If memory serves, I first entered Brighton's excellent Springboard guitar competition in 2018, about three years into my classical guitar, er, "journey". So my performance this Saturday just gone was my sixth in a row (last year's, of course, was a strictly virtual affair). The lineup of adjudicators over the years has been a list of the great and the good from the UK classical guitar scene: Graham Anthony Devine, Richard Wright, Richard Durrant and Gerald Garcia (who returned for this year's event).
The second half of this brief post will be a post-mortem on one of my performances, which wasn't pretty. But more of that in a moment.
First, a plea. I entered in five four solo categories and won in every single one. This isn't because I've found a time machine and somehow crammed 10 year's practice into one (yes, that's a Bill and Ted reference): it's because I was the only contestant in these categories! Not really much of a win, and frankly I feel a bit of a fraud. So the plea then is to fellow serious amateur and student classical guitarists: please enter next year! This is an amazingly well-organised event, and the opportunity to get in-depth feedback from some of the most important players and composers in the field is extraordinary - and for about the price of an artisanal cask ale (or two from 'Spoons). Come on, people!
The most enjoyable part of the competition was playing in the ensemble category with the Brighton Guitar Quartet, who have really hit our stride, I think. We played Roland Dyens' "Austin Tango" and Stepan Rak's "Rumba". It was actually genuinely fun - like playing a gig! Thanks to Olivier, Ruairi, and James for making it such a blast, and of course to our director/cult leader Gregg Isaacson for his expert guidance.
In various solo categories I played a Merz nocturne, Piazzolla's "Verano Porteño", Turina's "Homage à Tárrega", and Dyens' fantastic blues pastiche "Lettre Noire" (lightly adapted for steel-string acoustic). All told, I think they sounded ok - they've been better, but I was broadly happy with the performances. But before them, I totally butchered the prelude from Bach's "Prelude, Fugue and Allegro" (BWV 998). As James put it succinctly afterwards: "I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty shaky". I can only thank James for pulling his punches: it was a car crash.
Here's what I could say by way of extenuation. I could say that it was the first piece I played that afternoon, that I'd only just arrived there after a power walk, that I hadn't warmed up, that the church hall was a bit chilly. And that's all true, but none of it really gets to the heart of it.
The truth is, I was both catastrophically nervous and woefully under-prepared. Sometimes, the first half of that lovely equation - the nerves - you just have to live with, like psychological weather. But the second half is entirely on me, and frankly being somewhat better prepared would have gone a long way to ameliorate the former. Of course, I don't mean that I didn't practice the damn thing! Of course I did - but not in a deliberate, focussed way. Not with real attention.
In critiquing my performance, Gerald (who to be honest went pretty easy on me) made several spot-on suggestions about getting to grips with the piece, not least mapping it out harmonically. Annoyingly I've done this and so much more on the piece in the past (including writing the whole thing out from memory on several occasions). But in truth, I haven't attended to the piece in anything like this detail for months. Rather, I've just run through the piece a few times every day to make sure it was under my fingers. Big mistake. On the day, with adrenaline fritzing out both my brain and my hands, it wasn't "there" - not in any meaningful way. Lesson learned, well and truly.
Anyway, that aside, it was a great afternoon as always - and great to see so many familiar faces (including Jay Huff, who turned in a beautiful Dowland performance). Many thanks to Gerald for his insights and feedback (and, indeed, forbearance) and of course to James Westbrook for organising and chairing the event so brilliantly.
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