Imperfection

So I said earlier I was going to write about imperfections.  Here I am, writing about imperfections.  Unfortunately I’m also quite tired, so this might be a short post.  My thought about imperfections came about earlier today while I was sitting and watching presentations of our final projects for the Arts & the City class for Chicago Semester, Fall 2010.  One of my friends was performing a song on the piano (I think it was Cannon in D by Pachelbel).  It was a beautiful song, and she performed it beautifully, full of emotion, and with great pace.  She was however, not perfect.  At a few points she got stuck and missed a few notes.  It was a great overall performance, but there were just enough mistakes that I could tell she was pretty nervous and I felt kind of bad for her. 

That led me to my thought about imperfections.  Watching my friend struggle at points in the song actually made me admire her more for what she was doing.  I started thinking about when we had seen the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and when I’ve seen other musical performances, and how perfect they usually are.  It then occurred to me that when you perform every night in front of thousands of people, and you’re perfect every time you have such a high confidence level that it takes absolutely no courage to go out there and perform.  You simply know you’re going to perform well.  The difference here was that my friend wasn’t used to performing in front of people, and she hadn’t done this over and over, so it took a lot of courage.  I also think it’s harder to stand up in front of friends and perform.  When you don’t know the audience it’s easier because you don’t have to worry about what they might say when you’re hanging out with them later.  When you know the people you’re performing to it’s tough because you know that after you perform, you have to go spend time with those people afterwards, and if you don’t perform perfectly you sit there wondering what they’re thinking but not saying (I’ve been there before, it’s not fun). 

So I tip my hat to my friend, and all others who step up and show the courage to perform in front of others even when they know it’s not perfect. 

(I need some kind of tagline to end these posts with, any ideas?)