The Stuff of Nightmares

It all started when an old frolleague¹ of mine named Martin Cohen sent me this message: “Hey Sam, don’t suppose you’d be interested in playing the Mozart D minor Concerto with my little orchestra² a little over two years from now?”

I did a double-take at this message. Was it really for me? Yes, my name was in there, it wasn’t a mistake… yet I couldn’t help feeling self-doubt. It has been a long time³ since Martin has heard me play the piano, and even longer since I’ve played with an orchestra. But this was such an exciting prospect: to have a massive practice project with a hugely concrete goal. My response?

“Um… YES!”

I had heard the concerto many times, but never played it. I started listening to it immediately, but not just the usual passive listening – now I was paying attention to all the technical issues, and making a plan in my head of how I would tackle it. I only had two years and 3 months, which sounds like a very long time… but I knew it wasn’t really, not to have a full concerto memorised and under my fingers and already performed several times leading up to the big day.

Then, I remembered my anxiety dream.

I have a recurring anxiety dream that I’m sure many musicians have. In this dream I’m about to go on stage and perform a piece I’ve not learned. It’s truly awful. I have even started to say to myself in my dream “Don’t worry this is just your usual anxiety dream” but it doesn’t help, I feel panicky and jittery and wonder how I got myself into such a mess.

I knew that there was only one D minor concerto, but still I thought it was worth confirming. I texted Martin “Just checking it’s the K466?” and made a light-hearted comment, complete with emojis, about not wanting to accidentally learn the wrong concerto and therefore live out my worst nightmare.

Well, do you know what? This ACTUALLY HAPPENED, many years ago, to the famous concert pianist Maria Joao Pires – with this exact concerto!

Martin sent me the link and said ‘Watch the video. Ha ha.’

OMG, not really ha ha. I was in a sweat watching it. The situation wasn’t even as bad as my dream, but it was still bad. Maria had thought she’d been told to prepare the K488. When the orchestra started playing the K466, she got quite a shock, and had a very well-disguised panic attack on stage, but she had at least played it before – last performed 10 months earlier.

Now, I don’t wish to take anything away from the miracle she performed (literally) to be able to suddenly pull it out flawlessly – but in my dream, I have to play something I’ve NEVER played. I’d be running off the stage in utter humiliation.⁴

Anyway, now that my potential-worst-nightmare situation was put to bed, it was time to download the music and make a proper plan.

I thought it might be fun to ask AI about this. Here is the exact prompt I used:

“Create me a weekly practice plan to learn the Mozart K466 in 1 year”

The plan it came up with wasn’t too bad!

Apart from a couple of things I disagreed with, I thought it was comprehensive. I am not convinced separate hands practice is always necessary, I’m not necessarily a fan of metronome practice, and 4 weeks is definitely not enough for performance prep! But I really like how it told me that the learning of the notes would take place over 36 weeks, not 52. I was impressed with how it called the next stage ‘Integration’ – assuming that all the notes were learned, concentrating on self-review and internalising musicality. And whilst the 4-week window was too short, I loved that the performance prep included ‘simulate live performances’. This is the most important part!

So, it’s time to get started. I’m excited to share with my students that I’m embarking on a piece consisting of over 1000 bars, if you include the cadenzas. I’m planning to blog regularly about my progress, and I don’t think it will be a nightmare at all. I hope you’ll come on this journey with me!

1. Friend and colleague 😊
2. Martin is the president of the Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra, a lovely community-based orchestra in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney.
3. Like seriously long, like more than 3 decades…
4. I have another recurring dream in which I have to perform on an instrument I’ve never learned. I think I’m more anxious in my sleep than when I’m awake!