# 19 — LISTENING TO ONESELF
I heard a classical music radio station host say something along the lines of “You shouldn’t compare the quality of your performances today to that of your recordings from years ago. Recordings from the past are just a reflection of your interpretation, taste, and maybe even your personality back then, not just a reflection of your skill. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. They’re just different.” The name of the presenter escapes me, but those words resurface to my mind almost every time I come across a piece I’ve played before. I say “come across” in the sense that I could have just seen the score of the music, seen the title of the composition, or merely listened to a few seconds of it.
For example, If J. S. Bach’s (1685-1750) French Overture, BWV 831 suddenly came on my local classical music radio station, then I would immediately think, “How on earth did I learn this entire suite and perform all of it by memory?! Just… HOW?” I mean, I know the actual answer, being that I once had many hours to practice each day during graduate school. Still, however, I feel somewhat amazed that I did that. Similarly, if I watched my own performance of Chopin’s (1810-1849) Fourth Ballade, Op. 52 from my third year of undergraduate studies, then I would think to myself, “Wow, I really played that." But, of course I’ll be overly critical and will make remarks about the slightest details that bother me now. While watching my recording from eight years ago, I would say, “I wouldn’t play that passage like that now; I would take a longer ritardando at the end of the cadence” or “I would emphasize this note a little more.”
Sure, there are some technical and artistic aspects that I could have done better, but most of my thoughts lately revolve more around interpretation rather than skill. Instead of regretfully saying, “I should have played it like this,” I introspectively think, “Here’s how I would play it today.” Whenever I am tempted to nitpick the slightest details of my past musical interpretations with the phrase “should have” at the tip of my tongue, I always stop myself and remember the words of that classical music radio station host: “One isn’t necessarily better than the other. They’re just different.”