Musical Meditation: The Spit Valve Drill

Several years ago I came across a post about something called the “spit valve drill” on TubeNet (this is our tuba message board, and yes, it is as nerdy as it sounds). The post was made by Roger Lewis, a former student of M. Dee Stewart at Indiana. Lewis wrote about this exercise, which originated with Arnold Jacobs, and was passed to him by Mr. Stewart. It only recently occurred to me that this drill, which I have used on and off over the years, is the musical equivalent of a meditation. It asks the player to focus only on breath while eliminating tension from the embouchure. 

(Apologies to my non-brass playing friends. This post focuses on the basic processes of brass playing. I am sure, though, that the concept could be adapted for almost any instrument or voice–perhaps this has already been done).

 Years of brass playing can result in a buildup of unnecessary tension in the embouchure (the facial muscles around and in the mouthpiece). This tension can begin to affect tone quality and resonance if it is left unchecked, and especially as we use less and less air over years of playing. Roger Lewis writes that he has been using the spit valve drill to keep himself from getting lazy with his airflow. It serves as a daily reminder that although the embouchure is a necessary component of playing, the air that supports a brass sound is still more important.

The spit valve drill is done as follows:

First, place yourself in front of a mirror. If one is not available, use the camera on your phone. I know you have it with you right there on the stand! The tension in your embouchure will appear as pronounced lines that run from the side of your nose to the corners of your mouth. The goal is to eliminate those lines as much as possible by supporting the embouchure with air.

Bring the instrument to your face, open the main spit valve, and blow as though you are trying to clear water out from deep inside the instrument. Do not use any attack­–simply 'ha.’ As Lewis says, “Just let it all hang out.” Your cheeks will puff, and the facial lines beside your nose will disappear. Use a large quantity of air and move it fast, as though you are playing at a fortissimo level. 

(Roger adds a note, and I agree wholeheartedly, that puffing the cheeks is not detrimental to playing the tuba. While you need to maintain control of the corners of your embouchure, a larger oral cavity will actually help notes to resonate).

After blowing air through the spit valve several times, the next step is to engage your lips. Begin by letting them vibrate at whatever frequency comes naturally. Still use no articulation (breath attack). Lewis writes to “let your lips flap in the breeze.” Breathe deeply, blow in a relaxed manner, and buzz your lips. Repeat this several times, still allowing your cheeks to puff. 

Finally, during one of these long buzzes, let go of the spit valve. You will still be moving a large amount of relaxed air through the instrument, and your cheeks will still be puffed out, resulting in what should be a huge sound. According to Lewis, “At this point I usually ask people if they have ever made this much noise with so little effort and I usually am told ‘never.’”

 After achieving this sound, play again, still with a breath attack, and slowly bring the air level back down to roughly a mezzo piano level. Try to maintain the relaxed flow that you established with the spit valve open. As you move into playing the instrument, use short, simple exercises (long tones, scalar warmups, etc.) to adjust your embouchure with only as much tension as is minimally necessary for the notes you are playing. 

As you continue practicing, you will undoubtedly experience muscular tension as you play throughout your range and move into whatever music you are practicing. I have found that the spit valve drill is helpful not only at the beginning of a session, but as a break throughout, providing a “reset button” for the air and embouchure. Like other types of meditation, it provides a point of focus separate from all the other thoughts and concerns crowding our mind during a practice session. The fact that the focus is a relaxed air flow, free from any expectation of a good sound, makes it especially healthy for brass players, who can always benefit from a reminder of how it feels to play while truly relaxed.

 I know that many brass pedagogues have already developed their own version of an exercise like this. Toby Hanks described to me Chester Schmitz’s practice of taking a full, “cleansing breath” before an entrance while performing with the Boston Symphony (or anywhere else). The reality, though, is that while we might all teach it to our students, we don’t all remember to do it throughout our practice sessions. This week I’m going to remind myself with a post-it on my music stand. Just like any traditional type of meditation, a small time commitment can have a big payoff.  

**Roger Lewis’s full writeup of this drill can be found here: http://forums.chisham.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16642&hilit=Spit+valve+drill

Why I Bought a Bird Feeder

It’s time for me to finally admit something that I’ve known for a few years, but never had the confidence to say out loud: I’m into birds. That’s right, I enjoy birdwatching, or as the real birdwatchers call it, “birding.” I may never be comfortable actually uttering the word “birding” without either real or air quotes, but I am into birds.

It started out as a simple curiosity. Because I have a dog, I spend a lot of time walking outside, and my dog loves walking on trails. Prior to having the dog I hadn’t hiked much since my family’s yearly vacations to the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia during my childhood. But as an adult I began to notice my surroundings more, especially during those moments that I stopped walking and stood still (this happens often for various dog-business-related reasons). During those moments of stillness, my eyes were constantly drawn to the parts of the scene around me that were moving. 

Later, after embarking on some training in mindfulness practices, it struck me that birdwatching is, at least in my opinion, one of the ultimate mindfulness activities. First, it places you in nature, which is already a calming setting, away from the usual distractions. Next, in order to track a bird with your eyes and ears, you must be still. Only when you are still are you able to lock in on the movement of birds in the trees around you. And finally, birds are a captivating focal point. Their movements are unpredictable–a bird that you can see clearly one moment could be gone the next. Tracking a bird engages both your eyes and your ears, and requires your full attention, which means that you are fully in the present moment. 

Although I am very much invested in the ideas and practices of mindfulness, I have never connected to the traditional idea of meditation. I have tried the version of meditation that involves sitting alone in a room and focusing on my breath, and have certainly found some value in it. But walking outside, and birdwatching specifically, are my ideal forms of meditation. I find birds fascinating to watch, and I experience a great deal of peace and mental clarity when I take time to study my surroundings and follow the birds I see and hear.

What I have learned is that watching birds does not have to be a formal activity, requiring lots of specialized gear and a book to log sightings of different bird species. I mean, I do have an app … but that’s as far as I’m willing to go right now. Birdwatching can also be taking a moment to look out the window, or to look up from your phone while walking outside, and observe what what you see and hear moving around and above you. Those moments–when you are locking your attention onto one thing and staying in the moment with it–are moments of mindfulness. You’re not thinking about my next task, or your last practice session, or your upcoming recital, or whatever stresses are pushing on you at the moment. You’re just watching a bird move from tree to tree and branch to branch.

In the Practice Room

Birdwatching is almost impossible in a practice room. First of all, if there is a bird in your practice room, there is probably some issue that needs to be brought to the attention of the facilities manager. But often, birdwatching is not even possible from a practice room. The ones that tuba players usually use are windowless basement cubicles as far away as possible from other music classes and lessons. 

If you are lucky enough to have a window in the place where you practice, though, take a few moments to look out of it every once in a while (it sounds obvious, but it isn’t always!). I bought a bird feeder to put on my balcony at home, and it provides a great visual and mental break when I’m practicing there. If you do not have a window in the place where you practice, then please be aware that not having access to natural light and fresh air could very well be contributing to your stress as much as your missed notes! In the same way that a smoker would go outside for a smoke break every few hours, we could all benefit from a “scenery break” here and there during a practice session. Taking five minutes to use trees, birds, or whatever else you see outside as a focal point instead of your music can contribute to a healthy perspective both inside and outside the practice room. 

