Tuning Slide 4.29- Getting Technical Beyond Will

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Be stubborn about your goals and flexible about your methods.
–Unknown

One of the great fallacies of human endeavor is the idea of “willpower.” We often will hear that all something takes is enough willpower and we can do whatever we want. I did a quick Google-search on willpower and found many quotes that will tell you that willpower is what makes the difference between success and failure. Well, sadly, this is a myth, misconception, and almost surefire road to failure in the long run.

Willpower alone won’t do it.
No one has enough of it to get everything done.

Yes, you need the “will” to do something; you have to have the drive and desire to do what needs to be done. But just depending on willpower alone won’t cut it. Researchers in a number of fields with different experiments have shown that willpower is a limited quantity. If you spend your whole day exercising willpower to make sure you can get everything done, you will get home at night exhausted- your willpower will be shot, gone, depleted. It is actually more like a muscle than some hidden secret strength.

If I want to ride thirty miles on my bike, it will take more than exerting my “willpower” to complete it. I will not have the stamina, the physical strength, or the mental endurance to accomplish it. At least not without training.

Which is what my musical practice routine is- training to accomplish more. But there’s the catch of finite amounts of “willpower.”

Over the past month I have been focused on my physical exercise. I am working hard to losing weight and improving my overall health. I have been exerting more “willpower” to motivate myself to get to the gym and do my routine. During that time I was having a more difficult time getting beyond my basic daily trumpet routine. In fact, to be honest, I missed some days on the trumpet- often the days when I had to exert more “willpower” to get to the gym. It also impacted the time I have spent writing- the third of my personal trinity of self-growth.

Sometimes we have to suck it in and Just Do It!

Which is what I finally managed to do last week. First, I sat down and just played the horn with iReal Pro to get my creativity going again. Second, I pulled out the computer and just started writing. Third, I got in enough exercise to boost the energy. But I still need some work on how to fit all these together- the balance.

It seems to me that “willpower” is not one thing; it is several.
◆ Desire- the “want-to-do-it”;
◆ Discipline- the “plan-to-do-it”;
◆ Habit- the “do-it-every-day” pattern;
It is the combination of the three, as well as others, I am sure, that make what we call “willpower” successful.

Josiah Boornazian, one of the regular contributors at Learn Jazz Standards (https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/), had a post two weeks ago that explained why the habit part of “willpower” is important. The post is about what he calls Three Pivotal Exercises that can help one’s jazz technique. These three exercises are learning how to utilize technical studies of intervals, chords, and arpeggios in jazz. He makes sure to point out that there are many good and very useful technical studies that one can use, of course. (Link)

First, though, he gives his philosophy of using technical studies and urging people to think on three levels. While he is talking from the jazz genre, it applies just as well to any kind of skill we want to get better at.

#1: Firstly, we want to develop muscle memory and sharpen our physical intelligence. I call this “thinking with our fingers.”

#2: Secondly, we want to improve our ability to recognize chords and melodies by ear. I call this “thinking with our ears.”

#3: Thirdly, we want to sharpen our understanding of jazz theory, especially scale/chord theory, because it is so helpful for learning how to improvise fluently. I call this “thinking with our (theory) brains,” “thinking with our intellect,” or “thinking using concepts.”

I like his phrase “physical intelligence” to describe what we often call “muscle memory.” I have often been amazed at how practicing some of the basic technical studies like he recommends can apply so quickly and easily in so many different settings. It happened again recently in the community band I play in for the winter. We are playing the Carmina Burana suite which I surprisingly have never played before. In the 3rd movement there is a four measure run of tongued and slurred quarter notes in the basic G major scale. My brain with Self 2 recognized it immediately, although not consciously. My fingers responded with little hesitation and got it right the first time through. That is muscle memory, developed from jazz and technical studies.

The technical studies in the back of Getchell’s First Book of Practical Studies give a way of training for the physical, but also with the intervals to recognize the chord structures. I have been amazed at times how working these allows me to know what a piece of music is going to do- or at least be prepared for it. Whether it is a standard wind band piece or some comping behind a solo in a big band, that “aural” intelligence and awareness is invaluable.

That easily leads to Josiah’s third level, theory. We practice the technical studies, hear, and then experience the theory. Somewhere in our Self 2 we go- “Oh yeah! I know what that means” which gives Self 1 no reason to jump in and get worried.

One more thought related to the technical studies and their importance is to make sure we play them conscious of their sound and their musicality. It is difficult at times to get beyond simply playing it technically correct but with dull sound or poor musicality. Without looking at the sound and music, we will get bored. But with that awareness, we will develop the ability to play musically, no matter what the study!

It is always the music; always the sound. But more on that another time!

