Tuning Slide 5.7- Make Music- Get the Benefits

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The power of music to integrate and cure … is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest non-chemical medication.
— Oliver Sacks

I’m not sure why I want to post this. It may be simply because I want to remind myself of all the good reasons why I play music. The idea came from a post on the Piano Power website on the benefits of playing an instrument. Perhaps it was originally conceived of to convince parents to agree to getting a child a musical instrument and training. Perhaps those of us who are already musicians can point to this when someone asks why we spend so much time with music- practice, rehearsal, performance; then repeat!

Many of us may know these things on an intuitive level. We know that we get into a “zone” when we play; we have experienced that change in body, mind, and soul that occurs when we play our instrument. Many of these ideas from the Piano Power post by Mike Levitsky may be useful in helping us name what it is we are experiencing on an almost daily basis. If you are not yet experiencing these on some kind of regular basis, look at the edited list below.

I’ll just start with the overview. These four would be reason enough.
◆ Uses Almost Every Part Of The Brain. (from TED Ed)

◆ Enlarges The Brain
◆ Speeds Up Reaction Times
◆ Strengthens Your Immune System
⁃ These physical benefits are just the start, because they are naturally at the base of all the other reasons. In the end it is most likely these physical benefits that feed into allowing all the others to help us, as musicians, to do more than we think we are doing.

Some of the reasons listed are obvious, of course. We may not even realize they are happening. While we may not always succeed at having these occur, we at least become more aware of them.
◆ Allows You To Share With Others
◆ Develops Music Appreciation
◆ Increases Time-Management Skills
- I almost wanted to delete this last one. I know way too many musicians whose time management skills are just plain bad. No matter how much they may insist they want to be there on time, they are always late. I am willing to give them some break since they do manage to practice and get to concerts and gigs on time. Usually. But enough snideness. After all, there are exceptions to everything, and I’m certainly not perfect, either.

Most of the reasons listed fall under what can be called “developmental assets”, no matter what our age. These would be:
◆ Benefits The Brains Of Babies
◆ Benefits Spelling and IQ In Children
⁃ Some of these two benefits are still under investigation, some are questions of nurture vs. nature. There are studies being done to see if those with higher abilities in a number of areas are drawn to music more than those who don’t, for example. In other words, does correlation mean causation? The numbers do show some indication of at least a low level of causation.

◆ Increases Emotional Perception
⁃ Music is emotion through sound. It only makes sense that some music may increase our abilities to perceive emotions. As a counselor, however, I have a hunch that this takes a lot of work to reach that ability.

◆ Decreases Age-Related Hearing Loss
⁃ I’m not sure about this one. Many of us do have some significant hearing issues as a result of years of being trumpet players or playing without ear protection. But perhaps it has to do with being able to hear with better perception of things. In my case, that is true, when I remember to wear my hearing aids.

◆ Reduces Stress
◆ Produces Patience and Perseverance
◆ Increases Personal Discipline
⁃ These three go together. The more stressed we are, the less patience we have. The more we get worked up over something, the less likely we are to persevere. When we are working on a difficult piece, we can learn to be willing to work on it, sometimes with little patience and too much perseverance That’s when things get difficult. Patience and perseverance also means knowing how to pull back and take a different or more effective approach. Music can do that!

◆ Increases Memory Capability
⁃ If you can’t remember where you left your keys, maybe it is because you forgot to practice your instrument! At least that is what the article said. This may have as much to do with keeping the brain active and engaged than actually improving memory as such. Whichever it is, I’ll take it!

◆ Breeds Confidence
⁃ When all these things begin to show up in our lives, it only makes sense that we will be more confident in what we are doing. And confidence in one area often translates to a better sense of confidence in oneself. Again, the counselor in me sees how this can be sabotaged by other events, but success is a growth mode. Just don’t get overconfident.

◆ Cultivates Creativity
⁃ The result of all this is that we can also become more creative. I found this definition of creativity on the website Creativity at Work:

⁃ Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.

⁃ If that isn’t what we learn on our instruments, I don’t know what is!

And, as if we needed any more, my final thought is-
◆ It is fun!

Tuning Slide #4.40- Finding Your Voice (#1)

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.
― Madeleine K. Albright

Steven Covey was an imaginative and insightful self-help and management guru whose work changed how many people saw their lives and tasks. His most famous book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989. He listed three “stages” of growth into maturity and the “habits” that help highly effective people move to the next stage:
1. Independence
1 - Be proactive
2 - Begin with the end in mind
3 - Put first things first
2. Interdependence
4 - Think win-win
5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6 - Synergize!
3. Continual improvement
7 - Sharpen the Saw

Any of you who have been part of Mr. Baca’s trumpet workshops know these seven habits and how important they are to many of us as we have developed our own musical maturity. These ideas have run through many of the ideas on the Tuning Slide over these four years, even though I have never specifically worked with these ideas in a series in the posts. (I think I just made a commitment to do that next year.)