If it’s not birdwatching for you, it will be something else. But I encourage you to find that form of meditation that allows you to focus on only one thing and remain in the moment with it. It will give you a mental break from the thousand things that simultaneously demand your focus all day long. But it will also help you to hone your ability to maintain attention and awareness–skills which, incidentally, are also very useful in the performance of music. 

6 Reasons You Should be Slow-Practicing

I am not nearly the first, nor will I be the last, to extol the virtues of slow practice. The technique has been much-discussed, especially in recent years, as a way to learn and internalize music at a deeper level than a regular run-through at performance tempo allows.* More than simply a method to gain facility in specific faster or technical passages, slow practice has been revealed as an effective tool for building a musical interpretation of a piece. I will add my own two cents to the chorus of performers and educators praising slow practice in the form of the internet’s favorite way to consume information: a list! 

It does work on faster, technical passages

As my teacher Toby Hanks put it, practicing is about identifying and isolating specifically what is difficult about a piece, then eliminating that difficulty in order to learn the music before reincorporating it. If a piece is difficult because of its fast tempo (as so many are), then the first order of business is to play it slowly. This is a time-honored practice tool for a reason: it works.

Most of us learn our music slowly, but many of us do it in an inconsistent way, fluctuating in tempo (consciously or not) and slowing down only when the speed of the notes requires it. This type of “slow-ish” practice is not the subject of this post. In order for slow practice to be effective, it MUST be done with a metronome. This allows us not only to learn music in a manageable way, but to understand the proportional relationships between tricky, faster passages and the musical material surrounding them.    

It also works as a way to build musical phrasing

In order to have complete command over your musical interpretation of a musical work, you need to develop a fluency in the language of both the composer and the piece. Until the necessary level of fluency is reached, musical elements will fall through the cracks when you play through the piece. Articulations, dynamics, and phrasing ideas that you meant to incorporate will not happen, or will not line up with your intentions. Certain parts of the music or its interpretation will get away from you as you concentrate on the more immediate challenge of playing notes and rhythms.

Practicing a piece slowly will allow you to focus on each individual aspect of the music in a more manageable time frame. How slow? Ridiculously slow. Half tempo. Maybe even slower than half tempo. Slow practice should occur at a tempo at which the performer can reasonably expect to incorporate musical elements like dynamics, articulations, phrasing, and note groupings with ease. Whatever tempo is required for your brain to process and participate in each level of the music in the piece at hand will be your slow practice tempo. It may be extremely slow, or even tedious, but nothing will get away from you.

The good news is that the human brain is an amazing machine. It learns through repetition, and when that repetition is careful and consistent it forms an imprint that sticks.** Contained in that imprint is not only the surface level of the music (notes and rhythms), but whatever musical inflections you had time to add during your slow practice. I have personally seen incredible results from simply alternating between slow practice and up-to-tempo practice of a passage or an entire movement or work. The beauty of this method is that your brain will do all the work for you. You don’t have to question, analyze, or even think as you transition between tempos. Simply observe that what you imprint on your brain during slow practice tends to show up in the up-to-tempo version. For this reason, most of your thinking should be centered around imprinting exactly what you intend to imprint at the slow tempo. 

It helps in recital prep

We have all been there: that point in recital preparation where the repetition of the music you’ve chosen to perform starts to really wear on you in the practice room. How many times can you repeat a piece in the same way without it becoming routine? How can you possibly maintain an attention to the musical details contained in the piece over several months of preparation? How can you continue to notice new musical nuances after your thousandth run-through?

Enter your good friend, slow practice. Playing through a piece slowly will force you to perceive it differently than the up-tempo version. The details that are easier to gloss over at a faster tempo are difficult to miss when performed slowly. You have no choice but to focus on the musical ideas you intend to incorporate, since they should be magnified in the slow tempo. Slow practice of recital repertoire is a way to check and reaffirm the imprint of a piece on your brain. 

It doesn’t lie

Speaking of months-long, methodical recital preparation, slow practice is a way to answer the question, “Am I doing what I think I’m doing?” Too often we can be lulled into complacency by the type of repetition that is necessary to learn a piece of music. Are you really performing that crescendo? That accent? Are you really allowing the final note of that phrase to resonate? Is that interval in tune? Have you really nailed down the awkward fingering pattern in that passage? These are questions we often don’t even think to ask ourselves when running through a piece, especially once we’ve become familiar with it.

This brings us back to one of my early points about slow practice: It MUST be done with a metronome. A click is necessary for an honest, effective imprint to be formed. It ensures that the rhythmic building blocks of a piece (individual subdivisions of beats) are firmly in place. A metronome also just makes good sense: if your brain has to compute tempo along with everything else, how effective can it be at slow practice? Playing a passage at a slow tempo, with metronome, will illuminate exactly what is happening too fast to process in the up-tempo version of the passage.

It helps build endurance

For some of us, and for brass musicians in particular, it can be a struggle to build up the muscle endurance necessary to play a recital’s worth of music. In addition to all of its other benefits, slow practice assists in this area as well. Although a slow run-through of a piece may diminish a player’s endurance on that particular day, it will help to build it in the longer term. It can have a similar effect to that of swinging a weighted baseball bat before swinging a regular one. When switching from slow tempo to performance tempo, a piece will often suddenly feel lighter, easier, and more free-flowing. It’s a mind game, but we’ll take what we can get.

It is kind to your brain

Think about what your approach would be in a music lesson with a child who exhibits frustration with their music? Let’s say the child is struggling with the notes and fingerings in a certain tune, to the point that they can’t play it at tempo. The first thing I’d do is look for a way to alleviate the student’s frustration by changing the goal. Instead of asking them to play the tune at tempo, I ask them to play it at a tempo at which they will be able to manage the notes and fingerings. Teachers do this not only because it helps to learn the music, but because identifying a manageable goal allows the student to experience the accomplishment of achieving that goal. 

While we would do this for any young student without even thinking about it, we don’t always give ourselves the same consideration in the practice room (where we are both the student and the teacher). Because we know our long-term goals for a certain piece, we don’t always identify our short-term goals in the practice room. If the goal is only to play the piece at a professional level at performance tempo, then we will fail many, many times before we succeed. But if the goal is to be able to play a specific passage musically and at a manageable tempo? Then we give ourselves a chance to succeed. So to return to the question of “How slow to slow-practice?”: slow enough that you can succeed at the immediate goal you have set for yourself. By moving the goalposts from hour to hour, or from day to day, we can build our musical interpretation of a work from the ground up through small but significant successes. 

Slow practice does not ask more of your brain than it can reasonably handle. Instead, it allows you to trust that your brain will do what it is meant to do with the information that you carefully encode into it. Slow practice is a process that respects the complexities and intricacies contained in each piece of music. It will honestly tell you exactly where you stand in your preparation of a piece. And it will give you the opportunity for small, daily victories, allowing you frame your practice room experience around the positive progress you make. 

