Tuning Slide 5.13- The Tools of Mindfulness

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.
— A. A. Milne

Last week a friend and I were emailing back and forth about “playing the lead pipe” of the trumpet. He was trying some different practice techniques and was sharing what he found with me.

He had just experienced the fundamental foundation of the teaching of Bill Adam- playing the lead pipe to get started each day. (No, I admit, I don’t do that on a regular basis.) Its purpose is to get the player to listen. The goal is not to play the lead pipe in tune. Each lead pipe plays a slightly different note based on length, etc. The goal is to hear the rich, full sound of the proper airflow into the mouthpiece and lead pipe. There is no tuner use with this- we tune the instrument with the tuning slide which compensates for the different tunings of different lead pipes, horns, etc. Play the lead pipe, I was told, and listen for the sound to center and become more full. Some claim to even hear a sound like an old phone ringing when you reach that point. The rest of the goal is to remember that we play every note on the horn that same way. The lead pipe sound and airflow are the foundation. From his experience, my friend had just reinforced for me the insights that Mr. Adam and his students have built over all these years.

[Side note: here is another take on this:]

As I was responding to my friend I realized that some of the reasons this works as it does are because it tunes the ear to listen as well as the lips to form the right shape, the breath to flow smoothly, the arms to hold the trumpet in the right position, and the brain to get in sync with what we’re doing.

In short, it develops mindfulness. And as one moves deeper into what one is paying attention to through mindfulness, it rewires the brain to play the music. It is both muscle memory and aural, hearing memory being developed. I have talked many times over the years about mindfulness. It is a basic, and for me, essential daily skill. Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the most famous modern proponents of mindfulness, defines it as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally…”

When I talk about being more consistent with the mindfulness portion of my routine, I mean I need to slow down and pay deeper attention to what I’m doing. I need to continue the ongoing re-wiring of my brain that improves my musicianship. I am talking about the times I do long tones and flow studies and building awareness through lead pipe playing.

There are mental tools that can be used to strengthen our mindfulness. Wikibooks has a series of articles about what are called “Core Mindfulness Skills.” In that, they present three WHAT tools and three HOW tools.

The WHAT tools
◦ Observe: is simply experiencing, with awareness, your feelings, your thoughts, and sensations directly without the use of words. (Link)
◦ Describe is putting words on experience and experience into words. (Link)
◦ Participate is the skill of throwing yourself into your objectives whole-heartedly without self-consciousness. (Link)

For example, when playing long tones or flow studies, I start by just observing, listening to what I am playing. I (try to) make no judgment, just listen and pay attention to what it sounds like and what it feels like. As I listen, I try to describe what I am hearing or feeling. I will then be participating in the experience. The sounds are with me and come through me. It is at these points that I begin to notice differences as I play. It is at this point that I begin to use the HOW tools.

The HOW tools
◦ Take a nonjudgmental stance. See, but don’t evaluate. Just the facts. Focus on the “what,” not the “good” or “bad,” the “terrible” or “wonderful,” the “should” or “should not.” (Link)
◦ One-mindfully is sustained attention on the present moment which develops concentration. (Link)
◦ Effectively- Focus on what works. Do what needs to be done in each situation. (Link)

This is where you begin to develop the insight into playing and are allowing the sounds to adapt and deepen. Notice I am not saying that the sounds “get better” or that the sound is “bad.” This is not to be a judgment on our part as we listen. It is about the sound and what the sound is like. We do this with a focus that is important. We need that focus or we lose the sound. We notice that and maintain the concentration in the present moment. In this time we then learn what works and what doesn’t. We discover what and when the sound falls into place, becomes richer, closer to what we are listening for and how it just sounds centered.

This can work in other ways when playing in a group of some kind. We are often told to listen to the group. Next time begin by listening, non-judgmentally and with a focus on the person next to you and try to play with them. One of the directors at the Birch Creek camp this past summer suggested we do that. I was amazed at what it did to my awareness of the music- and then my own playing. It is the same thing- mindfulness, in the present moment.

The result, among other things, will be what those working in this call Wise Mind.

◦ Wise Mind is the integration of emotion and reason, where the two overlap.
◦ Wise Mind is a state of mind in which you experience yourself as being calm, centered, and in control of your emotions.
◦ In Wise Mind, you act in accordance with your beliefs, principles, and values which deepen feelings of coherence and integrity.

Again, this is to be non-judgmental. It is based on more than dichotomies of good/bad. It is based on what is working to make music. It is based on the merging of reason and feeling, thinking and emotion and allowing our music to flow from that intersection.

Tuning Slide 5.6- Stretching the Boundaries

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The only limits in your life are those that you set yourself.
— Celestine Chua

Reflections from a Concert Band Camp
Last week I ended the post by saying “I would have never believed I could do what I am able to do today just a few years ago.” Some of that is my reaction to being at a different camp in mid-August. I decided to skip the Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop and attend an adult concert band camp at the Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor, WI. My main reason was to move outside of my musical comfort zone of the past few years.

One word explained it all.
Audition.

I have a very difficult history with auditions. I freeze up and get nervous and generally blow it, just as I have done with solos over the years. When I saw that I would have to “audition” at the start of the camp I knew I had to go. The audition was simply to position the musicians and to give the directors an idea of what the band will be able to do. It was to consist of doing a two octave chromatic scale; doing two scales- concert Bb and concert F; bringing a piece along as a good example of ability; and a sight-reading. None of that scared me. My biggest enemy would be Self 1 telling me that I should be nervous and get all worried about it. It is time to exorcise that demon!

Another reason to go to this camp is summed up in the word
Language.

Different styles of music have different languages. One does not play trumpet in a concert band or orchestra the same way one plays in a big band. In fact, even within styles, one plays differently in a concert band than in a brass quintet, even playing the same type of music. The dynamics of the music, the tonguing, articulation, and tonal harmonies, as well as many small but significant details are different from genre to genre. This is language.

My first trumpet language was wind/concert band music. As with most school musicians, that repertoire is my native tongue. We learn what a march sounds like and can almost intuit what is going to come next. We discover what it is like to play waltzes and suites; we fall in love with Percy Grainger and Gustav Holst; we begin to know melodic changes and rhythm styles. We then allow it to sink into the Self 2 so even if the notes are different, the styles and rhythms are familiar.

I wanted to dig back into that native language and discover what my new skills and insights have to offer me in utilizing that language. I have played in wind/concert bands consistently for most of the last 35 years. Here was a chance to intensely work on that language in a camp setting.

Finally, one more reason- I would be
Playing with different people, people who are strangers to me.

This is an extension of the audition piece. These would be people who have never heard me play before and with whom I have no history- good or bad. I am just another trumpet player in the section. It therefore becomes an opportunity to just be who I am- who I have become over the past four years of intense practice and growth. In doing that I will see if all this stuff I've been working on is real!

Yes, that is stretching my own limits- and testing my inner confidence.
◦ Can I do this?
◦ Am I doing as well as I think I am?
◦ Will others judge me?
◦ Can I keep up with them?

The short answer is that I was amazed!

First, the audition.

◦ After four years of Clark #1, two octaves of chromatics is second nature.
◦ After four years of learning and practicing all 12 major keys, concert Bb and C are the basics.
◦ After many years of playing the 2nd trumpet part of Gabrieli’s Canzon #2, it flows from my trumpet without thinking.
◦ There was no sight reading, but I had no fear.
◦ What I did have was some nervousness- the dry mouth was the giveaway on that. But I didn’t let it get in the way.