In any case, in line with what I have been writing for the past six weeks about life lessons and music, I thought I would actually deal with an extension of Covey’s 7 habits that he introduced in a follow-up book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (2004). The 8th habit is “find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.”

The minute I saw the word “voice” I naturally turned to music and the ideas from a book on the subject I had picked up last year. The Art of Mindful Singing: Notes on Finding Your Voice by Jeremy Dion who uses mindfulness and singing to describe how music can experience well-being through music. So, as a natural extension of the past six weeks I decided to start with Covey and see how finding our voice- and our song- can bring us greater well-being and then later move into a bit of the ideas from the mindful singing book.

Voice is Covey's code for "unique personal significance." Those who inspire others to find theirs are the leaders needed now and for the future, according to Covey. The central idea of the book is the need for steady recovery and application of the whole person paradigm, which holds that persons have four intelligences - physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. (Wiki)

As the title of the Covey book indicates, effectiveness as described in his first ground-breaking book, isn’t the end. Now he wants to show how people can move from effectiveness to “greatness.” At the heart of that is our individual ability to make choices. It has almost become a post-modern mantra that we can choose how to respond to just about any situation that we find ourselves facing. We can choose to be angry or to forgive, for example. We can choose to wallow in sadness or find ways to move on. We can choose to be satisfied with being mediocre, or we can look for ways to increase and grow in our abilities and skill. That’s where the first seven habits move us.

But many times we are stifled, inhibited or blocked from those movements. The book talks of "5 Cancerous Behaviors" (page 135) that inhibit people's greatness:

◦ Criticism
◦ Complaining
◦ Comparing
◦ Competing
◦ Contending

This list is one that we as musicians have certainly faced.

◦ There is the criticism that others aim at us for making mistakes or, in this point, the criticism we aim at others who we don’t want to be better than us. There are outer critics and our own inner critic. No one is ever good enough for a critic. We can choose how we respond (if at all) to these criticisms or take them and grow with them.
◦ There is the complaining (whining) that I “can’t” do that, I don’t have the time to practice that much, I will never be able to hit that note. Who does the director think he’s dealing with, Doc? Nothing is ever good enough for the complainer. We can choose to stay a whiner and complaining, letting the inner critic win, or we can decide to move on.
◦ There is the comparing of myself to others either better than I am or not as good as I am. When I compare myself to the better musician, I can end up with jealousy or envy or low self-esteem. When I look to compare myself to someone who isn’t as good as I am, I can tend to get that egocentric behavior and attitude we are often told we have. We can choose not to compare with others and seek only to be better that the person I was yesterday.
◦ There is competition. I don’t mean we don’t compete. We will. But if it is a win-lose competition, we have moved into dangerous territory as we may end up only wanting our way to win. We compete in order to be better than the other. We can’t help others achieve their greatness, an important part of the 8th habit, if we are always seeking to beat them. We can choose to reach out and assist others to increase their skills and ability.
◦ Here is contending which leads us to move even beyond criticizing to wanting to make the other person look bad. Contenders are always looking for a fight in order to beat the other. Again, we can’t reach out and help others in positive ways if we insist they are inferior and unable to do what we do.

Covey sees these as “cancerous.” They are dangerous; they break and inhibit relationships. They eat away at who we are. They undermine any ability we might seek to discover. In the end they can destroy the possibility of greatness. Not that there aren’t good musicians who might even embody some of these cancerous behaviors. There have certainly been enough self-centered, angry, jealous, mean individuals who achieve “star” status in all areas of life from music, to politics, to business and beyond. They force their personalities and dysfunctions on others- sometimes as bullies, sometimes as oppressive individuals, sometimes as just plain people we hate to be around.

We can choose to NOT be one of those people. I am deeply saddened when I hear of- or meet- one of those individuals. Some of them are mean to themselves in self-criticism, lack of self-awareness or self-esteem. They are short-changing themselves. Some are mean to others. They are short-changing others- but are also short-changing themselves. They will never discover the joy and wonder that might bring even greater possibilities in their lives.

When we truly find our voice, it will have an impact on all that we do and all that we can be. More on how we do that next week.

