food for thought

Beth, at something else for you to read, posted some thought-provoking musings on intent vs. action. To paraphrase: "we always wish to be judged by the intent behind our actions, but instead we are judged by the actions themselves, and how they are perceived by others." I'm struck by how directly this applies to musical performances. As a performer, I try to examine every facet of a song or role, to be sure of what my intent is at each moment, but it's not until I have an audience that can provide feed back that I know whether that intent has been translated to the listener. Now that I've written it out, it sounds obvious, but I don't think I've thought about performing in quite that way before. Hmmmm.....