*https://bulletproofmusician.com/is-slow-practice-really-necessary/

https://www.musiciansway.com/blog/2011/02/a-different-kind-of-slow-practice/

https://www.thestrad.com/10-views-on-the-benefits-of-slow-practice/18.article

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/what-is-slow-practice/

https://www.frankhuangpiano.com/single-post/2018/06/23/3-Benefits-to-Slow-Practice

https://www.carolinaphil.org/zen-and-the-art-of-piano/slow-practice-fast-practice

The list goes on …

**https://www.ted.com/talks/annie_bosler_and_don_greene_how_to_practice_effectively_for_just_about_anything/transcript?language=en

Feeling or Thinking?

“The ideal combination would be to play with thinking and intelligent feeling .” –Marcel Tabuteau

This summer I have been revisiting the book Sound in Motion by David McGill. McGill, who served as principal bassoonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for seventeen years, wrote the book using the ideas of Marcel Tabuteau as a starting point. Tabuteau (1887-1966) was principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1915 to 1954, and taught at the Curtis Institute of Music for thirty years. His playing was foundational in the development of a distinctly American oboe sound, and his teaching influenced multiple generations of Curtis students (and their students). Part of Tabuteau’s legacy is his approach to teaching and implementing ideas related to musical phrasing. 

McGill writes that “The roots of a rationalized system of musical phrasing” can be traced back to Tabuteau (7). The word “rationalized” is key in this explanation–Tabuteau’s methodology was based on a logical system of phrasing rooted in musical analysis. His teaching explored the function and purpose of each individual note toward the goal of achieving forward motion in music. His implementation of this system of phrasing yielded performances that brought the music to life. According to McGill, “…he defined the natural in music. His phrasing existed in harmony with the music’s structure and his teaching explained how to achieve this result (7).”

In an early chapter in the book, McGill discusses the misunderstandings surrounding the idea of feeling in relation to making music. Emotions have, of course, long been associated with music both from the perspective of the audience and that of the performer. In some cases, the audience perceives a connection with the performer, and may even feel that the performer has transmitted the emotions of a musical work to them. Almost all great performances are discussed in terms of their emotional effect on the listener.  

But McGill makes the point that emotions are not always helpful to the performer. If you rely on feeling to make music, then what happens on a day when you aren’t feeling well for some reason? Moreover, many professional musicians are regularly contracted to perform music not of their own choosing–music with which they may have no emotional connection (polka, anyone?). How can you give a great performance if you don’t love the music? What if you don’t feel anything in particular about the music?

McGill’s (and Tabuteau’s) answer is that the musician must seek a measure of separation from a subjective state of mind. “Professional musicians are not paid to simply feel the music in public act of exhibitionism and then, by virtue of this, to mesmerize the audience into feeling exactly the same way (17).” While emotion may be present both in the performer and in the audience, it is not the feeling but the thought behind a performance that makes it great. Tabuteau was in favor of this approach, saying that his goal was “to play as I think.” He further remarked that “the ideal combination would be to play with thinking and intelligent feeling (17).” In short, a performer’s feelings should be tempered by their intellect. Tabuteau’s system of musical phrasing was built around thoughtful analysis of the music itself rather than an emotional response to it. 

In the Practice Room

It struck me while reading this that McGill and Tabuteau were both voicing an idea central to the practice of mindfulness. We are always searching for wise mind: the balance between the emotional mind and the rational mind. We need access to our emotions, but it is not helpful for us to be overwhelmed by them. We also need rational thought to guide us, but only combination with our unique emotional responses. I began to reflect on how these two sides of my mind are engaged not only by the act of performing, but also by the act of practicing. The emotions that I experience while performing can be markedly different from the emotions (or lack thereof) that I experience during the hundreds of hours I spend methodically preparing for performance in the practice room.

The question posed above (what happens to a feeling-based performance if you’re not feeling well?) applies doubly to time in the practice room. If we rely on feeling to perform, then shouldn’t that same feeling be present in the practice room? Any musician knows that this is a laughable proposition. Feelings change from day to day, hour to hour, and minute to minute. Even what we feel about a certain musical work will change and progress as we learn and internalize it. This is why Tabuteau’s concept of musical phrasing based on rational analysis makes so much sense to me. It is a way to establish a truly consistent approach to shaping the music we perform. 

Mindfulness does not teach us to ignore, push away, or deny our feelings. Instead, it teaches us to acknowledge what or how we feel in any given moment, and then to move on. This is a necessary skill in the practice room. Because we are engaged in the high-risk endeavor of learning and performing music at the professional level, we may feel any number of emotions around a piece of music on any particular day: elation, frustration, fear, and contentment are all typical in the practice room. Mindfulness instructs us to accept our emotions and make music anyway. A McGill/Tabuteau-inspired approach to building a piece of music, phrase by phrase based on its unique structure, can be a helpful tool in achieving the balance of a wise mind in the practice room.

**McGill, David. Sound in Motion: A Performer’s Guide to Greater Musical Expression. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007.

The Reset Button

As I near the close of my first session as a faculty member at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, I am taking some time to reflect on the unique experiences I’ve had with the students here. Last week’s blog was about the negativity that many students voiced leading up the their initial auditions on the first day of camp. But over the course of the ten-day session, my day-to-day interactions with the campers have been overwhelmingly positive and rewarding. They are smart, conscientious, respectful, and open to trying everything I throw at them (which has been almost my entire bag of pedagogical tricks). More than that, they are curious about their instruments and about music. I’ve found myself in conversations about very specific tuba-related topics that I am quite sure I wasn’t thinking about when I was the age of these students. 

Still, they are high school students, and some are as young as thirteen. They have now been living, eating, and rehearsing in close quarters for over a week. Every minute of their day is scheduled and supervised, including the fun. So when they arrive at my sectional rehearsals in the midst of a hectic day, it can sometimes be a struggle to bring 10-20 high school low brass players onto the same mental page in order to have a productive rehearsal. 

One of the luxuries of summer camp (as opposed to band in the school year) is that if the students are overstimulated, frazzled, or need to let out some energy, I can allow that to happen. Part of my job as faculty is to create a positive environment for the campers, and camaraderie is a huge part of the large ensemble experience. But the other part of my job is to achieve specific musical goals with the students, and in order to do that the students need to focus. Honestly, I relate to these students more than I thought I would.   

Over the course of the week, I began to realize the parallels between my high school low brass students and my own practice-room brain. Like my students, my brain is sometimes scattered in several directions and needs to be purposefully pointed in the right direction (sometimes repeatedly). Like my students, my brain doesn’t usually respond well to being coerced into focusing. But like my students, my brain does respond to learned verbal and physical cues that become a kind of “reset button” in moments when I need to bring my focus back to the present moment. 

The verbal and physical cues that I use with my students are similar to those that many teachers employ. I hold up my mouthpiece at the beginning of each class to signal that our mouthpiece warmup is about to begin. Like a conductor, I use my hands to show students when to quiet down and get ready to play. When the class gets rowdy, instead of attempting to force the students to refocus by raising my voice, I use physical cues and repeated verbal phrases, spoken at a normal to low volume, to bring the group back to order. I’ve found that quiet repetition is a much better tool in the classroom than aggressive yelling. 

