Tag Archives: Improving Musical Performance

Ask Yourself “This Question” Instead Of “That Question” For Optimal Satisfaction

selective focus photography of piano keys
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“A man’s a genius just for looking like himself.”

-Thelonious Monk

When I first fell in love with the idea of playing music, it was because I wanted to play jazz. And the thing that impressed me the most about my favorite jazz musicians was how authentically they expressed themselves. It was like you could “see” who they were as human beings simply by listening to the sounds they were making. Often you knew just by they way they played a single note.

I wanted that magic more than anything I’d ever wanted before in my young life. I wanted to be able to let something deep inside me come out to show the world who I was, the way my jazz heroes did.

So I began serious study of the flute and the saxophone. I practiced diligently and thoughtfully, really putting in the time and effort.

But it wasn’t long into my studies when my motivation began to transform. It shifted from the idealized notion of “what I wanted to do”, to whether or not what I was doing was “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”, etc.

Of course this is normal, and it made sense at the time. I really wanted to learn to express myself, and there must be a single, correct way to do so (or so my young mind thought).

The up side of this shift was that I became aware of all the things I had to address in order to be able to develop the skills I needed to express myself.

But as the years passed, some unintended consequences came along with this emphasis on looking for what was good or bad, or right or wrong, in my playing. In short, I’d lost touch with that original, beautiful motivation for why I wanted to play in the first place.

I’d lost touch with the magic.

There was not a single thing that I did as musician that felt exclusive (or deeply connected) to me. My sound was pleasant and full, my technique solid, I could improvise reasonably skillfully in a variety of styles.

But there was nothing in what I played that felt like it was that same “me” that wanted to play music in the first place those years before.

It was a strangely unsatisfying feeling. On the one hand I was playing “pretty well”, getting gigs and playing in a variety of ensembles. On the other hand, I didn’t really like (or dislike, for that matter) much of what I played.

Then something shifted in my attitude. It began as I pondered a rather odd, hypothetical question that came to mind one rainy afternoon as I sat in my practice room:

“How would my playing change from this point onward if I knew nobody but ‘me’ would ever hear ‘me’ again?”

I spent a long time with this question, meditating on it daily for many weeks. I began to journal quite meticulously about my thoughts. Great details began to emerge in my journaling about my conception of sound, about aesthetics in improvisation (especially phrasing, and silence), about expanded sonic possibilities and techniques on saxophone, and more.

My imagination came to life! I became excited about how I was pondering this question, and was greatly inspired to practice in a completely new way.

To this day, I’m profoundly grateful for asking that question. Because that is the question I needed to ask in order to bring myself back to my original motivation to play music, those years ago. To bring myself back to the magic.

And it has been that “original motivation” that keeps me so endlessly engaged in my process as a musician, and in my growth as a human being.

In essence, what happened was a change in a basic question about assessing myself and my needs as a musician.

Instead of asking myself the question,

“Is this good?” (or “bad”, as the case may be), about anything that had to do with my playing, musical conception, etc.,

I began to ask myself instead,

“Is this what I want?”

Now, you might be thinking that these are the same thing. But the difference in how you might proceed, depending on which of these questions you ask yourself, can be huge.

And for sure there is overlap. A rich, flexible and resonant sound is a “good” thing, and it can also be “something I want”.

But when I go to “what I want” as a guideline, I turn to an intrinsic set of values to guide me toward a rich, flexible and resonant sound. I start thinking and imagining things more specifically, with great attention to detail.

A “rich, flexible and resonant” sound manifests itself in an enormous variety of colors and voices. And when it is my voice, my imagination…well, it just becomes clear and deeply satisfying to experience and to express.

You see, one of the potential drawbacks of the “good/bad” question is that it too typically comes from an extrinsic set of values, from things outside of the imagination and desire of the artist.

In my experience teaching the Alexander Technique to young, emerging performing artists (of a variety of disciplines), this assessment of “good” can sometimes come with a lack of clarity and details.

