Knowing what’s to come—and, more importantly, feeling secure in that knowledge—allows you to let go and focus intensely on communicating, on keeping the piece’s time and yet making its expression feel spontaneous. But when all you can fixate on is your weird psychotic certainty that you’re going to mess up, no matter how well you’ve prepared—that obliterates your sense of being in time. That dread weighs everything else down, so all the parts that might have redeemed the mess-up are wasted. When I am nervous, it feels like a five-pound weight has been added to my bow; my left hand seizes up
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