As far as digging into the language of concert/wind band- that was exciting. One piece we played was Frank Ticheli’s Sun Dance which we had just played in the community band. Like at home I was on 1st trumpet; thanks to the intensity of the rehearsal schedule, we were able to really dig into the music, to listen to what Ticheli was trying to do, to see how the parts work together, and finding ways of listening and blending with the rest of the band- and with the other trumpets sitting next to me. The music became far more internalized than is possible with a once a week rehearsal schedule. I discovered how it is possible to move beyond the notes to feeling the music, intuiting the rhythm, letting the harmony carry it all forward.

What a great experience. We also did that with other pieces that I had never played before as well as a couple others that I have played, but never in that type of setting. What all that did was add a sense of language to what I already knew- and I learned how the improved skills of the past four years can help me learn the musical language. The skills are the same for all kinds of music, but here was the payoff for all those hours of long tones, scales, and the basic Arban’s exercises- music!

This happened partly because we were in a new and different setting. Not just the intensity of the schedule, but the chance to listen to new insights from different directors with different ways of explaining what we were doing allowed me to pick up more nuances of the language of concert band. I have been doing this with a lot of excitement over the past four years through the Shell Lake Adult Big Band Camp. Here I was doing it in my first musical language- the wind band.

When I got home, the community band had a rehearsal and concert. I found myself applying some of the new insights and language skills there. And it was an even better experience for me.

My take-away for all this applies to life as well.

◦ Let yourself be challenged.
◦ Look at what it is I may be afraid of and face it. Most things are not as frightening when I face them and apply what I already know to dealing with them.
◦ Listen to those around you and learn from them what I may not already know. It doesn’t have to be the experts, it can also be the person in the chair next to me who has had different experiences and different insights.

In short, this is what makes being part of a music-performing group so powerful.

Tuning Slide 4.3- What Music Does For Me

Life is a song. It has its own rhythm of harmony. It is a symphony of all things which exist in major and minor keys of Polarity. It blends the discords, by opposites, into harmony which unites the whole into a grand symphony of life. To learn through experience in this life, to appreciate the symphony and lessons of life and to blend with the whole, is the object of our being here.
- Dr. Randolph Stone

As I write this I am between musical experiences. A little over a week ago I participated in an amazing international event, the 3rd Moravian International Unity Brass Festival. I have never before had the opportunity to play in a large brass band of 167 musicians. I was one of the 1st trumpets and kept up with it (except at the end of the concert when the old embouchure said “No!”) There were 50+ trumpets and related, nearly 60 trombones and related, and nearly 60 horns, euphoniums and tubas. Stop and think of that sound. It is nothing short of mind-boggling. (Here is a link to a video of one of the hymns as we rehearsed it.)

When this gets posted on Monday morning, July 30, the annual Shell Lake (WI) Trumpet Workshop will be just getting under way. That, as any regulars here know, was the source of the great leap somewhere forward in my trumpet playing over the past three years. My whole understanding of music and being a musician changed in ways I would never have anticipated. It all started with a simple act of simply playing the lead pipe on my horn to learn how to “center” the sound of my playing. It’s all that simple, I was told. Just do that and you will play in ways you didn’t know you could.

These two specific experiences go far beyond the list of things I posted the past two weeks of why I play music. They go much more deeply into what playing music does to and for me. They get to the heart of the connection of life and music in me- in my soul, at the center of my being. I can list five specific things that being an active musician helps me with. In many ways this summarizes so much of what I have written over the past three years and the foundations of what I will continue to write. So here goes with:

What Playing Music Does for Me

1. Discipline
No one is a born musician. Some may have certain aptitudes, but very few (other than the prodigies) are truly able to be good at it without work, followed by more work, and then enhanced by more work. Knowing that Doc Severinsen “warms-up” for three hours in order to make sure he knows what he is doing and ready to do it when he gets on stage, humbles me. I think I am doing well when I take 30 minutes to do the daily routine before moving on to the pieces I have to know. Yet, I have developed a discipline- a training regimen for the trumpet- that I never thought I could do. While I don’t always carry that over to other areas of my life with the intention I give to the music, it has helped. I am more disciplined in exercise, writing, and even just taking the time to relax and read!

2. Focus
Part of discipline is learning how to be focused on what I am doing. I have seen it happen over and over- I take a mini-second to think of something else and I get lost. This happens even when doing something as rote as playing the C Major scale. My mind burps and I miss a note. I have had this problem for years when performing. It is easy to get distracted when I am by nature somewhat attention deficit disordered. Playing music has helped me learn to stay focused. This is a huge help in many other times and places as well. If I can do it when playing my trumpet, I can do it for other situations, too.

3. Listening
A musician has to be able to listen. If all I do when I play is listen to my own notes, I will never be able to be a good musician. I may end up being technically proficient at what I do, but, as they might say, “He doesn’t play well with others.” The skill of listening is one of those basic interpersonal skills that we all need to develop, no matter what our lives look like. Too often, it is said, we don’t listen to hear what the other person is saying, we listen to figure out what we are going to say next. Listening, by the way, is at the heart of what we do in a musical piece when we “play the rests.”

4. Blending
Another way of saying this is that we DO play well with others. When we have learned to focus and listen we will know how our part fits in with the others. It is easy to think that they should blend with me when the reality is we have to learn to blend with each other. The brass quintet I play with had a rehearsal on Saturday. At the end we all looked at each other and smiled. We were even excited by what we were sounding like. We all agreed, it was because we were paying attention through focus, listening, and blending. A musical group of any size is, by nature, a set of relationships. They are just like relationships we have with family, friends, co-workers, or even strangers we meet in our daily travels. Do I listen to them or do I ignore their needs or concerns? Do I seek ways to work with them (blend) to get a job done, to accomplish some activity, or just to let each other know they are important? I fear we are forgetting how to do that and instead yell at each other, throw memes around like firecrackers on the 4th of July. I learn- and am reminded to keep learning- when I play in a group, we need to work together. Always!

5. Mindfulness
For me, when I put all these together, I end up with being mindful. Mindfulness is to be that non-judgmental attitude that keeps me open to the present and what it happening. Mindfulness is one of the exciting therapeutic tools to come along in the past twenty years and has shown to have great impact on many kinds of situations. Being a mindful musician can help me move away from a narrow-focused view of what is happening and allows me to play more intentionally. It helps calm down my Self 1 that is forever over-analyzing and lets Self 2 show what it knows and what it can do. At times I know this sounds like a variation of the Music Man’s “think system.” But it is more than that. It helps bring these five things that I get from being a musician into fruition.

These five things will surely be showing up again and again in year four. I am constantly looking at ways of making them more effective and more natural. As I learn to do it in my musicianship, I am learning how to do it in all that I do.

Tuning Slide 3.43: Listening While You Play

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

To me, groups of musicians playing together, not fighting each other, but playing a groove together is one of the most exciting things to listen to.
-Phil Collins

One of the most exciting things about being a musician is the opportunity to play music with others. I can sit in my practice room for hours playing all the great stuff I want to play, but if I’m only doing it alone, I am missing out on the ultimate joy of music. Our brass quintet recently got back together after a fairly long layoff. I had been practicing the pieces we have played and want to play, but I had no idea any more how they sounded together. At our first rehearsal a few weeks back I actually got lost because I became distracted by the other parts. My part didn’t sound the same as it did in practicing. (Doh!)

I have talked before about the joy of listening to a band play from within the band. What I am talking about this week, actually, is the way we have to listen to each other and how we build that into our performances. Such awareness is not natural for most of us. It makes us move outside of our own bubbles and pay attention to who’s with us and what we are doing.

In the book Making Music for the Joy of It, the author, Stephanie Judy goes into considerable detail about the direction of learning to play well with others. She calls it “extended awareness” that goes beyond the notes any one of us is playing to how we play those notes together. (p. 196)

She starts with a new group or even anytime an established group gets a new piece of music. The first time through everyone is essentially playing solos. You know the drill. We stare at the music when it’s put in front of us. We do the normal quick scans- key signature, key changes, tempo, repeats, dynamics, do I need a mute, etc. Then we start playing. We stare more closely at the notes. The pages seem to be endless. We make more mistakes than we care to admit. Unless you are a far more advanced musician than I am (and many of you are) that first run-through will be solos. You have a vague awareness that there are others around you, but most of the time you are listening to yourself with only an intuitive knowledge of what else is going on.