“I just recognize ‘good’ when I hear it”, is not a particularly constructive conception. Aimless and meandering, at best.

And the assessment of “bad” with these same artists is also too often lacking in useful information and details.

When I can help them to change the inquiry from “good/bad” to “want/don’t want”, they are able to seamlessly merge good technical qualities with authentic self expression. It’s win/win.

So give yourself a chance to think about these two questions. Explore them in the practice room with love and genuine curiosity. Keep them in mind when you’re listening to music you really love, too.

Allow yourself, as Thelonious Monk said, to “look like yourself”. This beautiful world we live in needs your voice.

For This “Career Ending Condition”, There Is Hope

Around 25 years ago, I started noticing a deeply troubling change in my saxophone playing experience. Simply put, I would have days where I just couldn’t seem to get the fingers of my left hand to do what they could so easily and naturally always do before in order to express myself musically.

At first this was a phenomenon that seemed to come and go, but after about 5 years of this “come and go”, I fell rather immediately into a period of complete loss of control of the fingers of my left hand.

The strange thing was that my left hand worked just fine in any other activity…writing, using hand tools, cooking…activities that require a good amount of fine motor skill.

Yet the moment I even touched the keys on any of my saxophones, my fingers would curl up uncontrollably.

I got to the point where I couldn’t even hold the fingers of my left hand down onto the keys of the saxophone, much less play anything resembling music. I had to stop accepting any kind of work playing saxophone, as well as even just enjoying a rehearsal or jam session. I could no longer play. Simple as that.

To say that I fell into a deep despair would be an understatement.

It was after seeing a physician (a very good internal medicine doctor, whose specialty was in diagnosis), that I learned that I most likely had a form of focal dystonia. I went on to get a diagnosis from a neurologist to confirm this.

The term “focal dystonia” was something I’d never heard before. But the symptoms, this type of unexplained loss of skill specific to the act of playing music, was not unfamiliar to me.

I had encountered several other musicians over the years prior to the emergence of my condition who had similar experiences. In fact, one of my closest friends and musical colleagues, a highly skilled and highly accomplished trombonist, was experiencing this same phenomenon with his facial muscles and tongue.

So what is focal dystonia?

I think this definition by the Dystonia Research Foundation sums it up best:

“Dystonia is a neurological disorder that causes excessive, involuntary muscle contractions. These muscle contractions result in abnormal muscle movements and body postures, making it difficult for individuals to control their movements. The movements and postures may be painful. Dystonic movements are typically patterned and repetitive.”

Within the realm of focal dystonia, there are several sub-categories. For those whose dystonic symptoms only appear while engaging in a learned, skilled activity, the condition is referred to as task specific focal dystonia.

This includes things as common as “writer’s cramp” (though I suspect that lots of forms of writer’s cramp are not focal dystonia, but simply overuse, or misuse), to surgeons losing their “hand skills” only while performing surgery, to a condition in the sport of golf known as the “yips”, where the golfer shakes uncontrollably before a shot that is normally “easy” to make.

And within the of category of task specific focal dystonia, there is task specific musician’s dystonia, more commonly known as musician’s dystonia, or simply by its acronym, MD.

And to subdivide even further, there are generally two types of musician’s dystonia: hand dystonia and embouchure dystonia (“embouchure dystonia” includes the facial muscles, tongue, jaw, soft palate, sometimes neck muscles, and even respiratory structures).

The first thing you are told if you are diagnosed as having musician’s dystonia, is that there is no cure. There are a few medical modalities that can be applied (medications, botox injections, etc.), that might lessen the symptoms. But I’ve yet to encounter a musician who became permanently “symptom free” from these interventions.

This is in part, because the “mechanism” of the condition is still largely a mystery to medical science, and hence any kind of “cure” is not to be found.

For most musicians who get medically diagnosed as having musician’s dystonia, the advice is often the same: Switch careers.