It now strikes me that these same tools are available to me as an individual, and are recommended by the practice of mindfulness. Many people use a mantra of some kind to ground themselves in the present. I have yet to come up with a really cool, zen-sounding mantra, but what I often repeat to myself when I’m distracted in the practice room is “Aaaaaaaand back to the present.” In many cases, that’s enough. In other situations, a deep cleansing breath while closing my eyes helps me to refocus. I recently came across a qi-gong movement that has become my go-to method for establishing mental focus in the practice room (and other situations). Check it out at the following link: https://youtu.be/Ac08kMK-dyI?t=549

What I am realizing this week is that while I’d love to believe that I’m immune to distraction as a mature, evolved adult, my brain can be just as scattered and out-of-control as a class of high school summer band campers. But luckily, my experience with the campers this year has helped me to see that I, like my conductor colleagues, possess the verbal and physical tools to bring myself back to the present moment, no matter how many times my mind wanders. If I can do it for them, I can do it for myself. 

**I wrote this blog while sitting outside at Blue Lake’s Kresge Lodge, which is our only source of wifi at camp. While I was writing, an impromptu baby shower was taking place about twenty feet away, seriously testing my mental focus. I’m happy to say that after losing focus several times, I took a deep breath and relocated to a spot where I couldn’t hear or see the party. Sometimes a change of venue is its own reset button. 

The Audition Negativity Echo Chamber

This week I find myself in beautiful Western Michigan, working as a faculty member at Blue Lake Fine Arts camp. Today was the day that the students arrived, so after a day of faculty orientation, the camp was suddenly overrun with hundreds of high school art, music, and theater students. The first order of business for most of the music students was to audition for placement in the various ensembles where they will play for the next ten days. 

As I met the students one by one, we introduced ourselves and I learned where each camper was from, what grade they were in, and whether they were new to the camp. I also checked in with them about whether they felt prepared for the upcoming audition. Some students were well acquainted with the process, and felt prepared, or at the very least ready to perform and be done with it. But I’d say the majority of students voiced some kind of negativity about the audition to me. Comments ranged from “I haven’t practiced and I’m going to sound bad!” to “I am definitely going to fail!” Overall, the students seemed to be wound up about the audition, and the stress about it was bouncing around among them.

There are plenty of reasons why students voice negative feelings before an audition. First and foremost, auditions are stressful, especially when added into a day that already consists of moving into a camp and meeting tons of new people. Almost none of us are completely comfortable when auditioning (Let’s face it, auditions are designed to create this scenario!). But there are other reasons why younger students might be overly negative about auditions. In some cases, students are actively trying to lower expectations of themselves (either their own or that of other students or teachers). This happens in other settings as well, especially in the lesson. Students say, almost reflexively, “This is going to sound terrible,” or “Sorry, I sound bad today.” Sometimes statements like this are accompanied by an excuse, but many times they are just thrown out as an opening statement.

Needless to say (I hope), none of this negativity is helpful in any scenario. There is a difference between voicing your honest feelings (“I am really nervous about this audition”) and voicing a negative reaction to something that hasn’t happened yet. Part of the pessimism that I experienced today is a reflection of the teenage culture in which being good at something is sometimes considered not cool. This is especially unfortunate, because it’s hard to tell which students lack confidence and which ones only want to appear sufficiently bad at their instrument to seem cool. The end result is a kind of negativity echo chamber that seems to benefit no one.

When approaching any audition situation, it is helpful to remember what mindfulness teaches us about the past and the future. Until the audition happens, it is a future event. We cannot actually do the audition until it’s time to do it, at which point the goal would be to stay tethered to the present moment. But before the audition, all we can experience is the preparation for it. That is what occupies our present moment (sometimes many hours of moments over weeks or months). The throwaway negative comment about an audition, or any other performance, is not a comment about the present moment. It is a prediction of a future moment, and one that can sometimes be self-fulfilling. This week, when I hear negative language from my students aimed toward themselves, I’m going to work on helping them to replace that language by simply describing their present state.

Mind Games

What mind games do you play while you are practicing? 

I was working with a high school tuba student in a lesson recently, and I noticed a pattern in her playing. This particular issue was a longstanding one for her: although she usually took a nice big breath through her mouth before her first note, she often reverted to breathing through her nose as the phrase or section continued. This is a habit we had been attempting to break for some time. 

While nose breathing is optimal for humans in our everyday life, we need to take in a larger quantity of air in a small amount of time when playing tuba, and therefore mouth breathing is necessary. My student was accustomed to nose breathing (from, you know, being a human), and so had trouble consistently breathing through her mouth while playing the tuba. The result was that in many cases, her air supply became so depleted that she had trouble finishing phrases. I asked my student questions about her breathing and playing process, trying to pinpoint exactly what was keeping her from being able to use her mouth instead of her nose. She knew that mouth breathing was necessary, and it was her intention to do it.

She eventually told me that she had gotten into the habit of essentially keeping score while she played. When she missed a note or didn’t center a note properly (a common occurrence among young players), she started at zero. Every correct note was part of a streak that she was trying to extend for as long as possible. When she was on such a streak of correct notes, she was unwilling to remove her face from the mouthpiece for fear of ending the streak. Unfortunately, this reluctance to move her mouth left only one way to breathe: through her nose. So instead of extending her streak of correct notes, her playing process usually resulted in a massive air deficit, making any note impossible to play. Even though I repeatedly pointed out the need for larger, more frequent breaths, and even though she repeatedly acknowledged same, she often found herself unable to “break the streak” in the moment. 

Something about this student’s story really resonated with me. I can remember having similar mental processes when I was a beginning band euphonium player. In part, it has something to do with playing a non-visual instrument. We can’t see a keyboard or fretboard to visualize the notes, so we come up with mental visuals to assist in our playing. Some people, for example, associate certain notes with specific colors. As a middle school tuba player I developed a mental visual organization system for the notes that was based on how each note physically felt when I played it. I relied on that system to help me navigate from note to note long before I developed the aural skills that would help me place notes later. Like my student, my technique on the tuba was in many ways shaped by the way I conceived of the notes mentally. And also like my student, I had to relearn my technique later because (surprise!) my strange middle school concept of notes on the tuba did not serve me as I advanced in music.

As a college applied instructor, I have found that most of the teaching I do is centered around breaking habits that were formed when the student was much younger, and building new, healthier habits that are more conducive to long-term success. On brass instruments, much of this revolves around the mental processes involved in playing. At some point, we all need to take a long, hard look at what is going through our mind while we play. 

In the Practice Room

The next time you’re practicing, choose an étude or a piece that you have played many times, and know well. Use a run-through of that piece as an opportunity to enter observation mode. Do you play any mind games with yourself? Do you visualize or hear the notes before you play them? Do you have a mental visual concept of musical phrases? Do you get competitive with yourself, challenging yourself to extend a streak of correct notes? Do you mentally scold yourself for missed notes or bad technique? Our mental processes while we play are truly unique to us as individuals. You may find some disturbing trends, but you will probably also notice whatever is truly “you” about your playing mentality. That’s something that you want to preserve.

