Category Archives: Healthy Practice Habits

Don’t Overlook This Important Element For a Satisfying Musical Life

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Perseverance, discipline, passion, courage and faithfulness are qualities that every serious musician needs in order to achieve any kind of success (both/either commercial and/or artistic).

In this rapidly changing world, where the perceived value of artistic efforts in general is in a constant state of flux, I find it remarkable that there are so many marvelously talented, inspired, skilled and driven musicians.

With the advent of the internet and digital recording technology, along with the ever-changing cultures at music schools and in professional ensembles, the skill standards in musical performance seem dauntingly high.

No question in my mind that musicians are working as hard as ever pursuing excellence in their art and craft. In many genres of music, the precision  with which many musicians play these days is at its peak.

And there are loads of great, highly useful resources (teachers/mentors, articles, DVDs, books, online subscriptions, etc.) available these days to help the serious musician improve and grow in order to meet the demands of today’s professional musical standards.

But there is one essential element that is rarely mentioned for succeeding in this fast-paced musical world we live in:

Sustainability.

Put simply, sustainability is having the capacity to continue doing what you love (playing music!), in a healthful and ultimately satisfying way.

Many of the musicians who seek my help as an Alexander Technique teacher do so, in large part, because of a particular issue of sustainability. Specifically, playing music for them has become uncomfortable, painful and in some cases, even injurious.

They might already be playing quite well (several of my clients are top-shelf performers in either classical, commercial or jazz music), but realize that they need to change something in themselves if they are to sustain the careers they so love.

Helping them to discover how to play with less strain, with less misdirected effort, with greater ease, balance and flexibility, is one of my deepest satisfactions.

But it is not uncommon for my clients, during the course of their work with me, to confront other aspects of sustainability.

For example, I have worked with professional symphonic musicians who’ve become so stressed out by the demands for “absolute precision” in their performances, that, even if they can deliver such “precision” (and many can!), they begin to lose the joy of what brought them to play music in the first place.

Their work experience is one of considerable worry, and even fear. This not only negatively impacts their musical performance experiences, but also deeply affects the quality of their lives in general.

Some time back, I gave Alexander Technique lessons to a highly accomplished brass player (principal player in a world-class orchestra) who related to me how stressful the entire day  would be of whichever concert that he was playing.

He would sometimes have to “disconnect” from his family, isolating himself the entire day so that he could “focus” completely on the task at hand. (And keep in mind that he was playing hundreds of concerts per year!)

His “performance day” stories made me feel deeply sad. Though I envied his skill and accomplishments, I certainly did not envy the lifestyle of his “success”.

He also told me that his case was not at all unusual, and had loads of stories of his colleague’s “rituals” and “phobias” before concerts. He mentioned how their entire lives were in constant subjugation of their careers.

In essence, that kind of lifestyle was becoming more and more unsatisfactory, and ultimately, unsustainable for him and many of his colleagues. Lots of burn out, injuries, divorces, career changes and worse, for some of these folks, unfortunately.

And there are other issues of sustainability that musicians of varying levels of skill and success face.

Many serious amateur musicians, for example, are in a constant state of dissatisfaction with their practice efforts.

Either they’re frustrated because a lack of sufficient practice time keeps them too far from realizing their desires and potential, or that even when they do get enough practice, they keep running into the same, seemingly impossible hurdles in improving their skills.

A good amount musicians that have sought my help have done so because no matter how “hard” they practice, they can’t seem to improve. This becomes an unsustainable situation. Unless these musicians can learn to change what they do, to redirect their strategy and effort in a more constructive way, they will eventually stop playing.

As human beings, we are built to deal with adversity and disappointment, as long as there is meaning in this adversity and disappointment. But when we try, try, try, and get no discernible improvement, we begin to lose meaning.

And when we lose meaning, we eventually stop trying.

So it’s not enough just to practice that much “harder” (or longer), or even to find the best and latest exercises and techniques to keep you improving and meeting the demands of your profession and/or avocation. To stay in it for the long haul, your efforts, your passion…must be sustainable.

