“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” Miles Davis
Wrong and strong! Play your mistakes loud and proud. This is an attitude, and an approach to your instrument and life. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, and this is the wrong and strong approach. If you play a so called ‘mistake’ and give it an instant label as a bad thing, then it already IS a bad thing, and doesn’t get a chance to be anything other than that. We cringe from it, feel bad about it, regret it. Usually it’s written right on our faces and everyone knows. What a confidence killer! This means the ‘right’ note is always the goal, shooting for perfection. The wrong and strong attitude is using ANY event to our advantage, creating something out of the moment, and training ourselves to reorient on our course without loosing our connection to FLOW. There are no mistakes really, only ‘events’. Real time creativity is using this as a fuel to be intuitive in the moment, and use whatever happens as part of the overall delivery. This is expressing ourselves with courage and humility, two virtues found in all great art.
If you’re going to play a mistake, play it so the person at the back of the audience can hear it! Be bold. A boxer learns to take an unexpected punch and incorporate it into the dance of the moment. Flow like water, adapting and surrendering. There is a great power here, where anything that occurs can be used as fuel for the fire of your own personal self expression by tapping into something greater than ourselves. A funny thing happens while living the wrong and strong attitude. The mistakes (or ‘unexpected events’) can turn out to be better than what was originally intended to happen! If you’re open to what is happening naturally, a wealth of rich variations suddenly is revealed to you to use and create with. When you play a so called ‘wrong’ note and play it with revealed confidence, a counterintuitive thing starts to happen; it actually starts to sound ‘right’, like it was supposed to be there all along. Listen to the music of Thelonious Monk to hear this happening in real time. On paper, sometimes what he’s playing would be taught as a ‘wrong’ note, but he makes it sound so strong, confident and very ‘right’, and the secret is in the ATTITUDE and DELIVERY. Own your expression, and live wrong and strong!