It is in that first run-through with others, though, that we actually do begin to listen. We can’t help it. The longer we have been playing the easier it will be for us to play our parts at least okay and get the feel, the groove, the inner listening of the piece.

Then, even as early as the second time through, we can move beyond our individual part to a better picture of the whole. We begin to hear on some levels how we fit together. We become aware of the ways we play under, over, through, or around others. We can begin to sense when we are leading, supporting, holding back, or enhancing and drawing out another part. Balance comes along as we think (unconsciously?) about it. We see and hear the dynamics. We pay attention to our sound and whether it fits or is not matching the piece. We begin to know our roles in the different parts of the piece.

This takes effort. It takes an ability to do more than one thing at a time. How can I stay focused on my part while watching the director and listening to the flutes or the trombones across the orchestra? How can I pick up the groove from the bass or give appropriate support to that saxophone solo without making it about me?

At the website Making Music, (https://makingmusicmag.com/4-extra-skills-musicians-need-to-play-well-with-others/) Christopher Sutton talks about "4 Extra Skills Musicians Need to Play Well with Others." They all include one form or another of listening. Christopher’s comments are in italics. My comments are in the parentheses in normal type. Here they are:

1. Exercise some patience.

Practice taking some slow, calming breaths when you find yourself getting “worked up” about something. Slow your thinking processes down. It may even help to close your eyes momentarily to remove yourself (if only for a few seconds!) from the stressful situation you find yourself in. (Listen to yourself and what’s going on within you. By learning self-mindfulness you can often discover new ways of reacting and interacting.)

2. Learn to be adaptable.

As human beings, we adapt to our surroundings naturally, though not always willingly. A big part of learning to adapt and accepting change has to do with keeping an open mind. Though it may be temporary, adapting to another musician’s creative process and meshing it with your own may be a big hurdle to overcome. (Listen to what they are saying and/or doing. Be open to hearing new and creative ideas. They may not be what you had hoped for, but you are now playing with others. Collaboration and listening go hand-in-hand.)

3. Make communication a priority.

Just as with pretty much every other relationship in life, communication in a collaborative community is key. In order to effectively balance your creative goals and those of your collaborators, there needs to be clear and consistent conversation. It may seem cliche, but sometimes the safest thing to do is to over-communicate. It’s better to be accused of this than to be reluctant to share your side of the story. (After you listen, make sure to set up and keep communication open to continue the listening.)

4. Try to have a sense of humor.

Perhaps the most important thing to do during this time is to have fun. Learn to not take things or to take yourself too seriously. (In the 12-step communities they will sometimes talk about “Rule 62.” It simply means: Don’t take yourself too damn seriously! Good advice for musicians!)

It is an amazing activity this whole thing of making music with others. Listen, join in and enjoy!

Tuning Slide 3.41: Learning to Listen

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

For the rest of April I’m going to tackle the theme of “Listening.”

We think that Music stops at the ears. That is a mistake.
Vibrations can be felt in all places and at all times,
even with the eyes.
- Victor Wooten (or Michael?)

Victor Wooten, Grammy-award winning bass player talks about listening in chapter 11 of his wondrous book, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. The whole book is a lesson on different aspects of making music. He finds a spirit guide or muse named Michael who pulls him into all kinds of different situations.

One night Michael takes him into woods at night and teaches him to listen. He hears the frogs and other animals and is introduced to the idea of noise pollution which can be just as deadly as other types of pollution. Noise pollution can hide the sounds of danger or keep animals from communicating with each other. He gets a couple different lessons from Michael about the importance of the practice of listening to everything that is around.

Victor talks about music as vibrations. We don’t need to have a degree in physics to know that this is true. All atoms and molecules vibrate. The universe itself vibrates. The “background radiation” of the universe is the “sound” the vibration of the Big Bang. (Yes, oversimplified, but the general idea is correct.) We see vibrations of light, we feel vibrations of heat, we hear vibrations of sound. Our whole body “listens” to vibrations of many types and makes decisions based on what we experience in these vibrations.

This helps explain part of what many of us may have experienced- playing in tune. There are times when I cannot actually hear myself as clearly as I would like, but I can tell when my tuning is not right. Some of it is through the ears- what I am hearing of my note is not in synch with what I am hearing from the musician next to me or the rest of the band. But there is also the other piece- the vibrations. I can sometimes feel that I am out of tune. Self Two says, “Lip it up. You’re flat.” The vibrations are not together.

As with the animals in Victor’s forest, noise pollution can be deadly for us as musicians. I don’t know about the forest animals, but I do know there are two types of noise pollution that get to me.

The first is “Outer Pollution”. This comes from the things happening around us that take our attention away from what we are doing. This is the noise of the crowd, the extraneous sounds that are often around us. It may even be things we want to have around us- TV, radio, iTunes. They are the things that can distract us. Sometimes it may even be the words and actions of others aimed at us that we take to heart.

When we take those words and actions of others and turn them into directions for us, they can add to the second noise pollution, “Inner Pollution”. We have often talked about Self One who is always trying to find out what we are doing wrong and setting us up to fail, proving our incompetence or lack of ability. It can be the words we have internalized from others or experiences that have hurt us or kept us from achieving what we know we can do.

Both of these sources of noise pollution keep us from truly listening to what is around us and what is within us. Which is why Michael took Victor into the woods. He wanted him to discover what music can do when we allow our whole body to “hear” music.

I closed my eyes and let the music envelop me. It was easy to do. It was the first time I’d ever felt music with my whole body. I thought I’d done it before when I heard music that made me get up and dance, but even then, I was only hearing with my ears…. (p. 182)

There is a “silence” that is enhanced by this kind of sound, music, enveloping us, allowing the inner self (Self Two?) to relax and get creative. It is partly the vibrations, as I have said, but it is more than that. It is the smells, the touch of a breeze, the feel of the ground we sit on. All of it together, what can be called the “ambience” or environment, contributes to the music that we can listen to. They are in harmony as Victor discovered.

I closed my eyes and sat inside the music.I listened to all the sounds around me and noticed how they fit in. Like different instruments in a band, each sound served a purpose. Each animal made a sound that somehow supported the other sounds while leaving enough space for all to participate. (p. 183)

Victor talks about a time a few months after this encounter when he was playing in a band and decided to apply what he had learned about listening from Michael. He is aware that his time at the lake in the woods gave him a new way of utilizing the skill of listening.

I noticed that most musicians seemed to reserve their ears for themselves rather than open up their ears to the rest of the band. I found that when I listened to the other musicians more than I listened to myself, it caused me to play better. I realize that listening is a choice. (P. 184)

I mentioned in a previous post how I was taken by a performance of the band I was playing in that almost got me lost. What really happened was that I was far more aware of the band than of myself. I could relax and “go with the flow” in a way that I wish were more common. I guess it can be if I take the time to choose to listen to something other than my own inner pollution of fear and uncertainty. The music of the pieces we were playing truly did carry me to playing as I very seldom get to do. Not because I don’t want to, but at that moment, the whole sound I was part of was more powerful and entrancing than my own sound.

Of course, as the theme of this blog has stated over and over, there is a correlation between music and life. They are interconnected. Learning to listen in music can be a way to experience listening in other ways. Victor adds:

The same is true in conversation. When I listen to other people more than to myself, I know how to respond and support them in a better way. It also helps me know when to remain quiet. (P. 184)

Music, even well “scripted” music played by a band or orchestra is a conversation. It is like watching a well-written play. The actors say the same lines in every production, but it is how they interact and respond to each other that makes a play come alive. Otherwise it is just a dull reading. In music we learn to listen and interact with others. If we can’t do it in our music we will most likely have a difficult time doing it in conversations.