Well that’s just something that’s not easily accepted by many musicians. It certainly wasn’t easy for me. In fact, I refused accept it.

For “serious”, life-dedicated musicians (whether professional or amateur), the idea of not being able to express ourselves freely, authentically and skillfully through music is tantamount to losing an essential part of what defines us, and what gives deep meaning to our lives.

So I was faced with my only option: work at making my condition better so that I could restore this essential part of my life.

My path was (and continues to be) long, and the learning (and more important, the “unlearning”) process was not a straight line. At first I tried to improve my symptoms by practicing more. Much more.

But the more I practiced, the worst my condition became.

Then I went in the other direction, deciding to take a break from playing saxophone completely in order to see if I would “forget” the old dystonic patterns.

After not touching the instrument for many months (and being at the point where I just couldn’t stand being away from it any longer), I painfully discovered that nothing had changed. If anything I felt even more “dystonic” and disconnected to the saxophone than ever before.

I tried massage, stretching, exercise, change of diet…just about anything I could to try, to alleviate my condition. Nothing seemed to work even in the slightest.

It wasn’t until I discovered the Alexander Technique that things begin to change. It was in my Alexander Technique lessons that I learned three very important things:

First, musician’s dystonia (like any focal dystonia) is a “whole body/whole person” reaction. It is something that affects the coordination of my entire physical (or more precisely, “psycho-physical) organism. As my general “use” began to improve (my quality of movement, balance, posture, attention, etc.), my dystonia symptoms became noticeably fewer and less intense.

Second, a big part of learning to improve my overall “use” was in developing the skill of conscious inhibition, i.e., the ability to keep an unwanted reaction in check. I learned that by simply “giving myself permission to stop” whenever I felt the rise of a dystonic reaction while playing my instrument made an immediate and remarkable improvement in my symptoms.

Third, I learned the importance of accepting my symptoms just as they were in the moment. In short, I developed the ability to stop “reacting to how I was reacting”. I discovered that I could observe myself more discerningly, more objectively and dispassionately. This was an empowering realization, and became emblematic of my emerging skills with conscious inhibition.

(I was so impressed with the efficacy of the Alexander Technique, that I went on to train to become a certified Teacher, and have been teaching since 2006.)

As I applied this work, I also started doing lots of studying, from neuroscience, to kinesiology, to anatomy/physiology, and more. I formulated lots of exercises, explorations and activities based upon my studies, and spent a good deal of time working things out.

My progress often seemed “two steps forward, one step back”, but that was okay. I’ll accept that ratio. My daily practice sessions transformed from frustration, despair and discouragement, to curiosity, exploration, discovery and delight. The process of improvement itself became deeply satisfactory.

Since then I’ve continued to improve my condition to the point where I can play saxophone now with the skill, confidence, connection and authenticity that gives me joy and satisfaction.

I’ve also had the opportunity to help some other musicians with dystonia to improve their condition, and it is for this reason that I’ve created a page on my blog dedicated to offering this help.

So if you have musician’s dystonia (or suspect that you do), please get in touch with me. I always proceed from a place of love, understanding and safety in addressing this condition.

And if you know a musicians that is struggling with musician’s dystonia (whether with the embouchure or hands), please direct them my way.

There is hope…

Awareness In Playing Music: “Looking For” In Contrast To “Noticing”

To improve what you do as a musician, you must pay attention to things in sometimes extraordinary ways.

This is especially true if you aim to change any habits you might have of misdirected effort and energy. To find more ease and efficiency in your body as you play your instrument, you sometimes have to call things into question.

But consciously increasing the awareness of your postural and movement habits as you play your instrument can be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, if you never become aware of these habits, you’re never going to be free of them (thereby limiting your growth as a musician).

On the other hand, focusing too much on these habits while you’re playing can actually make things worse rather than better.

So to improve what you do, you need to balance these two (sometimes opposing) forces.

