The Inner Take

In this special episode of The Inner Take, I welcome my first guest: composer Frank Pesci. Frank is an American composer based in Cologne, and someone who thinks deeply about music, the creative process, and artistic life. His clarity, honesty, and experience make this conversation particularly meaningful. We talk about what often goes unspoken — the things we “didn’t learn in school” but turn out to be essential. We explore the gaps in musical education, the emotional and practical realities of building a career, and what happens after the mountaintop. At the center of this episode is Frank’s concept of self-mentoring, expressed through his 17 Laws of Self-Mentoring — a set of sharp, honest, and deeply useful principles for musicians, composers, and anyone navigating a creative life. This episode is, above all, a real conversation — grounded in experience, clarity, and a genuine desire to understand what it means to make a life in music.

This episode marks a turning point. In Episode 4 of The Inner Take, we explore a powerful and rarely discussed theory about why so many musicians feel constant guilt — and where it actually comes from. This is not about discipline, productivity, or practice habits. This goes deeper. What does it really mean to be a musician? What are we actually expressing when we play? This episode challenges traditional ideas in music education and introduces a new way of understanding identity, expression, and the inner life of musicians. If you’ve ever felt pressure, confusion, or disconnection in your musical path, this episode may change the way you see everything.

In this episode we explore one of the central ideas of this podcast: The Inner Take. As musicians, we spend a huge amount of time preparing music for what I call “exhibition venues” — concerts, auditions, classes, competitions, rehearsals. Places where our playing is presented to someone else and where we try to deliver the best possible version of what we do. Our preparation often follows a process similar to a recording studio: play, listen, fix, play again — until we get the final take. But while we are taking care of the music and the musician… what happens to the person? In this episode we introduce a simple but powerful definition: A musician is a person who needs or wants to express themselves through sound. If the person behind the musician is ignored, what exactly are we expressing? This is where the idea of the Inner Take appears: all the experiences, emotions, thoughts and sensitivities that live inside us but are rarely acknowledged in musical environments. The Inner Take is the part of ourselves that is not edited, not judged, and not erased. And it might be the most important element of what makes every musician unique.

In this episode of The Inner Take, I talk about a major turning point in my life: moving to Germany at a time when everything in my career seemed to be going well. Concerts were happening. I was studying, performing, building a path. But inside my head, another story was unfolding. A voice kept telling me that something was wrong — that I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t do it. How can reality say yes while your mind says no? I share my experience starting over at a German university, dealing with stage anxiety, and the moment I began to understand the powerful inner dialogue that can shape how we experience music. This episode is an invitation for musicians to listen closely to the voice they carry with them onto the stage.

I didn’t create this podcast because everything was working. I created it because something broke. After moving to Germany, I was forced to confront a fear I could no longer ignore: performance anxiety. Not just nerves — but a deep inner instability that began to affect how I played, how I thought, and how I saw myself as a musician. What followed was a therapeutic process that reshaped my relationship with music, performance, and identity. In this first episode, I share that journey openly — not as a success story, but as a turning point. Because there is something we rarely talk about in music education: We are trained to perform. We are trained to compete. We are trained to perfect technique. But we are almost never taught how to deal with fear, vulnerability, pressure, or the psychological weight of being on stage. The Inner Take was born from that gap. This is a space for musicians who have experienced doubt, pressure, or anxiety — and want to understand it more deeply. For those who have felt anxiety before a concert. For those who question themselves more than they admit. If you have ever struggled silently as a musician, this is where the conversation begins. Welcome to The Inner Take.