We are just scratching the surface of the skill of listening. What’s next? How about learning to listen with a new set of ears and digging for greater insight?

Only through the power of listening can you truly know anything.
- Victor Wooten (or Michael?)

3.24 The Tuning Slide- Start the Journey

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

I decided that for the next three months I will be basing each post on one of the “quotes” from the summary of last summer’s Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop. I went back to the list (Link) and picked out three months worth that fit into three general categories. For December I will be talking about The Journey of being a trumpet player, musician, and human. A good way to end another calendar year, thinking about where we have been.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is good to have an end to journey toward,
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
-Ursula K. Le Guin

I will start with the obvious, simplest and maybe simultaneously the most profound quote from the Trumpet Workshop 2017:

✓ The best way to go 1,000 miles is to take the first step.

Life IS a journey. It continues to be a great metaphor for what happens in these days between birth and death, or as someone once called it- the hyphen years (Born — Died). At some times the journey is fairly straightforward. Other times it wanders and curves in spirals and cycles all over the place. It may even seem like the movie Groundhog Day. (Didn’t I just do that?) If you want to get anywhere, however, the simplicity of the quote is painfully obvious.

The obvious: Doh!
None of us is going anywhere if we don’t get off square one. We can talk all we want about what we want to do, our dreams and hopes, the kind of musician or person we want to be, but to do nothing to get there will be the surest way to not get there. Life isn’t a magic trick where we say “abracadabra” or “cowabunga” or anything else and we get it.

There are, of course, many things that keep us stuck on square one. Fear is probably the most powerful thing that keeps us stuck. We don’t want to fail, make a mistake, seem silly, or incompetent. So we don’t do anything, or we do the safest thing. The result is we are stuck.

Lack of self-confidence is another way we remain where we have always been. “I really cannot do that!” becomes a mantra. It ends up with “See. I couldn’t do that.” The result again is that we are stuck.

In the end many of us find ourselves doing the same things over and over and feeling dissatisfied. We forget to take the first step. In 12-Step groups it is often said that the first step is the most important one that you have to do perfectly and at a rate of about 100%. Nothing else can get done if you don’t do the first step completely. Which leads me to:

The profound: Aha!
The first step is the foundation. It isn’t just some silly saying. Of course you have to take the first step. Tell me something profound so I can do it. It’s the deep and profound and mystical and even magical that we are really looking for. We want an answer that will lead us into wherever we are going with little to no effort. The simplicity of just taking the first step hides the power of

taking the first step.

Fortunately the first step we have to take in our journey is so obvious and profound that it can be summer up in those four words! Stop arguing. Stop procrastinating. Do something! Get moving.

Make it a good first step!

The Psychology Today website (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-s-mental-health-matters/201612/7-ways-get-yourself-unstuck) posted seven strategies when you feel stuck. It was originally written for a post on women’s health, but it is as real and important for all of us.

1) Let go of the past. ...
2) Change your perspective. ...
3) Start with small changes. ...
4) Explore your purpose. ...
5) Believe in yourself. ...
6) Practice being hopeful. ...
7) Consider talking to a professional.

Everything we have learned from Trumpet Workshop and the Inner Game directions can be found in those seven jump starts. Let me translate those seven into a different way of seeing what these suggested first steps can be. Numbers correspond to the numbers above:

1) (Letting go…) Trust Self Two to get you where you need to go.
You are NOT the same person who missed that note last year- or even last week.

2) (Perspective…) Practice “mindfulness”
Instead of noticing the things you aren’t doing, see the things you are doing.

3) (Small changes…) Go back to the basics and practice them in your regular routine.
Record yourself and listen to what needs to be improved- then zero in on one of those

4) (Purpose…) Why am I doing this?
Always a good question to ask. The answer may simply be “because it’s fun!”

5) (Believe…) Start thinking of yourself as a “musician” moving forward.
“I am not able to do that” quickly takes on new meaning when you add the word “yet!”

6) (Hopeful…) Start keeping a journal and write down the improvements you will see
Watch for your expected improvement and don’t get discouraged when it doesn’t happen overnight.

7) (Professionals…) Take some lessons, if you aren’t already doing so!
You can’t always see other perspectives. Ask for support and guidance.

Those of you who have been around this blog for the past few years or have read the book I published from it, know that these are some of the ways I have been able to move from a mediocre 60-something trumpet player into a better 60-something trumpet musician. Last weekend, for example, the quintet I have been part of played for a church worship. As the service came to an end I noticed that among other things I was

◆ relaxed, not tense from performance anxiety
◆ comfortable with how I had played, not kicking myself for days afterward
◆ aware of my sound throughout the playing, not worried about my ability to do it
◆ able to answer the purpose question, in this case, in order to provide music for people to be touched and moved by its power.

What a change in a few years! But I had to take a step and move into uncomfortable territory and attend the first Big Band Camp at Shell Lake. No, there was the step before it of starting lessons again after 50+ years. No, there was the step before that of saying “Yes!” to the invitation to join the quintet in the first place. No,….

I think you get the idea. The best step to take next is the one that will move you in a direction you would want to go.

Then just do it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the way, Christmas is coming....

Here are my books available at Amazon.

They are both in Kindle and paperback.

They make really nice Christmas gifts.

Link to ordering page.

The Tuning Slide 3.18- Ways to FInd Balance

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

-Albert Einstein

Remember- how you do anything is how you do everything. If our lives as musicians are “out of balance” that means that many things we do are also out of balance. There is also the reverse way of thinking about this. If we begin to find balance in some different ways, the balance will begin to move into other areas as well. Balance is a physical as well as emotional factor. Our “sense of balance” comes from the inner ear, as many of us learned in high school health or biology. As a counselor who loves metaphors, I think the awareness of balance connected to the “inner ear” is a great metaphor well beyond the physical facts of human anatomy.

The “inner ear” is also be about that part of who we are that listens to how we are feeling, inwardly. The “inner ear” listens to the signals and feelings from within. The “inner ear” can “hear” discomfort and internal pain, it can feel “out of balance” and knock us out of whack as much as an inner ear infection can cause us to be dizzy and unable to maintain physical balance. (Yeah, I’ve had that happen!)

In this month’s posts I have been talking about the ways we can be “compleat” musicians. One of the things that seems to jump out of all that I have written is balance. That came to mind on Sunday at the Pops Orchestra concert. As the 4th trumpet I was only needed for the first number. I went out into the audience to enjoy the rest of the show. At intermission I went backstage and told the director how good it was sounding in the auditorium. His only question:

Was it balanced?

Yes, it was. Which was why it sounded good. Of course the question was more than just about whether the oboe could be heard appropriately with the violins. It was also about blend and how everyone was playing. If one trumpet is playing the section staccato and another is playing the same passage legato, it will stand out. So balance is more than just weighing two or more things against the others. It is the overall sound and tone, the style and dynamics. As always:

It’s all about the music

There are different things that I have found that can help me find balance so that I can translate it into my music. Perhaps the most valuable and effective are the movements and disciplines surrounding the ancient arts of yoga, T’ai Chi and Qigong. While yoga has kind of morphed into a wide range of exercise options, at its heart is the ability to move and stretch into a more balanced life. If you want it for aerobic or extreme exercise classes are available all over the place. I am not going to talk much about yoga. I highly recommend it for learning how to move and stretch, to grow into a more flexible and physically fit musician.

