Robert's Ramblings
On Sunday morning, I was driving back from a gig the previous night in Tobermory when it occurred to me that it was Mothers’ Day.
I immediately skipped a track or two on my iPod to find Calum Kennedy’s famous rendition of Mo Mhathair (My Mother). This was appropriate on two levels because the song’s writer, Neil MacLean, was originally from Tobermory.
The song’s lyrics never fail to set the mind wandering back to my upbringing. On reaching my flat in Glasgow, I phoned my mum to see if she had received the card I had sent.
My mum, who retired from primary teaching a few years ago, had spent her week volunteering at the Lochaber Music Festival and we ended up reminiscing about my years competing.
My mum came across a couple of very young competitors last week who were suffering from nerves before they were due to perform. It is over a decade now since I last competed at the Lochaber Music Festival, but I still clearly remember the mixed feelings of nerves and excitement as the adjudicators would utter the fateful words: ‘ When you’re ready, Robert.’
I remember in one of my first music festival performances, I buckled under the pressure and ran off the stage. I sat with my head in my hands in the corner of the hallway. The adjudicator that day was a particularly lovely lady called Dorothy Howden.
Dorothy left the competition in order to come out and give me the encouragement I required to return to the hall and finish the song – which I eventually managed to do.
The following year, I was able to sing to Dorothy with a great, big, confident smile on my face. If she hadn’t brought me back into the hall, I may well have run away from music forever.
That story epitomises the music festival. It is not about competition. It is purely about encouragement – something all the committee members and volunteers dish out in abundance.
Now and again, before an important gig, the nerves come flooding back to me and I employ exactly the same coping methods I was taught all those years ago: taking deep breaths and releasing tension in the shoulders.
If the nerves are unbearable, I still adopt the method taught to me by the late Margaret Cairns: to imagine the whole audience are cabbages.
Nerves at the music festival are certainly not caused by the atmosphere. The committee and the volunteers always offer a wonderful welcome when competitors arrive. Yet, no matter how supportive the audience, nerves are such a natural part of performing that they can never be completely avoided.
There are three examples I can bring to mind of severe nerves I have had in recent years. The final of the Mòd gold medal was probably the worst. It is followed closely, however, by the Pan Celtic International Traditional Song Competition in Ireland last year, and by the Tiree Music Festival two years ago when Skipinnish finished off the festival filmed by two television companies for three programmes. Anyone who has seen the Skipinnish documentary from that year will know all about my attack of nerves.
On all three occasions, I was able to come through the performances – thanks, I am sure, to the valuable lessons I learned at the Lochaber Music Festival when I was very small.
Looking back, I was really winning every time – even when the victory did not manifest itself in silverware. The true result was far more profound than a trophy. For every moment on the stage at the Lochaber Music Festival, I was developing control over troublesome nerves; I was gaining an ability to accept defeat as graciously as triumph; and I was gleaning musical experience to last a lifetime.
The Lochaber Music Festival captured my imagination as a youngster and made me believe that being a musician was possible. More than a dozen Mothering Sundays later, I find myself eternally grateful for of this, and I hope many of those who competed this year (whether they lost or won) will reap their rewards in the future.