Here are some of the qualities of a sustainable musical life:

  • Physical efficiency and ease. Yes ease. If every day that you practice feels like running a marathon, you’re likely to encounter chronic pain and possibly even injury. Learn to cultivate “effortless effort” (a good Alexander Technique teacher can really help a lot with this!) Staying healthy (physically and emotionally) is of prime importance!
  • Artistic satisfaction. Yes, it’s okay to always want more, but learn to enjoy what is already there, what you already have. It’s okay to be happy with your efforts. Plus, you should be playing the kind of music that brings you  satisfaction. It doesn’t have to be your dream gig, but you have to find pleasure in doing it, if you’re to continue.
  • A balanced family/social life. Remember that you are a human being first. It is deeply wired into your brain and body to connect with those you love. Don’t let your musical life threaten your life as a human being. If you’re spending all  your time practicing…well, you know that’s less than ideal, to say the least.
  • A reasonably comfortable lifestyle. None of us are in it for the money. But if your professional life as a musician is keeping you in oppressive poverty, you might want to rethink a few things. You don’t have to be rich, but having a comfortable and safe home, with access to good food and health care, is essential for sustaining your efforts.
  • Self-esteem. Knowing that you are being kind to yourself, that you are working on your music from a place of love (instead of fear), that you can accept the ups and downs of  your artistic, professional and personal lives, and that you truly do love yourself, is probably the quality that will help you find the other for items mentioned above.

So continue to work hard, continue to strive, but always find meaning in what you do. Keep cultivating hope. Keep on keepin’ on!

A Common Attitude That Too Often Interferes With Optimal Practice

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The quality of your music practice is directly related to the quality of your consciousness when practicing.

Put simply, the way in which you pay attention  as you practice significantly impacts the success of your efforts. Perhaps more than you realize. Indeed, practice is not merely a “physical” act, but a “whole person” endeavor.

Whenever I’m coaching musicians who’ve come to me for help because of frustration with their practice effort/strategy, I nearly always hear this simple five-word phrase within the first minute of their description of their problem:

“I should be able to…”

“I should be able to attack the notes in the lower register with the same consistency as the other registers.”

“I should be able to play these scale patterns at a much faster tempo than I am currently able.”

“I should be able to memorize new music much more quickly than I normally  do.”

And so on.

And of course, nearly all of the “I should be able to…” assertions are accompanied by something like this:

“…especially for how long I’ve been working at it.”

So why is this a problem? After all, should you not aim precisely for what you want when you practice? Should you not have high standards?

Well of course you should! On both accounts!

So what’s the potential problem then?

In the simplest sense it’s this:

“I should be able to” places you immediately into the realm of expectation, too often taking you away from the reality what’s actually happening  in the present moment.

This phenomenon leads to two closely related negative outcomes:

1 Misdirected effort.

2 Frustration.

Misdirected effort, because when you get stuck on “I should be able to do this”, you limit yourself to discerning what’s already there. In essence, you lose your entry point into where  and how  you need to direct your practice efforts.

For example, let’s say that yesterday you were able to play this particular piece at quarter note equals 176 bpm on the metronome, but today you can’t get anywhere near that tempo without the whole thing falling apart.

What should you do?

Well, more often than not, if you insist upon continuing the tempo at which you can’t  play it, you just end up cultivating imprecision. You end up engaging in an activity that is just outside of your reach.

Both skill and conception get “approximated”, as the great pianist, Bill Evans would say. (“Garbage in, garbage out”, as my brother Ed, a highly skilled cabinet maker, would say.)

And of course this obviously leads to frustration, both in the short-run and in the long-run. (“But I’m working so hard to improve!”)

But if you first acknowledge what is already there, taking note of what you can already do (or can’t do), you discover for yourself this ever essential entry point.

And from this entry point you can also begin to examine your current conditions and explore and ultimately discern why you’re perhaps not  able to do today what you could do yesterday. You can ask yourself questions:

“How am I perceiving time/rhythm today?”

“How am using my body? Am I free and mobile, or rather rigid and planted? Where am I holding on too much?”

“Where is my attention going? Is it  flexible and dynamic, or too narrowly focused on one small part of the process (or on one part of my body, at the expense of neglecting the whole)?”