For me, the T’ai Chi and Qigong (pronounced chee-gung) based disciplines have become a key part of my own journey into better balance. I have been working on these two disciplines at various levels for four or more years. I am in no way an expert at these. I am a mere beginner who has discovered a way that has helped me in many, many ways. As I did some digging recently I found that a number of music schools, including Berklee and Vanderbilt have T’ai Chi courses for musicians. From Berklee’s catalog:

Tai Chi Chuan, or "Grand Ultimate Fist," is a moving meditation/exercise/martial art that can complement and energize your studies, music, and all the activities of your busy day. ... It is also a constantly evolving art/science that promotes physical, mental, and emotional balance, and is a useful tool for identifying playing-related tension patterns and opening constricted channels of the body. Tai Chi Chuan is a slow, flowing, no-sweat exercise with excellent health benefits that requires no uniforms or equipment, a moderate amount of floor space to perform, and no opponent to compete against except yourself. -Link

For their Qigong class, "Playing in the Key of Qi" Berklee says:

These exercises promote emotional balance, mental clarity, and an optimum physical state. Students will learn about the unique physiological benefits as well as how to apply these exercises to their instrument, daily activities, and creative endeavors. In addition, students will learn how qigong can act as a catalyst for healing or preventing an overuse injury and other health maladies. By the end of the course, students will be more able to conduct the inner orchestra of their mind, body, heart, and spirit through a state of relaxed awareness. -Link

The Harvard Medical School Guide to T’ai Chi (Harvard, 2013) lists ingredients that are the framework for T’ai Chi. Five that have particular impact for musicians:

• Awareness
• Intention
• Active relaxation
• Strengthening and flexibility
• Natural freer breathing

In that same book, there is a chapter on enhancing creativity with T’ai Chi. Artists and musicians make comments like:

If you like music, you will probably like T’ai Chi. You can learn to tune into your body and know what that means. (Harvard Guide, p. 254)

T’ai Chi is about getting flow to happen, from inside to outside, side to side, and top to bottom. This is the same as creativity. (Harvard Guide, p. 252)

The experience [of T’ai Chi] felt so similar to playing music. Movement, rhythm, themes, and even vibrations, all come into play in both activities. When you play music, you have to play in tune, balance with your fellow players, and know where you are without thinking about it. Practicing T’ai Chi teaches you to tune in to the mind-body, the sense of balance, of being in the moment, and nowhere else.Doing the T’ai Chi form is a lot like playing chamber music. (Harvard Guide, p. 253)

Okay, I know this is sounding like an infomercial on T’ai Chi and Qigong. I guess what I am trying to say is that this is one way I have discovered to build balance into my own practice. The meditation in motion enhances my awareness and mindfulness. The discipline of easy breathing is an aid to relaxation before or after practice or performance. (Sometimes even during a performance.) Playing music is for many of us far more than just the notes on the page. It is deep movement, it is the breathing, it is the experience of doing something with others that is moving and entertaining. Above all, it is also a gift to ourselves allowing us to find the melody and the balance in tune with ourselves and the world around us.

There are more places offering T’ai Chi or Qigong than in the past. Google it for your area or check with a local community education program or healthy living center. Do some exploring for yourself. The best way is to learn with a teacher, but there are some good videos that can help you discover what it means. Here are links to three videos that I have personally found helpful:

Don Fiore T’ai Chi
Qigong at Spark People
T’ai Chi Chih

Mindful Musician
Tai Chi Health Products

With these we come to the end of this month's tips on being a "compleat" musician. In the end, self-care in all its forms allows us to grow and develop our skills. We can learn to be better balanced in music as well as the daily lives that surround our music. Or perhaps the music surrounds our lives to give us greater harmony and joy in life.

Next month we will jump back into ideas about practice, reminding us of the effective, efficient, and deliberate ways that we can use on a regular basis. See you then.

The Tuning Slide: 3.14- The Inner Game- Why It Works

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Practice like you've never won;

Perform like you've never lost.

-various sources

When Tim Gallwey started the “Inner Game” teachings and Barry Green applied them to music, we didn’t know a lot about the brain. People like Gallwey went a lot on intuition and personal experience. As a tennis player himself and later a practitioner of meditation, he developed the principles based on seeing results from his ideas.

In those years neuroscience was often done blind since it was hard to watch the brain at work. They really had no idea how the brain functioned. As science progressed with all kinds of ways of scanning the brain a revolution began. It should come as no surprise that many of the old, traditional ideas of how the brain works were disproved. But it also should come as no surprise that many ideas that people like Tim Gallwey developed were right on target, though in slightly different ways. Scientists began to see that the brain was far more complex than they had even imagined. They learned how the two hemispheres of the brain had more to do with each other than had been thought. And it is in that interplay between the two hemispheres that the secrets of the Inner Game and mindfulness meditation were beginning to be unlocked.

The results of all this research and technological advancements is far more than I can even begin to understand in depth, let alone share in this post. But in short, much of it has given some scientific, research-based support for what Gallwey and Green have worked on with the Inner Game.

For me, one of them is how balancing Self 1 and Self 2 can have such an impact. Let’s sum it up as I interpret it:

• Self 1 is the logical, task-oriented, perfectionist who can be easily frustrated when things aren’t going right.
• Self 1 kicks your butt when you make a mistake.
• Self 1 is the one who tells me I am too old to become the type of trumpet player I have always wanted to be.
• Self 1 will hook on to all kinds of things to keep me from succeeding in order to prove my incompetence.

It sounds like Self 1 is out to sabotage me, but it isn’t. Self 1 has some real advantages. Self 1 is the one who can figure out problems utilizing information. Self 1 is the one who will tell me why, for example, Arban’s basic exercises are so important to maintaining my skill. Self 1 will then tell me, time to push yourself, Barry. Try something a little more difficult. Then, as soon as I try, and don’t do it perfectly, Self 1 can say, “Well, I guess we shouldn’t have done that.”

• Meanwhile Self 2 is standing in the background saying, “Hey, here I am. Yes, I can do that. Give me a chance.”
• Why? Because Self 2 had been doing just that for years. Self 2 has taken the ideas and work and pushing of Self 1 and turned them into my ability to move from simple to more complex music. The simpler stuff has become “natural” and Self 1 just lets Self 2 go ahead with it.
• Self 1 knows when I make a mistake. Self 2 says, “Yep. Let me correct it.”

There are many ways of describing this whole process. One of them we have often used is “Muscle Memory.” If I keep practicing that particularly difficult lick, it will become natural and I will intuitively remember it when I get to it. What neuroscience has discovered is that this “muscle memory” is, in reality, physical, in the brain- and real. As we develop our skills at the more complex tasks, the brain makes adjustments, shortcuts, to do them. The brain actually uses fewer neurons and less of our brain to do these complex tasks, leaving the brain more available for the things we haven’t learned yet.

In other words, our brains become more efficient at processing what we already know how to do, no matter how complicated. The brain has physically changed to do them. This is known as brain “plasticity”. The brain has the amazing ability to be continually changing throughout life, reorganizing itself, finding or making new pathways that are more efficient.

How do we utilize that efficiency more effectively? In how we practice. Deliberate practice, focus, awareness, mindfulness, listening, planning, openness to change, letting go. This will come up again and again as we think about and work toward greater skill. Deliberate practice says that the best way is not just to pick up the horn and play any old thing. It won’t get us to new levels of skill without being challenged.

In the last few weeks I have noticed a sloppiness setting in to some of my practice routine, especially with working on Clarke #1. I wasn’t hitting the notes as cleanly as I had been. My fingering dexterity had become uncertain. I was even missing the very basic chromatic scale we all come to know intuitively. So I changed my focus to be a little more deliberate. I decided to really listen to what I was doing. I slowed down the tempo of the exercise, paying attention to what I was doing.