Tuning Slide 4.16- When You Take Too Much Time Off

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

I just play music. That makes my whole day. I can practice and be happy.
— Trombone Shorty

Well, I’m glad I made it through the end of September and the beginning of October. If you remember I had a minor surgical procedure done at the end of last month. The doctor’s orders were clear, no playing trumpet for a week. The pressure could cause the incision to start bleeding again and extend the problem. You may also remember that as a typical trumpet player I looked for a way around it. I checked on a couple trumpet forums and they were just as clear as the doctor in stronger language. Simply put they said, Don’t be stupid. Don’t do it!

So I didn’t - for eight days. I broke an 18-month string of daily playing, practicing, and routine. I hadn’t missed that many days in a row since September 2015, right after I started this amazing journey into being a “real” trumpet player. The most had been three days, which as the oft-quoted meme says is when the audience begins to notice that the musician hasn’t been practicing.

So what happened? Did it truly affect my musicianship? How difficult has it been to get back in the groove and routine? Not a particularly surprising set of answers. They are almost exactly what most of us has been told many times. When you don’t practice everything suffers. But what was the most surprising was the reality of the word “everything.”

I noticed that I was off-kilter from the second day. The first day missed was, of course, the day of surgery. Everything was off-balance that day. I thought about missing the trumpet, but I did some extra focusing on watching some trumpet-related You Tube videos. The second day I noticed a sense of withdrawal. The trumpet was calling my name. I was then out of sorts all week, actually. Yes, some of it was from the aftermath of the surgery and the impact on my vision since it was eye surgery. But life just wasn’t right. Something was missing.

I wasn’t totally surprised by this. Anything that has become that much a part of daily life for so long will leave a void when it’s not there. But the void was more pervasive than expected. My mental focus wasn’t as clear; I was less grounded than I had been. I knew it wasn’t just the surgery. I therefore worked hard at listening to more music and spending time on You Tube. I worked on some of my compositions for the quintet and planning our gigs for later this fall. That helped since I was working on music. But I wanted to MAKE music, play it!

It was only when I got back to regular playing did it all make sense. I have written here many times about finding your song, making your music, expanding your musical voice. I have been working on these things with intent and intensity since that last long layout in September 2015. The Inner Game of Music ideas I have been exploring are about living intentionally and mindfully as much as they are about making music. Increasing daily mindfulness is something I teach and lead as part of my job- it is an evidence-based practice in the field of addiction treatment. I didn’t realize how much music helped me do that in my own life.

One of our human shortcomings I have discovered is that we often compartmentalize our lives. Each box, each compartment, each interest we may have doesn’t often connect with other areas. Here’s work. Over there is my family. Back in the corner is my music. Oh, I think I see a box for my exercising and physical health activities. I don’t often allow them to interact. That- in spite of one of those statements I have said on here many times:

How we do anything is how we do everything!

I discovered, much to my own surprise how much my music filters into everything I do. It fills my life, gives it a richness and a joy that is anything but work. It helps me relax in all I do. When I find myself being obsessive about my music- hyper-focused, overly intense, worried that it isn’t going right, for example- the rest of my life suffers. By not being able to play my music and allow it to feed and guide me, I was out of balance.

So what has happened since I started back? As I am writing this I have had just two weeks back in my daily routine. I have had friends who don’t practice on a daily basis. They seem to be able to pick up the trumpet and sound good. I have other friends who hear all their faults when they have to miss their routine. I was truly amazed at how both those things happened to me.

First, my sound did not suffer too greatly. Nor did my range. Why? I realized that it has to do with what I have learned from the Shell Lake faculty- it is in the breath and the consistency with which we learn to play with that breath. It is also the Inner Game trust of Self 2’s ability to do what it says it can do. When I picked up the trumpet again two weeks ago, I was not back where I was in 2015. I had a style, a routine, a training that allowed me to be able to do what I can do.

Second, however, my endurance and technique did suffer. I was not able to do the routine for 45 minutes like I was doing. I wasn’t even able to do two 30 minute sessions in a day. My range suffered when the endurance tanked. Today I was able to get past an hour of practice in two sessions. It felt good. My soul was renewed by that.

Third, I also learned that I had taken some stuff for granted. So I went back to some of the basic routine elements that I know help, such as ending my sessions with a couple of Concone etudes, a real confidence and sound booster. It extends the endurance while not challenging technique which gives Self 2 the opportunity to show me what I can do.

I hope I don’t have to do this again any time soon. It was frustrating, but at least I discovered that I am a far different musician than I was when I first set foot onto the campus as Shell Lake. Much has changed. For the better.

Now, if I could only apply this to my routine of exercise and fitness.

