Performing on autopilot is both elating and disconcerting. I mean, the whole point of rehearsing is to completely know the lines or the music. One of the phrases that one of my favorite conductors used to say was that, "You should practice your music until you know it backwards, forwards, and upside-down while standing on your head in the corner." I know I've put in considerable practice hours when I don't have to look at the music and and it all becomes muscle memory so my fingers just go where they have to without my having to think too much about it. That's what it means to know something by heart.
But then that runs the danger of becoming perfunctory, a nearly mindless activity, a reflex incited by a single small but decisive whack in the right place. It runs the danger of not being music but notes-- ones that follow an aurally pleasing pattern, but notes nonetheless. My mind might start to wander to other, unrelated topics, then snap back to the music when I wonder whether or not I missed a repeat. Or I'll get cocky and randomly try a new fingering, which will mess up the whole rest of the sequence.
Bottom line: autopilot is dangerous? Or: Success can be dangerous because it can lead to smugness, cockiness, laziness...
What Han Solo says:
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