“How clearly am I conceiving of/imagining the dynamic nature of the music itself?”

And so on…

If you give yourself time and attention to notice, you’ll usually find where things are going amiss. Then you can ask this very constructive question:

“Where would I like to place my attention so that I can increase my odds of a better outcome?”

This question brings both your consciousness and your efforts back into the present moment, and back on track for optimal practice.

And from there you can aim for doing the best you can do in the moment, the best you can do in that practice session. You can bring things back within your reach.

In a broader sense this kind of shift in attitude can also help you to build a more constructive overall practice process and strategy that you can continue to develop for the rest of your life.

F.M. Alexander, the founder of the Alexander Technique described this attitude of “I should be able to” as part of an “end-gaining” process.

When you “end-gain”, you focus only on the desired result, without sufficient consideration to whether your efforts (the quality of process you use to pursue your result) are best suited to actually achieve the result.

Alexander encouraged us to give the “quality of process” (something he described as the “means-whereby”) top priority in pursuing our results.

In fact, when talking about experiencing a desired outcome in any activity, Alexander said:

The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what you want.

“Getting it, not having it…” is what I’m after whenever I practice. And that’s why whenever I’m having a “bad” day practicing (more specifically, when I’m playing below my normal abilities), I welcome the experience. Seriously.

“Bad days” are a golden opportunity to learn more about myself, and to learn to trust and rely upon my process.

This leads to both continued growth and confidence as a musician.

So how about replacing “I should be able to”, with:

“I’d like to be able to”,

and,

“I think I can find a way to”

and,

“I believe in my ability to redirect my attention and efforts to be able to.”

So aim high. Every day. But be kind to yourself and find that optimal entry point in everything you practice. In my experience both as teacher and as student, I believe this shift in attitude can empower you to do miraculous things!

The Serendipitous Gifts of Studying the Alexander Technique

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The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

                  –Serendipity  (as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language)

It was my frightening and frustrating struggle as a saxophonist with focal dystonia (a neurologically based movement disorder that impairs coordination) that brought me to the Alexander Technique.

As I began to do more research on my condition, it became evident to me that, even though my focal dystonia symptoms were experienced through my muscles, they only ever surfaced whenever I began to prepare to play saxophone (more precisely, the moment I began to think  about playing).

In the simplest sense, it was my reaction to the thought of playing saxophone  that was triggering my focal dystonia symptoms.

After doing a good amount of research about the Alexander Technique as it applied to musical performance (and considerable amount of reading about the neuroscience of learning and unlearning), one key truth stood out to me that prompted me to seek out a certified Alexander teacher: Thought precedes and conditions reaction.

“So”, I said to myself, “if I can learn to think and react in a different, more constructive way when I play saxophone, I’ll have the best chance at improving my focal dystonia symptoms.”

I’m happy to say that this has proven to be true.

Resoundingly so.

And in the process of applying the Alexander Technique in addressing my focal dystonia symptoms, I became absolutely intrigued by the efficacy and possibilities of the work.

So much so that I decided to commit to the 3-year training program to become certified to teach this work.

The Alexander Technique continues to be my most effective tool in helping both my clients (mostly professional and serious student musicians) and myself as a musician.

If you’re not familiar with the Alexander Technique, it’s a practical set of principles you use to become aware of the (often) unconscious habits of misdirected effort (things that take you out of your optimal coordination) that you bring into your activities (like playing music!). By studying and applying the Technique, you learn to prevent or lessen these unwanted habits by changing your thinking, bringing  yourself back to your natural, optimal coordination.

It’s about learning to respond  to things in a more conscious and constructive way, instead of reacting  habitually (and sometimes harmfully).

Lots of  musicians who regularly take Alexander lessons rave about how the Technique makes playing feel easier, more natural, and with far less tension/effort than they’ve ever experienced before.

It’s helpful for decreasing/eliminating chronic back, neck, shoulder, jaw and wrist pain, as well as improving breathing, and balance (obviously helpful for any instrumentalist or singer!)

And even though I myself  wasn’t motivated to seek out and Alexander teacher because of the maladies mentioned above, I did indeed suffer from most of them (especially back and shoulder pain!)