In my experience, even a slight re-tooling of my mental processes can result in major changes in my playing, or at least in the way that I perceive my playing. This can be a helpful exercise when the various technical studies we employ seem to fail us. We’ve all had the experience of practicing a passage in every possible way we know, only to hear the same mistakes or imperfections over and over again. In moments like these, we may not be able to magically upgrade our technique over the span of a few minutes (or even hours). But what we can do is pay special attention to our mental processes, and through that attention strengthen our mental concept of the music we play. A clear musical concept is not a replacement for good technique, but good technique will take us nowhere without a clear musical concept.

Musical Meditation: Long Tones

Meditation is perhaps the practice most associated with mindfulness. In my opinion, it’s also one of the aspects of mindfulness that turns the most people off to the practice as a whole. I have certainly found myself among the ranks of those who have trouble meditating, and/or don’t get much out of it. I have since found a use for it (in small doses) as part of my overall mental health routine. But in addition to regular old sitting-still-with-eyes-closed meditation, I have also begun to think of certain musical exercises as a way of meditating in the practice room.

One such exercise/meditation that I do every day is based on long tones. Nearly every brass player has a favorite long tone study, and many of us incorporate them into our daily practice in order to improve our tone consistency and endurance. But because of their relative rhythmic simplicity, most long tone exercises also work well as musical meditations.

My daily long tone study is adapted from two of my former teachers: Mike Roylance and Andrew Hitz. I first play an eight-count hairpin (crescendo followed by decrescendo). Then, after four counts of rest I play an eight-count decrescendo. Both long tones are played with no articulation, or a “breath attack.” This, along with the order and range in which I play the notes, comes from Mike’s routine. I added on eight quarter notes at the end based on an experience in a lesson with Andrew. He noticed an inconsistency in my ability to play detached quarter notes in a steady crescendo pattern. After I tried several times to achieve steady articulations and dynamic growth, Andrew noted that “This exercise will get even harder when you do it in the opposite [decrescendo] pattern.” Challenge accepted. I began to incorporate detached quarter note hairpin figures into my daily long tones routine with the idea that playing consistent dynamic figures first on long tones would make playing the same dynamic figures on quarter notes slightly more natural. I envision the quarter notes simply as smaller parts of the long tones I just played. I still have not mastered the skill, so I continue … 

This long tone study can easily become routine and boring to the point that I zone out instead of focusing on achieving the best tone and dynamic range possible. So I have tried to re-conceive of it as a musical meditation: an exercise so simple that I can climb inside it, hang out for a while, and have an up-close look at the most foundational elements of my playing. As I would in meditation, I try to notice as my mind wanders (which is ok), and bring my focus back to the present moment (that is the practice). There is nothing to listen to aside from my articulation, tone color, and volume. The goal of the exercise is only to give myself an accurate snapshot of my playing on any given day–no part of it is meant to be repeated, even if I feel that it needs improvement. I will repeat it tomorrow, and the day after. This aspect of the exercise–observation without qualitative judgement–is the key factor that allows for a present-in-the-moment, meditative state. 

Below I have included a version of this study in treble clef that is probably more readable for other wind instruments or voice. 

"Put your brain in a jar"

About three and a half years ago, I was preparing for my first doctoral degree recital at Shenandoah University. I was still getting used to being back in school after several years as an adjunct instructor and freelancer. During those years, my job was to teach lessons and classes, and to be ready and available as a player for any gig that might come along. I played in brass quintets, large brass ensembles, bands, orchestras, and even an ensemble that included accordion, violin, mandolin, drums, and a vocalist/belly dancer. Solo playing was not a main focus for me, even during the faculty recitals I programmed here and there. I have always preferred collaborating. 

So I found myself immersed in the intense preparation necessary for a degree recital that was intended to show my skill as a solo performer. At the same time, I was also adjusting to some physical changes in my playing setup that improved my sound, but decreased my endurance. I was making up for the lack of endurance by planning and overthinking my program to an extraordinary degree. In short, I was a mess.

One week, my teacher, Mike, picked up on this during my lesson. I would play a five-minute excerpt for him, then spend ten minutes describing my practice approach, my frustrations, my mental processes, etc. Mike is calm to the point that one might even use the word ‘zen.’ As a tuba player he’s incredibly natural, relying mainly on his killer ear to create a beautiful, resonant sound. He told me, though, that he had experienced some of the same frustrations in his younger years, saying he had learned that “you need to be able to put your brain in a jar.” 

Mike’s view, which I have come to share, is that the brain can be both a blessing and a curse for musicians. In the practice room (and the classroom), our brain is an asset, allowing us to analyze, deconstruct, and reconstruct music. We regularly deploy dozens of tools and methods in order to first understand a piece, then to develop our technical skills to the point that we can make an individual musical statement with it. But throughout this process, and especially on stage, the brain can also work against us. The habit of constant self-evaluation that develops in the practice room can take us out of the moment when we’re performing, hindering our capacity for musical expression. 

I began to use the “brain in a jar” idea as a sort of mantra, especially in high-pressure performance situations. My husband made me an illustration (see below), which hangs on the wall in my office, and sometimes accompanies me onstage, sitting on my stand next to my music. It is a reminder that I need the freedom that comes with being only in the present moment (one-mindfulness). Playing music while the brain is on practice-room overdrive is like trying to tell a story with a mouth full of peanut butter. The experience will be better for everyone (musician and audience) if it is unencumbered.

How do I put my brain in a jar? Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. We know that we cannot un-think thoughts, or prevent ourselves from thinking thoughts. What we can control is our attention. My most successful musical performances happen when I am vigilant about maintaining my attention on the musical thought at hand, and on simply playing with the sound I hear in my head. Hours of work and thought in the practice room have crafted that sound, which allows me to unplug from practice mode, put my brain in a jar, and tether myself to it in the moment.

Part 6: Effectiveness

Rational Mind, Emotional Mind, and Wise Mind

At any given time, our state of mind exists on a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum is emotional mind: a state in which our emotions dictate our decisions. The emotional mind is more reactive and intuitive than analytical. At the other end of the state-of-mind spectrum is rational mind: a state in which we consider the facts at hand and make decisions logically and intellectually. Our rational mind gives us a clear view of our present circumstances, along with our past experiences.

We’ve all been in situations when our state of mind veers dramatically either toward the emotional mind or the rational mind. When we’re overcome by emotions like fear, sadness, or even joy, our base psychological state takes the driver’s seat. We don’t have access to the rational thought we need to navigate our present situation. But remember: emotions are not inherently bad. They are important signals that are deserving of consideration. When we are stuck in rational mind, we are only operating based on facts and logic. If we don’t have access to our emotions, we can’t fully process the meaning of our actions. Emotions connect us to other people much more than logic. 

According to the practice of mindfulness, the ideal state of mind is a balance between emotional mind and rational mind called wise mind. In wise mind, we have access to both our emotions and our intellect – neither dominates the other. This allows us to act effectively, which means that we are mindful of our goals, and we are able to do what is necessary to accomplish them in our present situation (not the one we wish we were in, or the one that would be more fair or comfortable). Effectiveness means that instead of focusing only on what feels right, or on what we think is correct, we focus our actions on what works, based on both our intellectual and   emotional intelligence.

