Oct. 12, 2013 Address to the Richmond CORPS Pipe Show: Crucible Moments
Monday, October 14, 2013 at 4:09PM | Neill Archer Roan | Permalink tagged Crucible Moments, Richmond CORPS Show, Speech | in Collecting, Community, Dialogue, Opinion Tonight, I’m going to speak to you about crucible experiences. When a mountain climber climbs Mt. Everest, reaching the summit is a crucible experience. A soldier who has faced live fire in combat is elevated by valor; this is a crucible experience. When a young comic plays The Tonight Show, this is a crucible experiences. Crucible experiences transform those who experience them. Inside them, we face our fears and find out what we’re made of. They are defining moments.
Classical Guitarist Neill Archer RoanI will never forget my New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall. It was a “crucible” experience. I knew that my future as a performing artist hung in the balance. Most of my friends and colleagues wished me well, although I knew some people nourished hopes that I would fail and be “put in my place.” Who did I think I was, anyway? I was told more than once that I lacked the pedigree for the career to which I aspired.
At 7:55 PM, as I stood backstage waiting to go on, my hands were shaking so much that I wondered how I would possibly find the strings, let alone make music. The stage manager told me that Peter Davis from The New York Times was in the audience, words that amplified my fear. I venerated Peter Davis’ opinion. I would have been lucky if a lesser-known stringer reviewed me; I never expected to be reviewed by one of the Times’ most respected music critics.
This was not the first time I’d played before critics, but like most musicians, I held The New York Times in greater esteem because its critics were thought-leaders not only among musicians like myself, but among other critics, too. A poor opinion from the Times could be a roundhouse punch to a career. Although I didn’t say it out loud, I worried that I could not recover from a bad performance. Standing there, shaking and sweating and feeling my gut churn like a cement mixer, that is exactly what I thought I was about to deliver.
When the review came out in the following Sunday edition, it was favorable. It was thoughtfully worded. Davis did not gush, but it was clear that he heard music that he liked. Over time, I learned that what mattered was not what he wrote, but that he wrote. The two most important words in that review were Peter Davis. In the music world, people consider the source. That’s what thought-leadership means.
My story is a common one. Any musician serious about a career as a soloist goes through what I went through. A career as a musical artist requires not just one of these experiences, but an ongoing series of them. Indeed, the ongoing scrutiny of critics, peers, music directors, presenters, producers, and colleagues is relentless and very public.
In that world, you are only as good as your last performance, and there are plenty of people waiting to take your place. Because the competition is fierce, the entire system conspires against complacency. One of the first lessons any musician learns is that one is not entitled to make a living as a performer. Being a professional is a status that is earned. And one must keep on earning it month in and month out. The fine and performing arts world is a brutal place where predation is not a feature of the landscape; it is the landscape.
Although I am no longer a professional musical artist, I was shaped by my experience. It is how I see and understand the world–art and otherwise. In my frame of reference, there are three legs to the stool: artist, audience, and critics. All three legs are necessary to advance the overall system. So what does all this have to do with pipes and tobaccos?