When musicians come to me for Alexander Technique lessons, there is always some imbalance between “lack of awareness” and “hyper-awareness”. My job is to help my client explore, discover and cultivate the kind of dynamic (“dynamic”, as in always able to change) attention that will yield the best results.

Here’s a little experiment I sometimes use with the musicians I coach to get them aware, not only of themselves and their postural and movement habits, but of the quality of their own self awareness:

Experiment One-Scanning for Misdirected Effort/Tension/Energy

As you play your instrument, pay attention to a particular part of your body. Do this several times, each time changing the anatomical location of where you’re looking. While drawing your attention to each part, observe and ask yourself these three questions:

1 “What do I notice?”

2 “Am I free and available for movement here, or am I holding on more than I need to?”

3 “What could I let go of to play more easily?”

Don’t worry about being “right or wrong” as you ask these questions. Just observe. You can organize your observations toward the following areas of your body, starting and stopping each time you change the awareness of where it is you’re looking:

  • Head/jaw/neck
  • Shoulders/chest/upper back area
  • Arms/hands/fingers
  • Lower back/abdominal area
  • Buttocks and hips (front and rear of your pelvic area)
  • Knees/upper legs
  • Lower legs/ankles/feet

What do you notice when you do this experiment?

You might have noticed some unnecessary effort (i.e., “stiffness”, “tightness”, etc.) in one or more areas of your body. And that awareness can be a very good thing, enabling the possibility of change and improvement.

It’s also quite possible that in “looking for” this misdirected effort that you actually increased it.

(Take a moment to think about that.)

Too often when you look for “trouble”, you not only find it, but typically amplify it. (There are myriad reasons why that is with respect to how your neuromuscular systems function.)

So “looking” for it helps you become aware of what needs to change, but it doesn’t necessarily improve your coordination in that moment.

Okay, lets look at another experiment:

Experiment Two-Noticing Ease

This time as you play your instrument, pay attention to yourself in a more “global” (whole body) way, instead of the “segmented” way you did in the first experiment.

But this time, don’t “look for” anything in particular. Instead, as you bring your body gently and flexibly into your attention, simply take note of places in your body where things are already easy and free. Notice where you are already mobile, already in good balance, already dynamic, already poised…

In essence, notice the ease that is already there inside you.

That ease might be anywhere…your shoulders, hands, legs, back….in your breathing….

No matter how “tense” you might think you are when you’re playing, there is always some ease going on somewhere. It’s just a matter of being available in your attention to notice it.

To be clear, you’re not searching for something that is not there, nor are you trying to “create” ease. (Trying to do so would most likely invite unwanted/misdirected effort.)

Instead, you’re just opening your awareness to what is already happening unconsciously on its own.

And what do you do with this acknowledgment of ease?

Nothing at all. Don’t form any agenda with what you take note of.

Just let it be.

So what happens when you notice what is already “right” (easy, mobile, freely available, light) inside your body as you play your instrument?

How does this contrast to the quality in your body when you are “looking for” misdirected effort/tension/energy?

(Take some time to seriously ponder these questions.)

You just might find (as I do) that when you “notice ease” in your body, that this ease migrates and expands to other parts of your body. It’s kind of like a “virtuous circle”, perpetuating itself to inform you of the possibility of ease in the rest of your entire organism.

When I’m performing on saxophone, I never “look for trouble” in my body. Because if I do, things become worse rather than better.

But the instant something moves toward “wrong” with myself (in my body) as I’m playing, it comes easily into my attention, and I’m able to gently say “no” to it. (In Alexander Technique parlance, that’s known as “conscious inhibition”.) This is a skill that I cherish, and is one that helps me play with greater ease, efficiency, consistency and satisfaction.

It is a skill that has been (and continues to be) cultivated by “scanning” myself while practicing (Experiment One).