I was usually in some sort of state of discomfort  when playing my instrument, just chalking it all up to “working hard”. I accepted pain as part and parcel of what a serious musician struggles with.

No, my motivation was simply about restoring (or at least improving) my coordination  when playing saxophone. Period.

But as I began to take lessons, it wasn’t long at all that my back began to feel better (not just when playing, but all the time!), my shoulders began to widen and become freer, my jaw became flexible and responsive, and my breathing became more full, easy and supportive of my saxophone sound.

All great things, for sure!

I began to describe these other changes I was experiencing to my friends and colleagues as “serendipitous gifts”, meaning I was blessed in finding such positive things I wasn’t even looking for.

(And as you might have wondered/guessed by now, my focal dystonia symptoms were inextricably connected to the misdirected muscular effort that was causing these pains I’d been experiencing for so many years.)

Yet the most cherished, most profoundly life-changing serendipitous gift I found in studying the Alexander Technique was more simple, more basic, more essential to my personal well-being and growth as a musician:

I learned to treat myself with kindness.

This kindness includes how I treat myself when practicing and performing:

How I changed my previously harsh and rather loud “self-talk voice” to one of soft inquiry and assurance;

How I allow myself to be wrong in order to discover new ideas and techniques;

How I give myself permission to pause when practicing in order to redirect my efforts;

How I allow myself to rest optimally;

How I listen to myself (and the other musicians) with a more detailed presence;

How I allow myself to peacefully walk away from an exercise (or even a practice session) if it isn’t going just right and I can’t seem to put myself back on track;

How I accept and trust my efforts, sound and intentions when performing.

And so much more…

One of the biggest changes in how I treat myself is that, even when I’m doing something “wrong” when practicing or performing, that I don’t interpret that to mean that there is something wrong with me.

That’s huge for me, as it places me squarely in a place of gratitude, with an almost child-like curiosity when I practice. And feeling grateful, is perhaps, the most beautiful of all states of being.

As I’ve mentioned in some of my other blog posts, practice for me is now a form of meditation. It’s nourishing and ever so pleasurable.

And as a bonus, my saxophone practice has become more dynamic, more efficient, more directly helpful to me than it ever was.

All this because of the gift of kindness I give myself.

You see, when applying the Alexander Technique to any activity, you are learning to redirect your thinking in the most helpful way you can.

To do this, you must ask  things of yourself, rather than demand  them. (You can’t bully yourself into reacting constructively!)

I “ask” for my optimal coordination. I do so with kindness and deference. With sincere respect and love.

That makes all the difference.

I feel compelled to talk about all of this in my first blog post of the year because of my experience over these past years teaching the Alexander Technique to musicians.

I’ve had the honor and pleasure to share this work with (quite literally) some world-class performers.

And one thing I continue to notice is how harsh many of these wonderful artists can be with themselves as they approach practice and performance.

Of course they seek excellence! Of course they are disciplined! Of course they have high standards! Of course they’re willing to sacrifice!

But what they learn when studying with me is that it is often their fierce self-talk that is taking them out of their optimal coordination, taking them away from getting precisely what they want.

As their coordination improves, it does so by going hand in hand with their self-directed kindness. They ask instead of demand and marvel at the results. It’s about as “win-win” as you can get.  A beautiful thing.

So I’ll continue to enjoy and cultivate my serendipitous gifts, and graciously share them with my students, living a musical life of gratitude, exploration, growth and satisfaction.

Language Matters: Optimizing Effort by Modifying Word Choices

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One of the key things I take notice of when giving an Alexander Technique lesson to a musician for the first time, is the language my student is using to describe what they are doing when playing their instrument.

Words are necessary, of course, to help inform me about their needs, as well as to bring to light how precisely (or imprecisely) their thinking is impacting their playing.

I often encounter two  sets of words as students begin to describe the perceived problem(s) that brought them to me for help:

One set of words describes what the student thinks she/he is doing while playing that is causing the problem(s).

The other set describes what the student would like  to happen instead.