The Tuning Slide: 3.12- Inner Game Skills- Will and Trust

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Never let the thoughts of self-unworthiness re-arrange your prepared passion for failure. You can do it even if others say you can't. But you cannot do it if you tell yourself you can't.
― Israelmore Ayivor

Last week I wrote about awareness, the first of what Barry Green and Tim Gallwey call the “skills” of the Inner Game of music. I wrote:

Non-judgmental awareness moves us into a place where we aren’t fighting what’s happening, analyzing it, trying to “fix” it. We are simply letting it be…

There are two skills which build on top of this awareness- will and trust that I want to look at this week. These are all skills that help us grow toward a healthy balance of Self One trying to analyze and fix and Self Two working on what’s natural. Let’s start with “will.” From Google:

• The faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
⁃ synonyms: determination, willpower, strength of character, resolution, resolve, resoluteness, single-mindedness, purposefulness, drive, commitment, dedication, doggedness, tenacity, tenaciousness, staying power - "the will to succeed"

• Control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses.
⁃ synonyms: desire, wish, preference, inclination, intention, intent, volition

The first thought is obvious- we seem to be talking about willpower and doing what you want to do. In and of itself, that is true. But there is more than just “the will” to do something. One of the things research has shown over the past number of years is that, believe it or not, “willpower” has limits- you can “use it up.” If you go through a whole day having to exert choices and willpower to do- or not do- something, your ability to resist temptation at the end of the day is greatly reduced. You don’t have as much “willpower” left. So, let’s dig in a little and see if we can find some directions in this.

Will is both a decision- drive, purpose, dedication- and the exertion to do (or not do) something. It depends on what you discover through the skill of “awareness to refine and develop what it is you are intending to do and accomplish. From Gallwey and Green as I said last week:

• Will can be described as the direction and intensity of our intentions. It sets the goals, keeps us on course, works through trial and error to keep us on course.

Will does start with some exertion of willpower, but that’s not what it’s about. It is about goals and making decisions to move toward those goals. Goals, Green says

• are the direction finders for our will and the major “will skill” that we need to learn is goal clarity… When we have clear goals and are focused on them, our concentration can be sustained. (Green, p. 53)

In other words if we know what we desire (learned through awareness) and have set clear goals, it becomes easier to stay focused and aware. Again, to Green

• When we are clear about our musical goals, we find that … reserves of strength and energy become available to us. On the other hand, when we are uncertain about our goals, it is hard to bring our will to bear on them and easy for our concentration to wander. (Green, p. 53)

We can reach a point- call it force of habit or whatever- where you don’t need to exert as much will to do something. Now Self Two is beginning to step more clearly into the picture. Self Two has taken over some of the work of the will because I enjoy what I’m doing. The awareness, built in Self One has relaxed about these concerns. I don’t worry about some of the technical issues around these concerns. I now pick up the horn to practice every day- and usually at least twice on most days- even if I have a gig or rehearsal later in the day- because it is what I do. It is natural. It is relaxed. It is fun.

Which brings me to the third of the Inner Game skills- trust. Let’s go back to what I said based on Green last week:

• Trust allows the simple awareness to take place without self-criticism, it lets you go through trial and error without giving up, and it lets you be open to tapping your inner resources to perform your best.

In other words Self One knows that Self Two is actually more competent than once thought. Self Two can step aside on those issues and relax while maintaining the awareness of what needs to happen next. But it does that with less self-criticism than it used to. It can now criticize what is happening without adding negative judgements. It knows that I and Self Two are listening and will do something about it. Again, to Green, this is not:

• Blind trust but the trust that comes after hard work, and the trust the comes from knowing there is music inside you…. We have seen that our awareness and will “skills” are powerful tools that can help us solve problems and give intensity and direction to our music. In order to achieve our ultimate goal and enter the state of relaxed concentration where we are one with the music, there is one more skill we need. We need to trust ourselves.

There are barriers to trust that we have to work on. Some of the most common for me are

• Worrying about what others think of me
• Being a failure
• Feeling out of control
• Doubting my abilities.
• Performance anxiety

Fortunately these can be dealt with and I will do so in more depth next week. Dealing with them takes the openness to an awareness of what’s going on within you, including a personal inventory of what you CAN do and what skills you can being to bear on them. It then takes the will to set clear goals and move toward them. But more on that next time.

The barriers can all describe where I was when I attended that Big Band Weekend at Shell Lake Arts Center in June 2015. I felt overwhelmed, outplayed, out of control and exhibited a lack of skill and a lot of performance anxiety. But I also loved what was happening. So I then attended the week-long Trumpet Workshop and found some direction. As a result, I started this expanded trumpet journey. But I had no real goal other than in some way or another to become the best damn trumpet player I can become at my age. I was excited and determined. But I had no idea how to do that. So I started simple- just pick up the horn and practice. As often as possible. Simple goal- aim at playing every day for at least an hour.

Over the next year I averaged between 60% and 80% of days and increased to about an hour and a quarter a day. I managed three months of daily practice! In the middle of the second year I reached the daily practice level- now going on six months without missing a day and have reached anywhere up to two and a quarter hours a day.

I didn’t do that through willpower alone. Yes, it started that way, but the I knew that the simple goal I set was the way to become a better player. I used the same method of goals to learn the 12 major scales around the Circle of Fourths. I then sought to improve my embouchure and stretch my range through some specific exercises. Both of those have been working. These all started with an awareness that I needed to do something. I then set goals, simple, achievable goals to move in that direction. I have been able to sustain and improve my concentration which moved it beyond just exerting my will to pick up the trumpet and play.

I actually trust myself today! I am discovering the music within me like never before in over 50 years of being a trumpet player.

The journey is worth it. Set your goals and move.