Self 1 was in logical heaven. Not only was I working in ways that made the logical Self happy, Self 1 was loving it that I wasn’t doing as well as I had. “See. You are too old for this.” But Self 2 came to my rescue. Self 2 reminded me that I can do this. In fact, Self 2 was actually enjoying the fun of finding musicality in something as basic as chromatic scales.

Things are improving.

I went back and looked at the list of items from this year’s trumpet workshop and noticed three in particular, other than the ones on the Inner Game, that apply here.

• Hear it, study it, make it become natural
That’s really what we are about in all this. Using the brain’s plasticity to increase efficiency by making new circuits and pathways for action.

• If you panic you will die
Panic is Self 1 taking over and pulling the emergency brakes, bringing everything to a complete stop. It actually sabotages its own skills of investigation. Self 1 is basically lazy and doesn’t do well at thinking in new ways. It has to be pushed. Sometimes you have to tell it to stop so it can actually work with Self 2 at finding new ways.

• Just have fun! It will happen faster.
Let Self 2 have fun- and things will usually happen more effectively and in ways you may never have dreamed.

This is not just about music. All this applies to many other aspects of our lives. Remember that the Inner Game started out as a coaching method for tennis and has been turned into coaching for golf and business success as well. Learning how to utilize these skills with music will give you a step ahead in applying the same skills to whatever occupation or vocation or even hobby you pursue.

One of my “day jobs” for the past 25 years has been as an addictions counselor. In the disease of addiction the brain has been hijacked and its natural wiring has been short-circuited. Without brain plasticity my job would have been hopeless, recovery would have been impossible. Yet these advances in neuroscience have given me and the addiction treatment field new and exciting tools.

Much to my initial surprise the skills and tasks developed by Gallwey and Green in the Inner Game are at the heart of these tools. They also work in my career, my daily life, my relationships. We are all “pliable” in emotion, in attitude, and skill. We can build new wiring, shorten brain pathways for certain activities and therefore make them more efficient, use awareness and mindfulness to improve who we are and make life even more fun.

It’s an Inner Game and it’s worth playing.

The Tuning Slide: 3.13- Find Balance in Letting Go

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
-Ajahn Chah

Over the past two weeks I have talked about the three Inner Game Skills of

• Awareness
• Will and
• Trust

Together they form the foundation for our Self 1 and Self 2 to work together. That gets us into a balance that allows us to improve our musicianship and have more fun playing.

Unfortunately it is not as easy as just saying, “Okay. I’ll just be aware, exercise my will, and trust will follow.” Trust may be the last thing we can build and it may also be the one we must often work on. You see, at least in my experience, the rational, controlling, worried Self 1 is always on guard, ready to pounce. In order for the balance between Self 1 and Self 2 to work, Self 1 must “Let go!” But Self 1 has a history of fear and uncertainty, often placing barriers in the way in the form of thoughts of those fears and uncertainties.

Some of the most common of these barriers for me (and for most of us) 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 even though “letting go” can feel risky. Barry Green in The Inner Game of Music even says that we should see the feeling of risk as a good sign. It means we are about to let go and allow Self 2 to take over. Green says:

Self 2 deserves to be trusted because it proves how trustworthy it is over and over again….[and] the more you let Self 2 go through its paces, the clearer it become just how trustworthy and talented Self 2 really is…. But… we’re not trusting blindly- we’re trusting the most capable part of ourselves…. Self 2 is the real musician. (Green, p. 87.)

Green then says that letting go is a lot like falling asleep, especially when Self 1 is active and worrying. There are three phases of falling asleep using awareness as a technique.

• First, you notice what Self 1 is doing, for example keeping you worried, thinking, inner talking as you lie there. So you make a decision to shift your awareness somewhere else.
• Second, you focus on something else, hopefully something simple and natural. Some people count sheep, do breathing exercises, repeat a prayer or mantra. Self 1’s thought begin to fade.
• Third, you actually “let go” and Self 2 takes over. You are asleep.

Green points out that we do not remember the moment we fall asleep, or even the moments before. It just happens. We have trusted Self 2 to take us where we need to be. You can’t “make it happen”. You just do it. (Green, p. 89)

Letting go means being willing to allow life to carry you to a new place, even a deeper more true rendition of self. Holding on means trying to push life into the place of your making or be damned. (Psychology Today, March 12, 2016) To put it into our Inner Game words,

• Letting go is being willing to allow Self 2 to carry you to an even deeper, more true experience of your music and your ability to make music.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of those Self 1 barriers above and see how we might be able to learn to “let go” in spite of what Self 1 thinks. Or, in a better attitude, how can Self 2 show Self 1 that it is competent and knows what to do? (Marked (TB) from Tiny Buddha- https://tinybuddha.com/blog/40-ways-to-let-go-and-feel-less-pain/)

Barrier #1: Worrying about what others think of me
Change your perception (TB)
Look at it from a different view. If you make a mistake, people understand and usually don’t remember anyway. That also can mean look at wondering what others think can be a blessing- it makes us work more efficiently in order to do a better job.

Remember why you are a musician (Green)
One of the reasons many of us are musicians (paid/unpaid/whatever) is because we like what happens when music is played- and heard. Relax. People like music. The more relaxed you are, the more relaxed the music will be, the more will like it. If you have done your practicing and preparing, know that Self 2 wants you to be the best musician you can be.

Barrier #2: Fear of being a failure
Allow yourself to be imperfect
A performance musician once told me that they never get through a show without some mistake. I never heard one in any of the times I heard them perform. (That’s back to #1 above). They also told me that they cannot be perfect. It is a highly unlikely place to go. Give yourself permission to be real and imperfect- but work to be the best you can be. Chances are you are better than you think.

Make a list of your accomplishments—even the small ones. (TB)
Let’s get real with ourselves. Let’s be honest about what we can do, what we have accomplished. Humility does not mean ignoring what you have been able to succeed at. Humility is an honest perception of who you are and what you are able to do. Somedays it is a very big success to practice for a whole hour without throwing the horn out the window. Keep a notebook/journal of what you have been able to do. You will be amazed when you look back at it.

Barrier #3: Feeling out of control
Channel your discontent into an immediate positive action (TB)
Go back and play the basics; notice how you play them now. Do you remember when you couldn’t do that Arban’s exercise at half the speed? Or pick something that you need to work on- and work on it. It can be that simple. Channel your energy into getting better. And really, it is Self 1 that wants to be in control, not you. We really want Self 2 to be in control.

Become part of the music (Green)
This is not unlike what an actor does when doing a movie or state role. They must become the character they are portraying so that we, the audience believe who they are and what they are doing. We are the channel for the music. We are taking the character of the music, interpreting it through our (and the conductor’s) understanding of the music and presenting it for the audience or at times just for ourselves. Practice this by listening to the music, singing it, feeling its pulse and life. We all do that when playing. Make it a study of the music so it is no longer you who are performing, but the music moving through you.

Barrier #4: Doubting my abilities.
Make a list of your accomplishments—even the small ones. (TB)
Just a repeat of above. This can be a surefire way to quiet Self 1. Use it whenever you can!

Sharpen your skills by using what you know you can do.
What we tend to forget is that as we continue to improve, that means our skills improve and that we can use the skills we have learned to improve some more. It is cumulative. It is not linear. There are times and places when we make great leaps and other times it moves very slowly. That’s okay. Move at the pace you are moving at. To rush it gets in the way. That’s Self 1 being impatient. Let Self 2 enjoy what’s happening.

Barrier #5: Performance anxiety
Visualization meditation
More to come on this one in a future post, but for now, if we work on the first four, this one will become less a barrier and more a reminder of what we are doing and why. In other words, awareness.

