Sin Letter— Shaking Fingers

Shaking Fingers

Back to 2012, the second year of my middle school career, our school continued their tradition, organizing a musical festival which lasted over for 70 years already. This is a big chance for every class, every student, to stand out in the festival, also in the school. As a “multi-instrumentalist”, I definitely won’t miss this chance of performing in front of every student in our grade, in our school. Our class, class 7, started to prepare for this festival, because this is our last chance of attending this festival. So from the outset of our preparation for this festival as a class, I volunteered to be an electric guitar player when they are recruiting a student who can accompany for the songs that we are going to sing in this festival.

Three Days later, when our class council finally decided which songs we are going to sing in this festival, they gave me a score, telling me to play the exact same thing when I go to the stage. No improvisation, just follow the score. I still can remember my first reaction when I saw the score: easy as hell. So I went off to my dorm and started my practice with this score.

Everything is going smoothly, but the weird things finally come. Every time I rehearse with other musicians and my classmate, who is going to sing in the festival, I will mess it up. My fingers just started to shack and no matter how I can not calm them down. So every rehearsal I had been through is not satisfied to me. But things is different when I practice by myself, my fingers never shack when I practice by myself. The days passed, the preparation is nearly to the end, but I still can not find a way to calm my fingers down. I started to doubt myself, whether I can do it or not. But things just can not go back, I have to do it no matter what happened. I take the work, then I need to finish it.

Finally, the day had come, the festival started. When we, me and my classmates, were in the backstage, I asked our drummer, how to calm down when she is getting nervous:

“What will you do if you are getting nervous?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it, just think that everybody who is sitting in the seat, watching our performance, as a cabbage, or broccoli, that looks stupid and invital. So you will not worry about their reactions, because you do not know what these cabbages, or broccolis, are thinking about.” She answered back with a really confident tone.

The thing she said is really reasonable, but the reality is not always going by our thought. The reality is, When I went on to the stage, pulling out my guitar, and be prepared to perform, my fingers started to shake again. Definitely, I tried to think of the audience as a bunch of stupid cabbage or broccoli, but my brain, my eyes knows that the audience is real human, not cabbages or broccoli. As I underwent before, during our class rehearsal, this feeling means that I’m going to fail, and if this happens, this moment will be super embarrassing, that will brand on my mind, in my memory.  And finally, not to “disappoint” anyone, this memory has been branded on my mind, I messed up everything, solo, accompaniment, literally everything. I was like a wood stuck into the ground, no facial expression, no movement, and with a blank mind. I was facing the audience, and I saw these people with ears covered by their hand, feeling scared by my performance. I don’t know what to do, until my classmate dragged me out of my seat, because the next class is going to perform.

This is the most embarrassing moment I ever had until now in my life. Until now, when I am planning to perform in front of everybody, like MusicMondayy, I will definitely not choosing to perform electric guitar, because every time I hold a guitar in front of many people, this memory emerges up in my mind. Although It has passed for over 4 years, I still can feel that embarrassment and the disappointment in my classmate’s’ face. All of this is caused by my shaking fingers, my nervousness. This has been branded in my memory.