Month: February 2021
“Why do people post videos of their works ‘in progress’ and not wait until they’re ready for performance?”
This is an excellent question and an important topic that musicians are discussing more frequently on social media. Here are a few reasons why I share my own works in progress and how it benefits the musical and personal growth for both myself and my musical community.
People often ask me how to play off the string well. I hear questions like:
Even with the added variable of height, playing off the string is less complicated than many of us make it out to be. I used to ask myself these same questions when learning this technique. Eventually this over-complicated things and I just ended up getting stuck.
Do you ever have days when your body needs a longer time than usual to warm up when you start practicing? Perhaps there are moments when one hand is ready much sooner than the other. I know that on certain days my bow arm needs a LOT of extra time to “wake up” at the start of my first practice session. On other occasions, I feel like I’m accomplishing very little during my 20-min-long scale routine. Whenever I sense that it will be one of “those” days, I like to change up the entire fundamental routine. If you tend to experience something similar, are short on time, and/or just want to have a productive “bow day,” kick off your session with the following 5 bow exercises.
“Stress happens when the mind resists what is.” – Dan Millman
This quote jumped out and caught my attention as I was flipping through some books on sports psychology at the Barnes & Noble Cafe in Union Square. It was the middle of a busy audition season and I was fighting against my long history of performance anxiety and self-doubt.
I stared at this sentence and repeated the words over and over in my mind. “Of course! It’s so obvious,” I thought. Except it was anything but obvious in the spur of the moment. Instinctively, the fight or flight response had me “push away” nerves and “act tough” when placed in a stressful situation. My mind would try to resist the nerves, which in turn only created more stress, setting off a vicious, endless cycle. As the saying goes, resistance makes stronger. “Trying” to achieve something only creates a bigger obstacle by making the task at hand more challenging than it already is.
The concept about the relationship between the mind and stress can help us understand the first of the four principles of natural laws, as explained by world champion gymnast, martial artist, and author Dan Millman in his book Body Mind Mastery. Here’s a short summary of these principles and some of their roles in musical growth.
Continue reading “4 Principles of Natural Laws for Musicians”