How's Your "C" Game?

I made a mistake yesterday in performance.

This is not particularly unusual for me. Truth be told, this is not particularly unusual for anyone I know. Live performance of music is an incredibly consuming, complicated endeavor, and it’s close to impossible to achieve, live, the level of perfection you might hear on your favorite recording. (Spoiler alert: those are edited!)

Yes, there are times when, on stage, my performance seems to be unfolding flawlessly, unrolling like a magic carpet without any evident effort on my part. And those times are pretty dang great!

Other times, though, my playing feels more effortful. I don’t feel as fluid or alert as I want to be. I’m on edge or I’m tired. I screw up. And yet, the performance continues.

This is why I was so interested recently to hear Sports Psychologist Dan Abrahams, who primarily works with professional soccer players, describe the importance of helping athletes develop a good relationship with their “C” games. (Side note: if you’re a teaching and learning junkie like me, I highly recommend the new podcast Sweat the Technique.)

Getting comfortable with your “C” game makes an enormous amount of sense to me. Obviously we always want, and strive, to bring our “A” games. But the truth is that sometimes we will bring our “C” games instead. And we need to know how to react when we do.

Now, please understand that getting comfortable with your “C” game doesn’t mean that you’ve given up on your “A” game. You’re still going to work really hard to be your best musical self as often as you possibly can. You’re also going to work hard make sure your “C” game is as good as it can be, which means consistent investment, over time, in growing your overall abilities.

But when you find yourself, in the moment, playing with less than 100% of your ability, you need to be able to react constructively and calmly, and that means reacting from a place of acceptance rather than from a place of panic.

If I recognize that I’ve brought my “C” game, for example, I might take fewer risks. I might ornament a bit less, take more conservative tempos, and hew more closely to what I know will work. I’m probably going to double down on physical relaxation, and I’m definitely going to be working to recover from my mistakes as seamlessly as possible.

Which is what I did yesterday. Mistakes happen. You can’t always bring your “A” game. But you absolutely can accept, adjust, and continue.