A Rare Glimpse Into Musical Mastery | Violinist, Elizabeth Pitcairn

Elizabeth Pitcairn (0:00)

I'm not trying to be better than someone else. What I'm trying to do is serve the music at its highest level, and the better I get, the more I realize what that is, and to try to come close to circling back to the divine perfection.

Michael Gervais (0:25)

Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade in training, a high performance psychologist. And today, I am really excited to sit down with Elizabeth Pitcairn. Elizabeth is a renowned classical violin virtuoso.

And I don't say that lightly. After making her orchestra debut at age 14, she has gone on to travel the globe with her violin, performing as a soloist in various world-leading orchestras at some of the most prolific classical music venues on the planet. Elizabeth is also known for performing with one of the world's most legendary instruments, the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius Violin that was made in 1720

Said to have inspired the Academy award-winning film, The Red Violin. I hope you've had the chance to watch that movie. If you haven't, you're in for a real treat. And I think we're in for a bigger treat to learn from a true master of craft with Elizabeth. So in addition to her acclaimed career, she's also passionate about advocating music education. She serves as the president and artistic director of the Luzerne Music Center in upstate New York, which provides world-class music instruction for gifted young musicians.

Elizabeth, I am so excited to sit with you. Thank you so much for being with us today. How are you?

Elizabeth Pitcairn (1:58)

I'm very well, thank you. Like it's an honor to be on your program and I am performing a concert right after we are finished. So it's all in a day's work.

It's a perfect day for me.

Michael Gervais (2:15)

Oh, that is awesome. Do you still get nervous?

Elizabeth Pitcairn (2:19)

I do, but I've learned to embrace my nerves as a good thing. Instead of resisting them, I allow the adrenaline feeling the course through my body to the point where I can feel it head to toe and feel the buzz and the sick feeling that comes with it and work it out of my system in advance of, let's say, the show, the event.

And the farther in advance that I start getting the nerves, the better I perform when I get to the show. The worst part is to have it happen as a rush that's unexpected and your body has trouble handling the rush of adrenaline. So even though it feels terrible, I mentally say to myself, bring it on, bring it on. Just let it go through.

Michael Gervais (3:07)

Okay, so you welcome it. You know, it's part of getting ready.

It's part of the dynamic of doing anything that matters, whether that's wrestling down a bear or going on stage or having an intimate conversation. Sounds like you're metabolizing the value of it. And then more importantly, you mentioned it in two ways. You mentioned it, the adrenaline and then the sickness. Are you talking about the sick stomach feeling, the nausea, that type of feeling that happens as well?

Elizabeth Pitcairn (3:40)

Yeah, a lot of people call it butterflies.

Michael Gervais (3:42)

And you don't?

Elizabeth Pitcairn (3:46)

It doesn't feel like nice butterflies to me, but I can relate to the description of when your stomach feels a flutter.

But I have never actually physically vomited before a show, but I have come close to it. And then I went into the most state of calm that I've ever been in my life, moments later, where I could do anything. I was so, so calm and so focused, and it came after the most extreme set of nerves that I had ever had.

Michael Gervais (4:23)

Let's open that up.

How?

How did you do that? And let's call that a 10 out of 10 Let's call that a 10 out of 10 on an internal activation scale. Let's just mark that as a 10, because it sounds like you haven't had bigger than that. So let's unpack that a little bit, and then let's unpack what maybe a 3 out of 10 or a 6 out of 10, somewhere in that range feels like. And I just want to set the scene in the context. How many years have you been, I know it was age 3, but give me the number of decades that you've been deliberately, nauseatingly, to use that word again, deeply focused on refining your craft? How many decades?

Elizabeth Pitcairn (5:04)

So 4, 48 now. I started playing when I was 3