, music started to get louder and louder. Finally, I played my last measure, moving my arms as fast as I could, and immediately after, I started to mute the cymbals, put both hands on the gongs and stayed frozen with all the ensemble, as part of the choreography, until all the sound faded out.
The piece was finally over, the audience started clapping, I put my sticks over the trap stand, looked at the audience and there were my parents, watching me. That was my best performance ever, my first time being in the spotlight, and feeling free at the same time.
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Nine concerts later, when the fall semester was about to end, I took the next step. During winter break, I spent time on campus recording some of the pieces I was studying, and created Facebook and Instagram accounts only for music-related topics. Spring 2020 began, and I posted a couple of videos of me, as a soloist, playing different percussion instruments. Now, people I knew from Peru, people I met at Purchase, and random people around the world were able to see whatever I was working on and that gave me a feeling of satisfaction, because I was finally sharing what I love.
I started with this a long time ago, taking the risk of confronting the emotional consequences of a failure. I am currently still working on it, practicing hard, training my mind every single day and following a healthy daily routine. As the first symphony orchestra concert of the semester approaches, I know what I am going to do, and I know I will be ready.