It is this second set of words in particular I’d like to address here, as trying to embody these words can sometimes bring about unintended (and unwanted!) consequences for the musician.

“How can that be?”, you might ask.

Well, the short answer is that the words may not accurately describe what the musician actually wants.

In fact, sometimes these words are counterproductive, in that they are describing an impossible event.

For example, when I hear a musician tell me she/he would like to be “completely relaxed” while playing, I feel compelled to gently call this into question.

For starters, if relaxed means “no muscular tension”, than that in itself would be impossible for two reasons:

First, we need a certain amount of muscle “tonus” (the constant low-level activity of a body tissue) just to function in the most essential way (breathe, maintain balance, etc.)

Second, muscular tension is actually necessary to play music. In fact, it would be impossible to play without it. (I won’t digress here on optimally directed, versus mis-directed  muscular tension.)

And because we function as psychophysically whole beings  (our thoughts condition our movements),  being “relaxed” might also mean being in a state of attention that is too  under-engaged to play music optimally.

So I must ask more questions of my student to find out more specifically what the word “relaxed” means.

Often it means simply working with a more optimally  directed amount of muscular effort, while being calmly alert.

When I describe what I  mean by being “calmly alert” (fully engaged and present in an activity, while being freely mobile and flexible in my body) , my student usually says something like, “Yes. That’s what I mean. That’s what I want!”

When a musician thinks “relaxed”, sometimes there is a “should” attached to it. Most specifically, “relaxed” should feel  a certain way.

And if it doesn’t feel that certain way, something must be wrong. With that feeling of “wrong”, often misdirected effort and a divided attention follow (not to mention frustration)!

Here are a few more “loaded words”, as I call them, and some of the ways I modify them in my own thinking:

Instead of saying:

“Loose” (as in, “I want to be ‘loose’ when playing.”), I think instead of being “mobile” (as in, “I’m free to react constructively to my desires, and free to move in cooperation with my with my human design.”)

Instead of having “good posture” (which can encourage a rigid, immobile and uncomfortable way of being), I think instead of having “good use” (which means I’m neither collapsed, nor overly stiffened into uprightness, but moving easily in and out of balance in a dynamic and expansive way).

Instead of being “focused” (which implies a forced, narrow, reactive, divided and exclusive  field of attention), I think instead of being “easily present” (which implies an easy, expansive, responsive, integrated and inclusive  field of attention).

Instead of doing things “perfectly”, where pedagogy is concerned (which can lead to a rigid and inflexible approach that can stifle improvement), I think instead of doing things “optimally” (which allows room for inquiry and flexibility, and takes into account my human design, as well as my specific skill level and challenges; optimal is the best  that can be done in the present moment, all things considered).

Instead of “my body”, where movement, posture and breathing are concerned (which can dis-coordinate my thoughts to my actions; as in “What am I doing with my body?”), I think instead of “myself” (which helps me to work in a holistic, constructive manner; as in “What am I doing with myself?”

And there are many more such loaded words…

So how do you use words when thinking about practicing/playing your instrument? Is it possible that just changing a few of these words can lead to a better experience, to even greater efficiency of effort?

It sure has been possible for me and my students.

Keep in mind that my words are not written in stone. These are words (thoughts, or “directions”, as we might call them in Alexander Technique lingo) that work best for me and for some of my students, and they change over time as understanding deepens and need dictates.

I’m constantly exploring and expanding how I speak to myself as I play music, as well as how my Alexander students think to themselves. It’s a work in progress.  Just as it should be.

Resonance, Time and Ease (A Warm-up Meditation)

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Just as my practice goals and strategies evolve over time, so does my conception and implementation of warming up to practice.

Recently, one of the musicians that I coach asked me to elaborate more specifically how I’m currently warming up. So I thought I’d share my thoughts here with you all.

In the past few months, I’ve given myself a specific warmup project: playing one-octave modes from various scales (major, minor and harmonic major) legato, in slow sixteenth and thirty-second notes (half note equals 12 to 15) bpms).

