
Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition - who-knows
https://www.inquirer.com/news/curtis-institute-music-20190721.html
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bkohlmann
I was on the drill team in ROTC and in the middle of one of our maneuvers
where we needed to make some adjustments to the rifle strap, my buddy’s just
completely fell to the ground in about 3-4 pieces. It made a huge clatter. He
stood there stone faced and unmoving, at attention while the rest of the
platoon finished the maneuver. The judges, three intense USMC gunnery
sergeants, just stared at my friend.

When the rest of the team was done, our commander calmly said “MIDN X, fix
yourself.” He bent down precisely, threaded the strap and snapped back to
attention.

Then we moved forward with the drill card. We got first place among 150+
teams.

It’s what happens amidst the unexpected that defines success.

~~~
p1esk
But this is surely not the optimal behavior during a battle, right?

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bkohlmann
The military term is called “bearing” and what its intended to teach is to
“keep your head” even in the midst of the unexpected (which pretty much
defines combat). Instead of freaking out, take stock of what’s happening
around you and make a decision that accomplishes the strategic directive. In
close order drill, it’s maintaining discipline and conformity. In the fluidity
of the battlefield, it may be different, but the mindset is the same.

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edejong
The classical example of expecting another piece is when Maria Joao Pires
performed in Amsterdam and only during the orchestra introduction figured out
her mistake. See her reaction on Youtube [1]. As opposed to the article above,
she hadn't performed this piece in over a year.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS64pb0XnbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS64pb0XnbI)

~~~
b_tterc_p
I’m amused that she still looks like she’s feeling despair even while she is
seemingly crushing it.

Perhaps I’m missing some nuance though.

~~~
edejong
It's a long piece, so she's probably afraid she'll forget a passage later on.

~~~
Cthulhu_
It's super impressive that people can play music like that form memory, I mean
there's got to be thousands or tens of thousands of notes in there.

~~~
jlawson
You can remember music like that too. Take any song you've listened to many
times - I'm pretty sure if someone changed one note, or one word, you'd notice
immediately.

Of course, actually _playing_ those notes while you remember them is harder...

~~~
filoleg
Eventually, it becomes muscle memory. At least for me, I start memorizing
pieces from high-level to bottom, but eventually once I played it from memory
too many times, I struggle to remember or recall high-level concepts and
phrases and other things about the piece. But once I sit down and put my hands
on the keyboard, it all comes back as I play through muscle memory.

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dorkwood
The article initially makes it sound like the pianist was caught completely
off-guard when the band started playing a different song to what he had
rehearsed.

If you read further, however, you discover that the pianist had actually
prepared to play both songs, but that their order had been switched, which is
a significantly less dramatic story.

~~~
tristanperry
Agreed - the title of "Anxiety nightmare" also isn't accurate based on the
actual story they outline.

I know that clickbait sells and all, but even "Wrong song played for
pianist..." would be better and mostly accurate.

~~~
jobigoud
Without reading the article you would assume this is about a pianist that
forgot their pants and only realized about it when in front of the audience.

~~~
invalidusernam3
I thought it would be about walking out on stage and realising he wasn't
wearing any trousers

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brilee
The detail that this article misses is that the unuxpected piece has about 1
second of orchestral warning before the pianist comes in with a dramatic
entrance. So Tianxu had about that long to figure out what to do, in contrast
to Maria Joao Pires, who had a minute to calm her nerves before playing the
wrong Mozart concerto.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srYXtZ26cOk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srYXtZ26cOk)

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kdmccormick
When I was in junior high, I found out an hour before my percussion auditon
that I'd been told to prepare the wrong piece. It ended up being fine (they
agreed to judge me on the piece I had prepared, and I even won a seat), but
for an eleven-year-old at his first major auditon, it did seem like quite an
anxiety nightmare.

~~~
lmilcin
When in high school I was part of a 3-student team to compete in local economy
olympics. The competition was public and 3-person teams represented respective
school in a public venue.

Only a day before the competition we were told a mistake was made and it
actually was "ecology" competinion and not about economy at all.

We still beat most schools in the region and finished third, including beating
a school that had a class specialized in ecology.

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taneq
Can’t have been that bad... At least he was wearing pants!

~~~
empath75
Yeah that’s what I was thinking of.

~~~
m1n1
Why is that what you were thinking of? I know a guy who put on his socks and
shoes to get to piano practice, wondering why his mom and sister were laughing
during the whole car ride...

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mjaniczek
I was expecting some kind of "has a stroke, suddenly forgets the connection of
piano keys to music notes" story. Thankfully the real story was less anxiety-
inducing :)

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nartz
Is there any chance that this was done on purpose?

