Day 48 - Anxiety dreams

When I first got interested in psychology one of my first points of reference was Sigmund Freud. However I lost some interest when I realised he had no interest in music either in his work or as something to do or listen to in his spare time. How can someone with that much passion for the human mind not care to consider how music might play a part in it?! He also missed out on a large body of research involving musicians' dreams which might have filled up another volume of his work! Most performing musicians suffer from anxiety dreams usually as a concert or important event is looming, or just from time to time to keep us on our toes. They are often reoccurring and my usual one is aiming to get to a concert to find myself held up by cancelled train or unsure whether to turn left or right, or being asked to do a random task by a friend. I know I need to press on and get there but find it hard to tell the friend I am helping that I must go. The dream then morphs into something else although that nagging feeling that I should be playing somewhere remains. This can be easily explained as I dislike arriving late and usually plan my journeys meticulously, especially if they involve public transport or anywhere within the M25. Fellow Palace Band conductor Caroline, usually a flautist, has often told of the dream in which she is on stage ready to play. The conductor steps up, she looks down and realises there is a French horn in her hands, an instrument of which she knows nothing! This always raises a laugh, and is especially apt given that for 140 of us this will be reality next Sunday. I had one with the harp a few weeks before the first lesson. In reality I know that my harp is tuned to E flat. That means that when all the levers are in neutral position it can play an E flat major scale. However in my dream I found myself with a large group of harpists. Someone resembling Rohan was helping us get prepared and as we all settled down she went to the piano and played an A for us to tune. I thought to myself, it's E flat surly and looked around to see all the other harpists happily tuning in A. I don't know how I knew they were in A but in my dream I just knew! No one seemed to notice my concern. I wanted to speak up and ask why mine was E flat but kept quiet and worried until I woke up in a cold sweat! Then this morning I had another. I was playing the harp with someone (not sure who but they had an uncanny resemblance to Rohan!) attempting to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I couldn't do it and, even worse, I couldn't understand why I couldn't do it. I assume this is my sub-conscious warning me not to get complacent and that I should do some more practise ready for next Sunday.

Worried by this warning I practised straight after breakfast, at 11.30am. Well it's Saturday and I'm on my holidays. Another 45 minutes on all exam pieces, orchestral repertoire and other pieces, all feeling fine and fun. There has been some activity at the SIA office as Look East, our regional BBC News team might want to do a feature in the week. We have had an email asking if we might be able to get to the Corn Exchange at some point in the week. It is half term for me so I could be free. As you may have guessed I prefer to remain in the background and shy away whenever there is a hint of fame or publicity but I volunteered myself just in case they need the numbers. I'll let you know if that goes ahead.

I did small bursts of practise in the afternoon, a piece here and there, nothing too strenuous probably only about 10 minutes in total. I also got my technical assistant (Chris) to use his new camera to record a performance of Azaleas in Houston (as demanded by my Mum). At the time of writing it is still uploading but I'm off for a final performance of Fiddler on the Roof now so that may appear tomorrow.