I started out doing this as a way to challenge and improve my sense of what I call my “temporal imagination” (how vividly and accurately I perceive  time and pulse). As I continue to work daily on this, the components (or objectives, if you will) of my daily warm-up have become distilled into the integration of these three things:

1. Optimal resonance

2. Perception of time

3. Psychophysical ease

Allow me to elaborate a bit on each of these components.

Optimal resonance

As a saxophonist, this has a very specific meaning to me. It involves finding the “balance” (or “exchange of energy”)  between my air stream and my instrument. (Some of you saxophonists might notice that I simply said my “instrument” and not “the mouthpiece and reed”. I find this to be a more accurate description of the acoustic reality of the sound making process.)

In finding that balance, I’m looking for a consistently responsive  and  flexible  breath support, coupled with an awareness/allowance for my voicing mechanisms (soft palate, tongue, jaw, nasal cavity, etc.) to “come alive”, so to speak.

I aim to feel the sound resonating gently inside my head (particularly, my nasal cavity), as I connect that feeling to the sensation of the sound inside my horn. I connect all of this immediately to how I hear my sound out into the room.

So I’m calling into play both internal and external sensory awareness and sensations.

Perception of time

My coordination, my technique, sound, expression…virtually everything I do is conditioned by my sense of time.

As I play each of these modes slowly with the metronome, my aim is to be present with each note.

What that means specifically is that I am connecting my “optimal resonance wish” with my internal perception of time, and how that internal perception of time relates to the reality of the metronome (an external cue for time) and my sound in the room.

When the metronome clicks so slowly, it becomes tempting to try to “play each note in time” by imagining how “evenly” each note should sound.

But as I try to play that way, I virtually always end up rushing just a bit. I tend to try to manage what my fingers are doing as opposed to truly listening and responding. It’s as if I’ve lost the sense of the wholeness of the phrase I’m playing.

So what I do instead is aim for optimum resonance on each as it moves in time to the next , while I hold in my imagination the anticipation  of where the next click will fall on the metronome. This helps me integrate my internal consciousness (my intention and imagination) to the external world (hearing my sound; hearing the sound of the metronome).

Whenever I do this, my time instantly becomes lovely and easily precise. I can hear the evenness of not just every note that I play, but also the entire phrase as a whole.

Metaphrically, it’s as if I’m standing on top of a large mountain looking down on the whole valley. This is an immensely pleasurable experience, and it has significantly bolstered my confidence in my sense of time, as well as rhythm and meter.

Psychophysical ease

This is where my experience both teaching and learning (and applying) the Alexander Technique comes in handy. As I aim to integrate optimal resonance with my perception of time, I’m doing so through the foundation of a good “use” of my entire self.

(This is the central organizing principle of all my work as I warm up and practice.)

You might notice that I use the term “psychophysical ease” instead of “physical ease”. I do so because “psychophysical” is a more complete and accurate description of how we as human beings function in activity.

The “ease in my body” is incumbent upon my “ease and clarity in my thinking”. It is impossible to have one without the other.

So what I aim for as I’m connecting my optimal resonance to my perception of time, is finding the ease that is already there inside myself.

I notice my balanced connection to the floor through my feet, the mobility of my joints, the poise of my head on top of my spine (very important!) and the elastic quality of my ribs and torso as I breathe.

If I happen to notice something in my reaction (how I’m using myself) that I don’t  want, I simply make a decision to stop doing it, and bring my attention gently back to the ease in my body, and the calm but alert clarity in my thinking, as I stay present with my sound and with the time.

As I mentioned above, my aim in warming up is to integrate these three components into one, singular, omnisensory experience. I’m never sacrificing one component at the expense of another.

The challenge in writing or talking about this , is that it sounds much more complicated, slow-moving and cumbersome than it actually is. In reality, my thoughts are quick, quiet and thorough. Powerefully effective in helping me to react optimally.

After my warm-up (which takes me about 10-15 minutes) I’m ready to work on anything (psychophysically ready!), and the rest of my practice session, virtually without fail, goes along constructively, efficiently and pleasurably.

So how do you warm up? What do you aim for specifically? What do you do to get yourself there? How do you know if/when you are  “there”? If you’re not clear on the answer to these questions, I encourage you to investigate and experiment. (And please know that I’m here to help you if you need it.)