There is sort of a hush in the room just before a solo. A collective inhalation. Everyone present understands that a small trial is about to begin. The audience hopes. The strange burden of the soloist. A solo is not expected to function, it is supposed to justify its existence. Deliver some evidence that the evening might contain revelation. The audience wants the player to produce something alive enough that everyone in the room knows it could not have happened any other way. This is unreasonable and it also is the job.

The soloist knows that. Even the relaxed ones know that. Particularly the relaxed ones. They step into the opening aware expectations have narrowed around them. Every ear now pointed in one direction waiting for evidence of courage, taste, danger, transcendence, or at minimum a convincing simulation. It begins. Sometimes a negotiation between memory and risk. Between the phrases one knows and phrases one hopes to discover. Between fear of boring people and fear of embarrassing oneself. The best solos feel like someone thinking faster than a censor could work.

Perfection is sterile. A machine can approach perfection. A practiced student can approximate it. What people crave in the moment of the solo is contact with danger. They want to hear someone balancing over the abyss and not falling. Or else falling beautifully. When the solo fails, the audience knows. Applause arrives out of courtesy rather than astonishment. When it succeeds, something else happens. People laugh unexpectedly. They shout. They look at each other. A private thought becomes public. The room recognizes something unlikely occurred and they were present for it. This is why the solo remains one of music’s most compelling ritual. The audience applauds not only the notes, but the fact that hope, for once, was justified.