In the Practice Room

If music were to be associated with only one side of the state-of-mind spectrum, it would be the emotional mind. Music as an art form has long been prized for its ability to either convey or inspire emotional states. For example, many sixteenth and seventeenth-century writers believed that art, poetry, and music could physically alter the blood and spirits of a person, resulting in a direct physical experience (affect) or a passive mental experience (passion). The arousal of affections and passions became a primary goal of Baroque composers. Later, composers like Beethoven, Wagner, and Mahler were lauded for their music’s ability to portray various emotional aspects of the human condition. 

But what role does emotion play in the practice room? Just because I love the way a piece sounds doesn’t mean I can pick it up for the first time and let emotion carry me to a perfect run-through. The irony that musicians encounter every day is that in order for us to eventually produce the type of transcendent performance that conveys and inspires emotion, we must approach our practice methodically, rationally, and logically. However, an over-abundance of methodical logic in the practice room is also capable of crushing one’s emotional connection to a piece. We need the same wise mind balance in the practice room that we do everywhere else.

The tendency to veer into rational mind or wise mind is different from person to person, so it is impossible to propose a formula that will work for everyone. Instead, I recommend feeding each side of the mind in a balanced way, alternating between exercises like the ones listed below.

Exercises to feed the rational mind:

1. Slow scales, arpeggios, or long tones with a tuner, drone, and/or metronome

2. Spotlight an excerpt of a piece and alternate between performing it half tempo and performance tempo. 

3. Spotlight an excerpt of a piece and deconstruct it, practicing only one layer of it at a time (rhythm, articulation, pitches, fingerings) with a metronome.

4. Play through a section of a piece, stopping on random notes to check them with a tuner.

5. After identifying a difficult spot that needs improvement, devise a technical exercise around the skills required in that section. For example: if you struggle with a certain rhythm, incorporate it into a scale exercise. Then repeat that exercise in all twelve keys every day.

Rational mind exercises focus on logical analysis, which in many cases can be provided for us by the practice tools we use every day. As always, the goal is to avoid any qualitative self-analysis (or at least to notice it when it occurs, then move on).

Exercises to feed the emotional mind:

1. Play or sing a piece (or etude, or simply a melody) that you love

2. Listen to a recording, or part of a recording, that you love

3. Play or sing along with a recording of music you enjoy, improvising an accompanying bass line, counter-melody, harmony, etc.

4. Choose an etude or piece that you know very well (to the point of memorization). Play through it with a focus only on exaggerated musical expression, rather than on technical perfection.

5. Choose a single word or phrase that encapsulates the music you are currently practicing, and write it in your music before the first measure. Take a moment to hear that word or phrase in your mind before playing, and try to embody it while you play.

These exercises are designed to encourage the emotional mind to participate in our practice sessions, and to guard against the robotic type of performances that can result from an over-emphasis on technique over music. Although technique must be practiced, we constantly need to remind ourselves that it exists to serve musical expression. 

My final recommendation is to keep track of the types of exercises you are incorporating in the practice room. If you find your practice room mind leaning too heavily toward either rational or emotional mind, make an effort to incorporate at least one exercise from the other side of the spectrum. The goal of course, is not only healthy and balanced practice, but a true wise mind in performance. 

Part 5: Participation

The past and the future don’t exist in the present.

The concept of participation goes hand-in-hand with one-mindfulness. Think about the last time you were performing in an audition. Did you experience any thoughts about the past? Were you distracted by an earlier missed note, or by a memory of a past audition? Did you notice any thoughts about the future? Were you anticipating what the committee might call next, or thinking about the consequences of your playing? It’s safe to say that most of us musicians have had thoughts like these, particularly in stressful situations. It’s not a question whether this will happen to you, but instead a question of what you will do when it happens to you.

The past and the future don’t exist in the present. All that can exist in the present moment are thoughts about the past or the future. If these thoughts do arise, the practice of mindfulness recommends that we acknowledge them, and then let them continue on out of our minds. We do this not by scolding ourselves for our thoughts, but simply by recommitting our conscious thought to the present moment. We attempt to think one-mindfully, and we attempt to fully participate in the present moment.

The act of true participation involves completely throwing ourselves into whatever we are doing in the present moment. This is true whether or not we happen to be enjoying our current activity. In addition to being present in the moment, we can go a step further and attempt to be one with what we are doing, forgetting ourselves in the process. Full and complete participation in the moment is brave; it involves acting intuitively, going with the flow, and trusting ourselves to respond to every situation with spontaneity.  

Interestingly, many of the activities recommended to help practice mindful participation involve music (dancing to music, singing along with music, singing in the shower, karaoke). These are things that non-musicians may not find themselves doing regularly. It makes sense, though, doesn’t it? Music is something that demands participation, and that fully engages our senses, intellect, and imagination. But musicians who regularly practice music have reached a level of proficiency at which certain elements of music-making are routine. Without much conscious thought, we can do things that non-musicians couldn’t dream of doing. The irony, of course, is that most of us decided to pursue music precisely because of the sense of joy, wonder, or purpose we got from participating and fully engaging in it. 

In the Practice Room

The truth is that not every moment in the practice room is full of joy and wonder. It feels like work, and for many of us, it is work. It is literally what we need to do to get paid. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but it does sometimes make us susceptible to non-participation in the present moment. It’s difficult to be as fully engaged in a technical exercise when playing it for the one hundredth (or one thousandth) time. Personally, I don’t blame us. 

The antidote to non-participation is playing music that requires our full participation. I mentioned sight-reading in the previous post, which I consider to be excellent practice for one-mindfulness. But participation requires us not just to be, but to act, and to act with intuition. In order to practice this, I recommend the one activity that strikes fear into the heart of most classically-trained musicians: improvisation.

Stay with me … I’m not asking you to suddenly become the next Coltrane or Mozart. All improvisation, even at the highest level, exists within parameters. Start by establishing reasonable parameters for yourself. I often recommend that my students pick a ‘scale (or mode) of the day.’ This can be a great starting place for any kind of improvisation. Play the scale, then begin to alter the rhythm, and then the order of the notes. Create patterns, repeat them, and vary them.   

Another idea is to play an étude, then improvise an addition to the étude in the same key and style. More experienced improvisers may choose to improvise in the style and key of their current solo piece. These exercises have the added benefit of requiring you to think and become conversant in a specific musical style. Maybe the musical style you know best doesn’t happen to be style of the music you’re practicing — then improvise in the more comfortable style. If nothing else, it will bring a welcome contrast to your practice session. As a tubist, I enjoy listening to music in my headphones (usually not classical music) and improvising my own bass line. 

You can improvise for two minutes, ten minutes, or twenty minutes. But the goal is full engagement and participation. If you feel yourself going somewhere else mentally, or lessening your level of participation, then I have good news for you: you are a human! Be patient with yourself. Consciously bring yourself back to the present moment by focusing on your physical and mental participation in it. Remember, that is the practice. 

