Comments on: Quiet nights of would-be stars

By: Andrea

Andrea — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:56:11 +0000

Rachel - thank you so much for your wise and helpful words.

Peter - thank you so much for your amusing anecdote.

John - thank you so much for the joke. and the Peter/Winston thing ;-). interesting that old school jazzers get that feeling too.. although not wholly surprising. I guess it affects all ‘artistes’ (it was fascinating to read how nervous and insecure Richard Herring, who’s been around for years, feels) - and I also guess that ‘propah’ jazzers are likely to be one of the most misunderstood groups. it goes with the trade. that’s why everyone does it for the love of making the music, and not for fame or fortune.

By: John Q

John Q — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:35:56 +0000

Whoops of course it should be spelt Winston….

Must have been thinking of the story about when Pete C and Norma Winstone were doing a concert as part of the Porthcawl summer school. The sign outside said ‘Tonite for one night only the Winstone Churchill Quartet’ or summat like that.

By: Peter Thompson

Peter Thompson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:07:33 +0000

When I was Warden of Halifax Hall I booked a new and relatively unknown stand-up comedian for one night (it must have been in about 1997/8) and he was pretty good but the students hated him and booed him off the stage (tossers). His name? Peter Kay. The same stduents would probably wet themselves to be in Halifax Hall bar with him today (tossers).

By: John Q

John Q — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:37:38 +0000

Whe quoting Churchill is that Winstone or Pete ?

By: John Q

John Q — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:28:28 +0000

Re the Jazz equivalent of playing to 3 people it reminds me of the joke about the difference between a Blues musician and a Jazz musician.
The Blues musician plays 3 chords to thousands of people whereas the Jazz musician plays thousands of chords to 3 people.

I can relate to that feeling of the same music going down a storm or not on different nights and in different places. As long as one is aware of that then that’s OK.

I was surprised to find recently when hanging out with some top flight pro jazz players that they have the same doubts about what they’re doing and how it will go down.

By: Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:24:33 +0000

Hi yes - setting yourself up for a feeling that you’ve not achieved your list is inviting a sense of failure This is another little lesson learned from my counsellor.

The other was reversing the negative evaluation, i.e. begining to that I had achieved in life, it hadn’t been all bad, and to stop thinking that I should be better and turning that into a negative failed future set of thoughts. At first meeting he had to get to know me, so once I’d got to the end of list of academic and extra-curricular achievements, and we’d been to all the places that I’ve spent time in in the world and he’d heard about the jobs I’d held down etc I had to realised that actually i wasn’t such a bad or boring person really.

The other thing was to learn to separate my own ego from other people’s reactions to me (or my perceptions of how they were reacting to me). To live life with esteem measured by other people is to be on a very bumpy roller coaster that is not in your control.

So learning to accept, like and forgive self. And leave other people to their own reactions, bless em.

And the best piece of counsellor advice was:
You know it’s OK to be crap?

R x