The quartet spent the weekend up in Chico, a lovely college town about three hours from everywhere. We performed on a barbershop show put on by the Bidwell Generals, a men's chorus based there. Our friends from the California Heat chorus also sang. It was just a wonderful weekend of comraderie, woodshedding, good food and drinks, and the opportunity to perform well. We regained a lot of our confidence that had been bruised in competition.

On stage, in the middle of performance, I was aware of the complex functioning of the brain. Part of me was "the actor", involved in the feelings of the song and swept away with the sounds of the music and the vibrations of the harmonies. Part was "the performer", watching the audience for reactions, thinking about the lighting and how close the quartet was standing to each other or to the curtain. Yet another part of my brain was thinking about my technical performance, the tuning, the lyrics, the way I thought I looked, and so forth.

They say that a truly fine performer gets away from the parts of self that are doing the critical thinking, and gets completely into the message and the moment. I felt quite close to that at times, but found that as I entered that state, I had a momentary panic appear, that I had gotten "lost" in the song, and that I was singing the wrong words, or had repeated a verse. Perhaps this panic came out because I am not used to letting go of the self-critic, and without her, I thought something would go wrong. Somehow I have to rehearse letting go more often, so that I can release the panicked feeling, too.

Donna gave me this quote: "Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong."

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