Part 4: One-Mindfulness

The myth of multi-tasking: Learning to stick with the cursor

I’d like to start this post by addressing the myth of multitasking. Let’s say you’re having a phone conversation with a friend while reading emails on your computer at the same time. The myth of multitasking leads us to believe that we can accomplish these two tasks simultaneously, thereby somehow saving time. But the reality is that instead of doing two things at once, you’re really dividing your attention rapidly between both tasks, doing neither of them very well. You won’t remember the emails you read, and your friend on the phone will definitely notice that you’re not totally present. The reality is that we can only do two things completely simultaneously if at least one task is so routine to us that we can complete it without conscious thought (i.e., walking while chewing gum). 

The temptation to multi-task is strong for me. In some cases I welcome distractions, like the podcasts I listen to while driving, walking my dog, or doing other mundane tasks. But in other cases, the constant presence of distractions (phone, computer, etc.) diminishes my focus when I really need it. 

The practice of mindfulness asks us to be completely present in the moment — to rivet ourselves to the now. The goal is to do one thing at a time: When you are walking, walk. When you are eating, eat (or even: when you are worrying, worry). Mindfulness resources often recommend practicing this skill by focusing on awareness while performing simple tasks like making coffee or tea. Complete each step of the task with conscious thought toward it (take out the bag of coffee, take out a mug, scoop the coffee into the coffee maker, etc.). When the desire to do something else, to go somewhere else mentally, or to multitask arises, notice it and bring yourself back to the present activity. Distractions can be acknowledged, but then must be let go. 

We have never had as many potential distractions as we do today. And the act of ignoring them in order to do one thing at a time is actually counter-cultural. Our society gives us the opportunity (encourages us, really) to surround ourselves with every possible kind of media around the clock, every day. It’s really no wonder that so may of us are tired, stressed, and stretched in several directions. The concept of one-mindfulness, when practiced, can provide a break from this daily hamster wheel.

In the Practice Room

The discussion of one-mindfulness brings us to what I believe is the ultimate mindfulness exercise for the musician: that’s right, our old friend, sight-reading. The beauty of sight-reading is that it demands all of our attention be directed toward the music itself. That first reading of a new étude or piece is always an opportunity to practice one-mindfulness. Rather than viewing it as a dreaded task to be endured, we can use it as an excuse to set aside all of the other thoughts and emotions that regularly bounce around in our minds when we play. 

There was once a time when students could reliably get away with the “I can’t afford to buy new music for sight-reading” excuse. But that time is long gone. We all have our laptops, tablets, or phones in our practice rooms with us, and we all have pretty reliable access to the internet. The advent of IMSLP and other music pdf websites gives us access to an enormous amount of music, which can be delivered to our screen in a maximum of fifteen seconds. Even if we’re not actively using it as a mindfulness practice, most of us are aware that we should be sight-reading every day. 

I once gave a sight-reading example to a student in a lesson, and when he finished playing, I asked him what was going through his mind as he played. His answer was that he visualized a  cursor moving across each measure as he played it, similar to the one that moves across the screen in music notation softwares as an example is playing. I found this to be an excellent visualization for sight-reading, and I have shamelessly used it ever since. In sight-reading we can’t afford to take time to consider a missed note in the past, or a potential missed note in the future. There is barely even time for observation. We have to stay with that cursor, which represents the present moment. There is only one rule in sight-reading: Don’t stop playing.

As soon as we’ve played a piece once, we are no longer in sight-reading mode. Our training kicks in, and we begin to observe, evaluate (maybe judge), and seek ways to improve. We start to take each section apart, piece by piece, and slowly put it back together. This is what I’d call practice mode, and it can certainly be done with one-mindfulness. But when we go out onstage to perform, we can’t still be in practice mode. In performance we need to activate that cursor and direct every ounce of focus to the present moment. Sight-reading as an exercise in one-mindfulness can help us prepare for the shift from practice to performance. 

**For new sight-reading material at reasonable prices, I recommend the Clarinet Institute (https://www.clarinetinstitute.com). They have archives for each instrument, each containing hundreds of  public domain musical examples. I purchased the trumpet, trombone, and tuba archives years ago, and I still haven’t run out of music!

Part 3: Describe

A thought is just a thought, and a feeling is just a feeling.

Join me in a one-minute meditation. Sit or stand comfortably, breathing in and out regularly. Practice the skill of observation on yourself: focus on the sensation of breathing. What other physical sensations do you feel? What emotions are present within you? Engage all of your senses: do you smell, taste, or hear anything? After practicing the skill of observation in this way, the next natural step is to describe what you observed.

Like observation, description is a skill. It requires us to put our experiences into words, which means that we need a degree of separation from those experiences. We do this by sticking to the facts: who, what, when, and where (“I can feel my feet on the floor and my leg touching the chair”). Labeling a thought as just a thought (“My upcoming lesson just crossed my mind”) and a feeling as just a feeling (“I feel overwhelmed”) allows us to acknowledge our experiences without letting them overtake us. It also allows us to honestly observe our inner and outer state without any fear, guilt, or other negative emotional responses.

The aim of the practice of mindfulness is to observe and describe an experience without qualitative judgement (labeling it ‘good’ or ‘bad’). This applies both to ourselves and to others. Think about a masterclass situation, in which a student is playing for a teacher as others watch. The most effective masterclasses I’ve seen involve a teacher honestly observing and objectively describing what they hear and see, rather than making a value judgement on the performance or the player. “I had difficulty hearing your articulations” is vastly different than “your articulations were messy.” We all know that the latter scenario happens. But a precise, honest description often opens the door for interaction and constructive criticism. As musicians, we hone our senses (hearing in particular) to such a high degree that we should strive to be able to describe what we perceive without using judgmental language.

In the Practice Room

Take five minutes out of your practice session to observe and describe yourself without judgement.

1. Sit or stand comfortably, grounding yourself through your feet and legs, breathing steadily.

2. Start by observing and describing your breath, reciting mentally “inhale … exhale … etc.” 

3. Prepare to play an easy scale, continuing your mental description: “I’m raising my violin … now I’m raising my bow …” 

4. As you play, keep describing the process mentally: “I’m playing a C … I’m playing a D.” Try to remain completely engaged in the acts of observing and describing, and when your attention wavers, calmly bring it back.

When you are finished playing, start by saying to yourself “I noticed …” What did you notice in your playing? If it helps, write down what you observed in the most objective way possible. For example, “I played an E-flat instead of an E-natural,” or “I felt the muscles in my left shoulder become more tense.” If you noticed any thoughts or feelings, write those as well. The object of the exercise is not to change any of these observations, but simply to make them, separate from any judgement. Take the phrase “I noticed …” from this exercise into the rest of your practice session.

The practice of mindfulness is rooted in an awareness of and engagement with the present moment. Exercises like the practice meditation above can provide us with a helpful “reset button” in the practice room. It may be impossible to continue with such a detailed level of observation and description as you move beyond scales into études or solo repertoire. That is completely natural. The act of noticing your attention wandering, or of noticing judgmental language in your self-descriptions, is part of the practice. The fact that you noticed it at all is enough for today.