This Inner Game work can actually be a lot of fun. It allows us to get in touch with the playful part of ourselves and tells the judge and critic in Self 1 to keep cool and balanced. Self 2 often will naturally trust Self 1 when something needs to be analyzed and worked on. Self 2 knows that Self 1 is hyper about all these things. The more Self 1 can trust Self 2’s abilities and insights, the better balanced we will be. Self 1 is there all the time. We pay attention when we need to. But, believe it or not, Self 2 is in charge more often that we realize. And that is an insight we have only recently begun to understand through advances in brain studies and neurosciences. More on that next week.

Until then- give Self 2 a chance, let go and let the music play.

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.

The Tuning Slide: 3.11- Inner Game- Self One and Self Two

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

First, a welcome to any new readers of this, especially those of you who were introduced to The Tuning Slide at this year’s Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop. This is the third year of this blog. The first two years are available in a book, The Tuning Slide: Reflections on Life and Music. This year I will continue to develop the ideas and reflections that formed the foundation for the first two years while going deeper and broader on the ideas.

Where did the title come from? Well, as both a musician and a counselor/therapist my interest has always been in unifying life and keeping from compartmentalizing things. As I have said a number of times- and will say many time because it is essential- how we do anything is how we do everything. Here is how I describe the tuning slide idea:

On a trumpet, the tuning slide is the curved “C”-shaped tube at the opposite end of the lead pipe from the mouthpiece. (To the right in the trumpet above.) The slide is to be used to bring the trumpet into tune with the other instruments.
When your instrument is in tune:
• The music flows much more smoothly.
• You tend to get into sync with the other musicians.
• You don’t get as tired while playing since you are not constantly trying to “lip” the notes into tune.

When your life is in tune:
• Your days flow much more smoothly.
• You tend to get into sync with others and the world around you.
• You don’t get as tired as you can go with the flow and not be constantly fighting or reacting.

In short, the tuning slide keeps us moving more smoothly in the right direction. That is what I hope comes from this website, the blog posts and my other writings- ways that even non-trumpet players and non-musicians can discover how to keep life more “in tune.”

Life is not logic. Life is not philosophy.
Life is a dance, a song, a celebration.
It is more like love and less like logic.
-Osho Rajneesh

One thing I am going to try this year is to do a month of posts on a topic, looking at different aspects of it. I will be using the ideas from Trumpet Workshop to do that. This month, then, I want to talk about one of the fundamentals of what I have been learning and experiencing over the past two years. It is “easy” to get caught in the “technical” trap of techniques, methods, and “how-to” ideas. I have spent (okay- I still spend) hours and hours surfing the Internet for the latest techniques that will improve my playing and style. A quick Google search of “How do I…..?” will yield thousands of potential web pages and You Tube videos. Each one can give you the impression that they have THE answer you have been looking for.

This is my “Self One” hard at work. Self one works hard. Sometimes too hard. Self one wants to learn the tricks that will make my playing perfect. It is terrified of failure. It has often been the inner critic of my writings, the stubborn listener to my lectures, the unsatisfied musical connoisseur of my playing. It is always sitting on the edge of its seat to jump on something wrong. It is always tense and restless.

Then there’s “Self Two” sitting on the sidelines telling Self one, “Cool your jets, man. We know what we’re doing- if only you’d shut up once in a while and let us do it!” (Self one insists that I add a disclaimer- what I have just written in these two paragraphs is a gross oversimplification and exaggeration. For more in-depth stuff, go to the right sidebar and click the “Inner Game” category to get all the posts from the past two years on the topic. There, I hope I have taken care of him for the rest of this post.)

One of the goals of learning about this is to get the two “selfs” to work together in harmony and acceptance. There are three basic Inner Game skills that must come into balance.

• Awareness- simple awareness, without judgement, that fosters natural learning.
• Will- it 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.
• Trust- 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.

These three then help us achieve what Barry Green and Timothy Gallwey call the “master skill”- relaxed concentration. (Inner Game of Music, p. 28-29)

What does this mean in practice? How can we turn this into reality? Here are some ideas related to the skill of “awareness” that can help us on a regular basis.

Awareness: In order to know what’s happening or not, we need to be able to focus. Awareness is the ability to discover those things and then plan on them. Sometimes, the Inner Game tells us, just being aware is enough. Instead of focusing, say, on the fact that “I just can’t get that right!” focus on when and how you get caught by it. Pay attention to what you are doing, non-judgmenally, and that will begin to shift your attention to solutions instead of problems. Green says that helps something different to happen. “[W]e listen more closely, and this gives our body clues which allow it to adjust at a level below our conscious awareness, without physical or mental interference.” (Green, p. 46)

The other part of this is that awareness moves us from “trying” to playing. Green notes, “When we are trying, our awareness is taken away from the music and focused on our ‘running commentary.’ It turns out that it’s very difficult to focus on both at the same time.”

I have been working on a difficult passage in one of our big band numbers. Too many accidentals, too fast a tempo, unusually difficult fingering changes. (So says Self One.) I have done all the usual tricks- metronome, slow practice, breaking it into bites. Nothing has worked over the past couple years. Self one is way too involved. So I listened to a recording of our group playing it and discovered which part seems to be the one that is throwing me off. I then played it with some attention and awareness. Much to my surprise it was not the section with the accidentals and fingering that tripped up the sound. It was what happens right after that. That has given me a different focus and direction. I’m still not Self Two comfortable with it, but I am not as bummed by it.

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, which in the end gives us helpful and positive feedback. Acceptance is part of what awareness can lead us into. “It is what it is” can be difficult mantra or a movement into aware acceptance. After becoming aware we then just allow it to be. There are many other things that can better utilize your focus- how the music sounds, for example, or the rhythm. If the problem is the one you are trying to fix, don’t focus on it. Focus on other things to help make the music more musical.

Next week I will look at the other two basic skills of the Inner Game- will and trust. For this week be aware and accepting. Don’t try so hard- just let the music be itself. The result can be a more relaxed attitude which will then allow Self Two to do its thing.

Oh- and try this with things other than music. Be aware of what is happening around you. Notice what is working and how it helps on a daily basis. It does not mean ignore problems, but interestingly enough the more you focus on them, the bigger they become and the less likely we are to find a solution. Shift your focus, discover what is right, and chances are that somewhere in what is going right is part of the answer you have been looking for.

The Tuning Slide: 3.10- Seeing Differently- Lessons from the Eclipse

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

What you see in a total eclipse is entirely different from what you know.
-Annie Dillard

I have often commented here about the need to connect our music and our lives. What we learn in one area can and should make a difference in the other. We have talked about that at Trumpet Workshop a number of times. Most of us are not going to be full-time professional musicians. We are going to be full-time something, however. The skills we use at one can be applied to the others.

It was with that in mind that I realized that there was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reflect on a total solar eclipse and figure out what I could learn from it. So I did the following:

• Planning
  
  • Check dates, clear calendar, coordinate with family
• Waiting
  
  • In between decision and the event, there will always be waiting. You can’t avoid it so how do you best utilize the time?
• Researching
  
  • Find the path, find a city, find a motel,
• Finalize plans and equipment
  
  • What kind of filters will I need for photography, what might I want to make sure I have ready,
  • What plans can I make for a Plan B?
• Practicing
  
  • Take the cameras out with the filters, get pictures and video, work on how different settings will impact the final product.

