“Play Without Fear”

Playing without fear also means working on your technique so that your hands can say everything you want them to say.

Mr. Cosmo is always telling me that I should play without fear.  He says this a lot in all of the lessons, and I must admit that for me it was a hard thing to do at first, because before I was always thinking that I had to play like other artists. What I realize now is that it is much more important for me to work to find my own sound and tell my own story of what a work means to me.  Every score is like a poem, and no two people would (or should) recite the same poem the same way.  Each person would bring their own experiences, their own life story to it.  That is what I want very much to do, and that is what I am learning to do.  

I am also discovering why it is so important to constantly work on technique.  It gives you the freedom to say what you want to say at the keyboard, in the way you want to say it.  It’s the same thing for a painter.  If a painter does not know how to master the different techniques of his work, how to use color, light and shade, as well as the fine and broad strokes of the brush, it will always limit the image she is capable of creating.  That is why I even as I am working to learn repertoire, I continue to work on technique so that I don’t have to worry about not having enough of it limiting my performance.

To play without fear means playing in such way that you know that no matter what you want to say, you can physically, with your technique, create the image and message you want to share with the audience. It’s a lot like walking into a store and knowing that no matter how much something costs, you have the money to pay for it.  

Just as important is the fact that every time you go back to review a work, or refresh it for another performance, you are looking for new ways to make it better. Also, you have the courage to make sure you share what you have discovered about the piece with your audience.