Part 2: Non-judgement

We cannot un-think judgmental thoughts, but we do not have to fuel them.

Take a few moments to call to mind your last practice session. Did you run through a daily routine? What music did you practice? Was it a typical session, or was there something out of the ordinary about it? As you look back, keep track of the thoughts about your practice that pass through your mind. You may find that while some of your thoughts are objective, others may be rooted in value judgement. Did the words “good,” or “bad” cross your mind?

Judgement is a uniquely human reaction. While we cannot avoid it, we can raise our awareness of it. As musicians, we need to be able to evaluate our playing in order to improve. But many of our self-evaluative thoughts mix with judgement. This is particularly difficult to avoid in artistic or musical situations, because we experience art and music subjectively. Musicians often feel the need to use subjective words to describe musical sounds. In the context of music and mindfulness, judgment occurs when subjectivity veers off into qualitative evaluation (good and bad).   

Consider this example: You’re having a conversation with someone, and you notice that while you are speaking, the person’s brow furrows, and the corners of their mouth turn down. You think to yourself “What’s wrong? Was it something I said?” After observing the person’s body language, your thoughts assigned a judgement to the situation. The reality is that the person’s expression could have changed for a variety of reasons, only a few of which have anything to do with you. If you let your own behavior be colored by your judgement of the person’s facial expression, what good does that do? This is an example of the tiny judgements that color our perceptions every day. 

The practice of mindfulness asks us to observe at a very detailed level, but to do so without judgement. The goal is to accept each moment without evaluating it as good or bad. Acknowledge what you observe as helpful or as harmful, but do not judge it. Acknowledge your own emotional reactions (emotions are not judgements), but do not judge them. And finally—the trickiest task of all—when you catch yourself being judgmental, don’t judge yourself for judging.

In the Practice Room

Eliminating judgement from the practice room is a tall order, so I would suggest starting with a simple exercise that helps to track the mental language you are using in the practice room. 

1. Choose an etude or section of a piece and record yourself playing it. Think of this as a snapshot of where you stand on that music in that moment.

2. As you hear yourself play, and then as you listen to the recording, keep a running list of the words or phrases that float through your mind in response to what you hear. 

3. Write those words and phrases in your practice journal, computer, phone, etc. Make this list as complete as you possibly can. 

4. Note which words or phrases are objective, and which are subjective. Try to identify terminology that makes a value judgment on your playing. The word “warm” can be a helpful descriptive term in music, but the word “ugly” is a value judgement.   

5. Acknowledge your own emotional response to the listening, and to this exercise. 

6. Make an effort not to judge your playing, your terminology, or your emotional response. Then give yourself a break for being judgmental!

As you sort through your own mental terminology, try to imagine using that language with a student during a lesson. You may find that you are much more harsh and judgmental toward yourself than you would ever be toward a student. Why wouldn’t you use judgmental language in a lesson? Because it would not be productive. The same, of course, could be said about judgment in the practice room. Even positive value judgments don’t particularly aid improvement, though they may bring an accompanying positive emotional response.    

The task in the exercise above is to recognize and acknowledge judgmental thoughts and language. But what do we do with judgment when we find it? Even as our awareness grows, judgment will never completely leave us. We cannot un-think judgmental thoughts. But we do not have to fuel them by dwelling upon them, or by following them down a rabbit hole of subjective thought. We can simply let them drift past our mental field of vision like clouds. We can make an effort to balance the judgment by incorporating observation-based language into our mental and verbal vocabularies.

Part 1: Observe

While we cannot control what we see or hear, we can control our attention.

What exactly is happening around you at this very moment? Take a moment to survey your surroundings. Take note of the specific objects you see in your field of vision. What do you hear? If the room is quiet, do you hear the hum of an air conditioning or heating system? Are there any smells? What textures do you feel beneath your fingertips? Now take a moment to check your inner environment. What physical sensations do you feel? What thoughts or emotions are present? 

The skill of observation is central to the practice of mindfulness. How often do we move through a space without really noticing the environment around us? It’s incredibly easy to lose track of our surroundings in the midst of a busy day, with plenty of distractions that demand our attention. Our habit of running from task to task, barely coming up for air, often contributes to the stress in our lives rather than helping to dispel it through our accomplishments. There will forever be another task, but there will never be another moment exactly like this one.

I describe observation as a skill because it is just that. We are not born with most skills, but they can be developed through practice (sound familiar?). In the practice of mindfulness, the skill of observation is more than just a glance around the room. It requires us to purposefully direct our attention to the present moment. While we cannot control what we see or hear, we can control our attention. 

In the Practice Room

How often do you observe yourself in the practice room without simultaneously analyzing and/or evaluating yourself? It’s a tall order for most musicians. While we are usually (mostly) paying attention during practice sessions, there is often an extra layer of self-analysis and qualitative judgement. Add in a few more layers of self-doubt, self-criticism, and fear of rejection, and we have a volatile cocktail that can really hinder our progress.

Analysis and evaluation, of course, are necessary. But take five minutes in the practice room to try this: 

1. Simply sit or stand comfortably and take stock of your surroundings: sights, sounds, smells, touch, etc.

2. Next, take stock of your inner state, both physical and mental. Are you feeling confident? Nervous? Distracted? Stressed? So be it. 

3. Take three or more deep breaths in and out, paying close attention to the feeling and grounding yourself in your attention to your breath.

4. Play or sing a simple exercise — one that doesn’t require too much of you technically. It could be a warmup exercise, an etude, or part of a piece of music. While playing, direct all of your attention to observing both the physical sensations you are experiencing and the sound you are hearing. 

Whatever you notice in your playing while closely observing it, so be it. If something about your playing pleased you, excellent—but don’t cling to it. If something went wrong in some way, don’t push it away. Just allow yourself to only observe for a few moments. When I do this, I find that words will float through my mind, like “dark,” “sharp,” or sometimes, if I’m really distracted, “lunch!” So be it. The goal is to let those words and thoughts keep on floating past your mental field of vision. Cling to nothing, and push nothing away.  

The practice of mindfulness is … well, a practice. It is not a serene, zen-like state of being where your mind is magically free of negative thoughts. When you are in the practice room, intent on observing, but your attention wanders, you notice it, and you bring yourself back to observing—that is the practice. And it does take practice. 

**The information here is adapted from DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition, by Marsha M. Linehan

**For a non-musical practice in observation download and try the “10-Minute Walking Meditation” episode of The Mindful Podcast.

Introduction

This blog is a documentation of my continued study and practice of mindfulness. Specifically, it deals with how mindfulness can apply to musicians in the practice room. A disclaimer: I don’t know everything about mindfulness. The information for the following series of blogs comes from a six-week seminar on the topic, and from my own experiences. I write because it helps to ground me and hold me accountable in my own practice of mindfulness. The most important fact that I have learned about mindfulness is this: it is a practice. It is not a state of being, but rather it is something you try to do (successfully or not) every day. Luckily for us musicians, we are accustomed to the idea of practice. That moment when we step back and simply notice that our focus has shifted from the present moment to regrets about the past, fears about the future, or any other emotional rabbit hole — that is the practice.