Here, then, in a slightly longer than usual post is the result.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is the day- August 21, 2017. We have come to Kansas City, just on the southern edge of totality. We get up early to get to where we plan to watch the eclipse, Lathrop, a small town in western Missouri where the local Baptist church (among many others) has set up parking. We plan on getting there between the early rush and the later one to give us time to relax and be ready. Here, with later additions, is what I wrote during the next four and a half hours:

• 9:00 E(clipse)-2h 40m Sitting watching the clouds. Heat and humidity in the morning sun. But oh—oh that solid cloud deck! Weather Channel app on my phone says it is cloudy now but should clear. People from Oklahoma, Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin around us. Sixteen cars to a row, maybe 10 rows of cars in a field at the local Baptist Church’s north campus. Cameras on tripods, fancy reflecting telescopes, folding chairs, here and there a tent or canopy. I set up my cameras and take a couple of pictures to show the sky and the full sun.
• 10:00 E-1h 40m Took a walk around the grounds. One of the attendants told me some people wanted to be here early to get a good viewing spot! “I don’t want anything in my way.” “But lady,” he added, “just look up.” “But can we leave when its done?” since some places are having all kinds of other activities. The attendant pulled up the yellow plastic tape they used to mark off the parking area. “Just tear it,” he said as he shook his head in disbelief.
• 10:18 E-1h 20m
  
  Rain and thunder for about ten minutes. Now what? Looks like it could clear to the west.
• 10:41 E-1h Still overcast and sprinkling with thunder. Storms popping up. Will it or won't it? Looking less hopeful. I want to cry.
• 11:09 T(otality)-2h Not looking hopeful. But keeping the feeling of hope alive. This can still happen if only for part of the Eclipse. Washington Post just said it is starting in Oregon. Bring the sunshine with you, please. Should I try to figure out a Plan B or just stick with what I have planned?
• 11:25 E-15m Dare I say that it looks like some possible clearing to the west? I would hate to jinx it. It is still not out of the question?!?! Just don't say it out loud. A field full of eclipse watchers holds our collective breath.
• 11:30 E-10m The rain has stopped!? Sky brightening. Walked over and bought us a lunch. Now we will see if we have anything to see.
• 11:54 E+15m My first chance to see the eclipse.
  
  The clouds clear. I zoom the cameras, take my first pictures, start the video. It is happening.
• 12:45 We’ve had a relatively good run of clear skies. Almost a full hour of variable clouds and sun. I have paid attention to the advice from a photographer I read during my research: “Take your eye away from the viewfinder and watch the eclipse itself. You may never see anything like it again and you would hate to miss it.” I took five short videos totaling about 25 minutes of different points in the eclipse. It is amazing to watch it. I have seen a number of lunar eclipses but this is different. This is the sun being blocked. It is a “crescent sun.” I have also been watching the clouds to the west and southwest. They are the real thing. My heart sinks as I come to realize that they are moving faster than the moon. They will be the eclipse I see.
• 12:52 T-15 Clouds finally move in.
  
  I take my last picture before totality. It will be the last regular picture I take. I hold my camera at ready. I take the filters off both cameras- just in case. We will have to see what we can see here. There is no Plan B.
• 1:09 Totality- and clouds. We watched it get darker and cooler. People were quiet, still, perhaps sharing a moment of sadness or grief along with the amazement. Many of us have traveled to see this and now we won’t. I watched the clouds get darker. It begins to look like a tornado storm, but it is the shadow of the moon crossing the earth, approaching us. It is not like sunset- it moves much faster than that. It gets dark quickly.
• 1:09 - 1:13-
  
  I start the video camera to get shots of the horizon in its odd colors where the clouds have broken. As promised it is a 360 degree sunset in a purplish hue. I start a video pan to catch what I can. Then, just as I was about to turn it off and start packing up, a small break in the clouds. Third contact (the moving of the moon from the sun) has past; totality is over. The darkness on the other side of the clouds has moved southeast. For a moment there is the sliver of the sun. [Looking at the video later I am amazed at watching the darkness move across the clouds, more visible in a speeded up video. I will be putting a video together in the next week of the experience.]
• 1:20
  
  Heading back to our motel in bumper to bumper traffic. Making as much as 12 mph (mostly less) for over half of the trip. It took 2 1/2 hours to make the 40 miles we had done in 45 minutes that morning.

We were home by Thursday and I was coping with sadness and depression. The long-awaited and dreamed of event was over. I was still bummed. I had done all the right things to get ready:

• Planning
• Waiting
• Researching
• Practicing

And it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. It was out of my hands. I did my part to be at the right place at the right time, but that’s as far as I could go. So it goes. Powerless!

On Thursday evening I watched a cloudy sunset and realized how different it was from what I saw on Monday. New reflections began to ease the sadness. I began to explain to others what I saw and heard. Their amazement at what had happened that they didn’t get a chance to see touched me. I began to understand that I did get to see a good deal of the eclipse, my experience of the eclipse.

In other words, by Thursday I had to come to grips with what this event was going to mean for me. I decided, by action and intuition that I had to have my story to tell about the eclipse since I was there. A solar eclipse IS a big deal. But I had two choices:

1) Be a whiner, live in sadness and despair and depression that here was this incredible chance and it passed me by. Poor me! or
2) Reflect on what I DID experience in this rare opportunity. The eclipse did not pass me by. I saw the moon moving across the sun. I was with all those people locked in a common purpose and event. I was right there in the middle of totality as it happened. The world darkened; the temperature dropped; birds returned to their nests; humans stood in awe. It truly was something that felt out of this world.

As asked by the wondrous book and movie, Life of Pi, "which is the better story?" Which story includes hope and belief, wonder and meaning? That’s a no-brainer!

Now, a week later, I am excited by what I have experienced. The more I have talked about it, looked at some of my video, and listened to other people’s experiences, the truth of Annie Dillard’s words at the top of this post sink in. What I saw in this eclipse was different from everything I have ever known, even to the point of not seeing the totality but being impacted by it.

• What happens in an eclipse is this-
  
  • Our normal way of seeing things is blocked.
  • The sun is gone, covered by the moon.

All that we think we know about the world shifts, if only for the few minutes of totality. We are forced to react and respond differently, even if we know what is happening. It is not hard to imagine what people without the scientific and technological resources would think about a total solar eclipse. It can feel like the world is coming to an end.

Here then are my initial thoughts and learnings:

• Do the necessary footwork!
• Be open for the surprises that are there, even when they aren’t what you expected. Which in reality is most of the time.
• Let the moment be real and allow it to soak in to your own psyche.
• Be aware of your story and know that you can choose how you respond to what is happening.
• Choose the better story, the one that will stand the test of time and that you will be telling into the future.
• In the end I was forced by the clouds to take my eye away from the camera and watch the eclipse- and I am better for it.

Let’s translate that to our musicianship.

The Footwork:
Do the day in and day out work to become the musician (or whatever) you want to become. How many times can I play an opening exercise of long tones or those early Arban’s exercises? One more time than I already have! I will never reach the end. It will always be “one more.” Listen to music; read about it; learn the ins and outs of it.

The Surprises:
I will never know that solo or song or ensemble piece perfectly. I need to be open at each moment for the music itself to tell me what I need to know. That’s where Self Two can begin to take over and allow me to feel, hear, and internalize the music.

The Moment:
Which moment is the most important? The one you are in right now. Is it practicing? Make it good practice. Is it performance preparation? Mindfulness. Being in the moment and letting it happen. I played in a concert last Friday evening. I allowed the music to be present within me. I heard parts of the pieces that I had never heard before since we were outside, in a different venue. Those were the surprises. So was how I felt I was playing. Self Two was definitely as work. What a moment!

Your Story-The Better Story:
This happens after The Moment. This is the reflection on what has happened. Call it debriefing or evaluation, or awareness, this is where you make sense of what has happened and place it into its proper context. It may be that your solo went better than you hoped- or not as good as you wanted. What do you learn from that? Will it stop you from another solo or will you see that it can be different next time?

Take your eye away:
That eye is often Self One ready and willing to criticize us, tell us we can do it better- or that we can never do it right. Take your eye away from the technical and just play. Just do it. Relax and “play” in all the broad meanings of that wonderful word.

Enjoy. If you have done the footwork and practice and research, it will happen.