But I had to learn early on as a student of the Alexander Technique to balance the “looking for trouble” part with “noticing ease” as it applies to playing my instrument.

And as I’ve said above, the “looking for it” part can be a useful tool in the practice room when used wisely. (The “looking for it part” is a good place to visit from time to time, but not a great place to live all the time.)

Nowadays, for sure, I notice ease more readily and naturally. And that ability to notice what is already there, what is already helping me, continues to enhance my coordination and skill as a musician.

And I hope it can enhance yours, too! So give this two-part experiment a go. See what you discover. Be kind with yourself, (and curious, persistent and patient, too). And please always feel free to contact me if you need help. Helping musicians do what they do better is my passion!

The Value Of Having (But Not Always Following) A Daily Practice Plan

“If you make a mistake, you might want to play that…”

-Miles Davis

I’ve been teaching the Alexander Technique since 2009 at AMDA College of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

For every class that I teach, I always arrive with a fairly well detailed lesson plan. In my 10 years of teaching I’ve never once stuck to my plan.

Yet I still continue to formulate a plan and bring it with me to every single class.

And every day for the past many years (too many for me to remember), I start each of my daily saxophone practice sessions with a fairly well detailed practice plan. In all these years of practicing, I’ve never once stuck to my plan.

Yet I still continue to formulate a plan and bring it with me into the practice room.

Why (you might ask) would I do this? Why would I expend time on something that, ultimately, I won’t use?

Well, the truth of the matter is that I always use my plans.

Just because I don’t stick to them doesn’t mean they’re not of great value to me, both in teaching and in learning.

So let’s go to the more fundamental questions here:

1. Why make a plan in the first place?

2. Why don’t I adhere to my plan?

Why make a plan in the first place?

Because making a plan clarifies and details my intentions. These intentions are drawn from what it is that I’d like to accomplish/address. This is always based upon my experiences from the pervious session (whether in the classroom or practice room).

So I begin each session without ambiguity, without hesitation. I immediately start my work efficiently and purposefully. Minimal “wasted” time/energy, optimal engagement/presence.

All good, yes? So then…

Why don’t I adhere to my plan?

In a word: flexibility. As important as my intentions are, I must remain ever vigilant to what is actually needed in the present moment. And that requires an ability to be open to the possibilities of altering my previously intended course of action.

This, to be sure, involves balancing on a fine line. It means staying committed to doing the thing that is most helpful, whether this falls inside or outside of my plan.

It means staying always mindful of my plan (my experience-based intentions), but being willing to let go of some (or all!) of it, too. It means, sometimes, that I come up with an entirely new course of action right there in the moment.

If you’re an improvising musician, you probably already see this attitude as being analogous to improvising music. There is form, perhaps even some kind of a planned sequence of events.

But often, the real magic happens when we deviate from the plan.

Yet this deviation could never occur without a plan in the first place. (I actually think the reason jazz musicians enjoy improvising over standard songs, in part, is to have a “plan to push against”.)

So when you practice do you have a plan? If so, what is it based upon? Are you flexible with it? If not, why not?

And if you don’t have a daily plan when you practice, consider changing that habit. You can always alter (or even abandon) the plan. But you will start each practice session with clarity, curiosity and accountability. You will work toward your goals in a conscious and onstructive manner, always building collectively from previous experience.

Work toward making your plan as detailed as is most optimal for you. Too much detail (or too many tasks)? Simplify. Prioritize and let the things go that seem least essential. What seems to work? What doesn’t?

Not enough detail? Start filling in some blanks. Add more tasks. Ask more questions:

“What do I want? What do I need to work on to get that? What is standing in my way right now?” What can I let go of?”

Take time to formulate and write out tomorrow’s plan at the end of today’s practice session.

Get to know yourself and your music ever more intimately. And enjoy the process!

Time and Rhythm: Discovering the Magic Between the Beats

“Many people think that how they commit to the metronomic beat is the only game in town. But in bebop, the game in between this beat and the next one is really the main game.”

