I’ve been remembering a little conversation which happened years ago when a fellow musician was giving me a lift to the Tube station in London. I was on my way to play a concert. As I was getting out of the car, he said to me:
‘Have you got your music?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you got your concert clothes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Train ticket?’
‘Yes.’
Then he said playfully,
‘Have you got your hands?’
And I answered playfully,
‘I don’t need my hands.’
He laughed and I laughed too. But I’ve quite often thought back to that exchange. I’m sure many musicians will know what I meant. If you’re really well prepared and at one with your task, it can feel as if your playing is just coming from your mind. Obviously you need hands to activate the musical instrument, but that can feel quite secondary. The true action is going on at the level of your mind.
So much so that I’m sometimes surprised afterwards when people comment on what my hands looked like as I played. My hand movements weren’t really in my consciousness.
It’s hard to describe, but a good feeling when you experience it.
I know that feeling, though it can be, in Shelley’s words, “rarely, rarely…” Even when it eludes me though I often enjoy the sheer physical pleasure of playing. It is like dancing with the hands, and simultaneously making the music you are dancing to. A pleasure not easily come by anywhere else in life!
My children were enthralled to watch your hands when they first heard you play.
Both musicians (in a family of hopeless pianists), I think they were viscerally excited by the combination of strength and refinement in a female player.
What a nice comment, thank you Caroline!