Eliminate the fluff

One of my recent clothing purchases was a Zara overcoat for the Winter season. It was the first time I’d had a jacket like this in years, and I’d forgotten how these coats love to accrue piling and bobbles across the back—one of many signs of being well worn on office chairs, trains, and the London Underground during a bitterly cold commute. I ended up having to remove those bits through a mix of fabric shavers and scissors to keep it looking at least somewhat pristine and fit for purpose.

The last time I had a jacket like that was in a past life—when I was a member of the Mormon Church. Strange to think, given my penchant for loud and ridiculous swearing, but let’s set that aside for a moment. After my first degree, I volunteered as a full-time missionary—one of those ones you’d see in The Book of Mormon musical, with the name tags, the religious pamphlets, the lot. You’ll probably find a photo of “Elder Bendall” in full get-up if you Google hard enough.

As a missionary, you get used to rejection and frustration—but also kindness, care, and genuine love from the communities you serve: some Mormon, many not. Your job was simple: teach about Mormonism, invite people to be baptised. How you went about that was up to you, within the Church’s routines and structures. It didn’t necessarily matter whether any given person actually got baptised by you; what mattered was that you extended the invitation. The rest was their choice—with support from missionaries, teachers, church members, and others.

Quite often, people would take the kindness of missionaries as an invitation to treat us as friends. You’d end up teaching someone on and off for over a year with seemingly no progress. (That’s not to judge anyone’s faith journey, but in our experience, it often reflected people not putting in the effort to consider that journey for themselves.)

The person in charge of our mission—a country-boy-turned-heart-surgeon—had a phrase for situations like this:

Eliminate the fluff.

He once used the phrase, jokingly, in a meeting about the origins of belly button lint. Yes, really. He was an odd one.

But the phrase stuck. Too often (and very frequently in the case of your dear author), we overstate what we need to say, or cling to things that aren’t helping us move forward. Rather than accept the way things are and pivot, we hold on to what’s comfortable, even if it prolongs unnecessary challenges. “Fluff” might be too blunt a term for some, but this was someone who didn’t mince his words. For us missionaries, it might have felt easier to keep working with people who weren’t progressing—it beat knocking on doors in the rain—but if we had a job to do, we had to focus our efforts where they were most needed.

So why am I writing about bobbly jackets and teaching decisions in a blog that’s meant to focus on musical ventures?

Because I reckon the process of music-making is one of constant reassessment and reflection. We practise, perform, critique, repeat. Sometimes we plateau, or feel stuck in ruts. The way forward is through change. It’s rarely drastic—it’s the steady, incremental refinements that lead us to become better than we were the day before. But we also have to be brave enough to step outside our comfort zones if we want to improve.

In music, “fluff” might take on another meaning: the way we shake or adjust a pillow or cushion to make it fuller, more comfortable, better. But either way—whether eliminating fluff or fluffing the pillow—the key is change.

I recently took on a new choral society, which has been utterly lovely. I’d worked with them during the pandemic as an interim conductor; we got on well and they offered for me to stay on, but I’d already committed elsewhere and felt I had to honour that. Four years on, I feel far stronger and more confident in my vocation. I can pre-empt and resolve issues in rehearsals and meetings, and I’ve got a thicker skin when it comes to feedback (though I’m glad to say it’s been positive so far). I’ve noticed the same in job interviews—no great seismic shifts, but a steadier trust in myself that wasn’t there before.

Honestly, I can’t point to any singular “Paul on the road to Damascus” moment of revelation. It’s been gradual. Small changes. A little longer on score study. A little less worrying about what one person thinks. A bit more self-care. A bit less time wasted on professional dead-ends. A lot less concern about opinions I wouldn’t even seek out in the first place. The point is: it’s the ongoing process of recognising where change is needed—and acting on it—that brings the most meaningful growth. In music and in life.

And yes, it still helps to have a jacket that doesn’t look like it’s been dragged backwards through a velcro factory.