-Charles McPherson

“The metronome is not my sense of time. My sense of time lies between the metronome clicks.”

-Bill Plake

Well, I have at least one thing in common with alto saxophone great Charles McPherson. We both agree about our relationship to time (and how we perceive it).

Many musicians who seek my help in improving their sense of time and rhythm tend to have this more “passive” approach to the beat, as described above. This is, in part, because they view playing with “good” time as some kind of burden, as something they are obligated  to do in a rather precise and inflexible manner.

But playing with “good” time is not a burden. It is a liberator,  making your music more vivid, along with optimizing your skill and coordination.

And for you to play with “good” time, you need to be flexible and dynamic in two specific ways:

First, you need to be flexible and responsive to the time/rhythm/feel nuances of the other musicians with whom you’re playing.

Second, you need to have a dynamic rhythmic imagination.

It is this “dynamic rhythmic imagination” that I wish to address here.

No matter what kind of music you’re playing, “between the beats” is where all the possibilities lie. If you’re playing “interpretive” music, lets’ say, Bach, for example, it is your imagination of the “unevenness” (the emphasis and de-emphasis) of each of the eighth notes in a particular phrase that give it a unique expressive quality.

In other words, it is how you “imagine” the eighth notes relative to the beat  that puts your personal stamp on the music.

If you’re an improvising musician, on the other hand, it’s not just how  you imagine the eighth notes relative to the beat, but also what  you imagine rhythmically.

By “what”, I’m talking about the complexity and richness of your rhythmic expression. I’m talking about more than just continuous eighth (or sixteenth) notes.

Syncopation, polyrhythm, metric modulation, polymeter…even silence…all of this can be part of your rhythmic imagination. The “game in between this beat and the next one”, as Charles McPherson says.

And for sure, as an improvising musician, the “how” of how you play your eighth notes, sixteenths, etc., relative to the beat, is a vital component of your expression. (I think of this as a part of your “time feel”.)

But the bottom line is that none of this happens without consciously strategic and constructive work. In the simplest sense, that means working on two specific skills:

  1. Your sense of pulse (your ability to imagine and accurately predict) the beat (or “clicks” on the metronome).
  2. Your ability to imagine and move with an ever-expanding vocabulary of rhythmic expression relative to that beat.

The key word here is imagination.  When you’re practicing, that might mean using a minimal amount of metronome clicks relative to the rhythm being explored.

So for example, if you’re working on feeling eighth-note septuplets (seven notes played within two beats), it would make little sense to set the metronome clicking on each eighth note of the septuplet. Doing so might make your eighth notes sound “more even and precise”, but will do nothing for your rhythmic imagination. Ultimately, it is your carefully cultivated “rhythmic imagination” that will make your rhythms most precise, whether your playing by yourself or with others.

It would be more beneficial to set the metronome click in three ways. From easier to more challenging, these are:

  1. One click per each septuplet.
  2. Two clicks per each septuplet. (Believe it or not, you’ll most likely find this to be a bit more tricky.)
  3. One click per measure. (So, in 4/4 that would be one click for every 14 notes)

Once you’re able to do all this fairly readily, next would be to displace the click of the metronome relative to the septuplets, perhaps having it click beat two of each measure (or if you’re really up for a challenge, having it click on the “and” of beats one and three!)

Working on rhythms with this kind of intention and precision yields remarkable results, whether you’re an interpretive or improvising musician. The music “between the beats” comes alive inside of you with sometimes startling energy!

I’ve composed an e-book filled with exercises to help you enrich your rhythmic imagination, as well as to improve your ability to predict  the beats. Working daily in this way will help you build measureable skills that apply to whichever kind of music you play.

In any case, I encourage you embrace Maestro McPherson’s assertion, and discover the magic between the beats. Here’s a link to Ethan Iverson’s excellent interview with Charles McPherson. Enjoy!