Usually I write for you.  Today I write for me.

This evening the cello players of my teacher Lieven are giving a concert.  We’ll go onstage individually to each play a piece or two.

It’s naked up there.  Everything is revealed.  All the soaring melodies, the sweetness of the tone, the vibrato of the left hand to bring richness to the note.

And …

The wrong notes, the wrong rhythms, the scratchy squeal of bow on string.

Am I willing for all of it to show up tonight?  Yes.  I’ll give ‘er the whole time but I’m thoroughly imperfect in certain moments.

I’ve practiced a lot but still some changes in finger position on the neck of the cello elude me.  Oh well.

Whatever the quality of sound coming from me today, I will play with passion.  Somewhere in the vicinity of “throwing caution to the wind”.  If all goes to hell, I’ll do my darndest to keep my head high, to still sway a bit in the body, to touch the audience.

What adventure!

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There are risks and costs to action.  But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction

John F. Kennedy