"If you're playing within your capability, what's the point? If you're not pushing your own technique to its own limits with the risk that it might just crumble at any moment, then you're not really doing your job"
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Kennedy’s line is a neat rebuke to “competence” as a creative goal. He’s not talking about sloppiness; he’s talking about the deadening safety of staying inside what you can already do. For a virtuoso, capability is a trap: it’s the polished routine that gets you applause while quietly shrinking your appetite for risk. By framing comfort as pointless, he flips the usual musician’s ethic on its head. The “job” isn’t to deliver flawlessness; it’s to keep courting the edge where flawlessness is impossible.
The key word is crumble. He’s naming the fear every performer manages in real time: intonation wavers, fingers betray you, concentration slips, the hall turns judgmental. Kennedy treats that threat as the price of honest work, not an occupational hazard to be eliminated. It’s also a cultural stance. In classical music, where perfectionism can harden into etiquette, he’s defending interpretation as something alive enough to fail publicly. You can hear his broader persona in it: the player who refuses to behave like a museum docent for great scores.
Subtextually, this is about agency. “Within your capability” implies someone else’s measuring stick: conservatory standards, competition juries, the market’s hunger for clean recordings. Kennedy argues for a practice of continual self-expansion, where technique isn’t a trophy but a frontier. The risk of crumbling becomes proof you’re not merely reproducing music; you’re making it happen.
The key word is crumble. He’s naming the fear every performer manages in real time: intonation wavers, fingers betray you, concentration slips, the hall turns judgmental. Kennedy treats that threat as the price of honest work, not an occupational hazard to be eliminated. It’s also a cultural stance. In classical music, where perfectionism can harden into etiquette, he’s defending interpretation as something alive enough to fail publicly. You can hear his broader persona in it: the player who refuses to behave like a museum docent for great scores.
Subtextually, this is about agency. “Within your capability” implies someone else’s measuring stick: conservatory standards, competition juries, the market’s hunger for clean recordings. Kennedy argues for a practice of continual self-expansion, where technique isn’t a trophy but a frontier. The risk of crumbling becomes proof you’re not merely reproducing music; you’re making it happen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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