Tuning Slide 4.14- Finding Motivation

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right;
Professionals Practice Until They Can’t Get It Wrong
- Various Sources

Last week I focused on Barry Green’s insights on discipline as one of the pathways to mastery of music. While I didn’t talk very specifically or at length about it, we all know what discipline means.

Practice.

I have had a love-hate relationship with the idea of practice no matter what the area of discipline. I played basketball (very poorly I must say) in my sophomore year in high school. Practice was lousy! No fun! Boring! The lack of willingness to really practice was the reason my parents in 4th grade decided I should quit piano lessons. Then came the trumpet. It would be fun and neat; then it would be dull and boring. Anytime I hook on to something new in my trumpet playing it goes along well for awhile, then it gets, well, the same-old-same-old. In other words- boring. Let’s see how fast I can play my long tones so I can move to something else. (What an ironic statement!)

Then I get interested again, for example in improving my sound and back I go to the more disciplined version of long tones, Clarke #1, etc. The new excitement, even of the same routine, can last for weeks, even into months, but it may easily get lost again. The question will always become, “What is motivating me at the moment and how can I expand and extend it?” Green raises that question in his book and went searching for answers from other professional musicians. These are the four sources of motivation that he found:

◆ Competition: Like Green, I am not a big fan of competition, but an audition or enforced competition between musicians by directors can be a motivating factor. I think The third and fourth motivators below are actually what make it work.

◆ Required Performance: Personally, this is probably my biggest motivating factor. When I know I am going to be playing this piece in public performance, I will make sure I know my part and become familiar with it. Again, the next two factors are probably most at work.

◆ Pride (i.e to prevent embarrassment): If I believe I am a good enough musician to play the piece, I don’t want to embarrass myself, either in rehearsal or in performance. My pride could take a hit and down goes my skills. I have related before the incident playing Taps when I was in high school that had more of an impact on my skills than any other single, negative event. That was a Self 1 issue, but I was embarrassed and have worked ever since so it doesn’t happen as often as I am afraid it will.

◆ Fear: The last phrase in the last one may say it all- afraid. The source of anxiety that has perhaps motivated more of my practice than anything else.

Of course my greatest motivator is the music itself. I continue to play music and work at improving my musicianship because I really do love it! The week I had earlier this month when I was unable to practice or play due to surgery was really tough. The evening I picked up the trumpet and produced a tone was a release of tension that I really needed. I play because of the music and the fun I get from it, but the other motivators move me to improve and grow as a musician and as a person.

Which leads to think again about disciplined practice. Those four motivators that Green described are what keep me digging into new things and taking lessons when and where I can. If all I wanted was to just play and doodle around on the instrument, I wouldn’t have to do those long tones or the Clarke, Schlossberg, and Arban exercises. I wouldn’t work on the Getchell pieces to see what I can do next. I would just pick up the horn and blow. But I wouldn’t be getting any better. I would feel as if I was just “good enough,” and that’s okay. But it isn’t. At least not for me.

We learn what we practice and we practice what we learn.
We spend too much time practicing our mistakes.

I saw one of those memes on Facebook that said I hate to give up my bad habits or mistakes. I spent a lot of time doing them. When I rush through the long tones or play a Clarke exercise as a throw-away, I am simply ingraining my mistakes, or at least my less than good habits. When I pay attention and work at it intentionally, I am rewiring my brain (and fingers, lips, etc.) to do it better.

Therefore: don’t practice mistakes

Green has a number of insights into this as well:

Learn first, then practice. Study the part before you play it is what he’s talking about. This is the first step of “sight-reading.” We know how to do that, we just don’t do it as often as we need to. Look at:
◦ key and time signatures
◦ key changes
◦ dynamic markings
◦ Repeats and coda

In a sense, as Green suggests, we need to “practice away from the instrument.” This may mean singing the piece. No, you don’t need to sing the right pitch, etc., but after you have sung it through, you will no longer be sight-reading!

He then suggests that we use the acronym STOP to help us focus, especially when we get to difficult parts or are having some problems in an area:
Stop
Think
Organize
Proceed

In other words, don’t go barreling through and learning the mistake instead of the right way.

Practice slow, is what he suggests next. The age-old adage that we seldom do. Slow it down. The faster I play, especially as I am learning the piece, the more likely I am to learn the mistakes. And once I do that, I will be certain to play the mistake more often than the correct way because that is what I have learned. Green quotes another musician that “legato is a doorway to velocity!”

In the end he is saying that we are to find “the beautiful voice inside” each one of us. The instrument, we all have been told, is an extension of the voice within us. It is an external version of the song and music that is part of who we are. Effective and efficient practice allows that voice to expand and live.

These thoughts on motivation and practice are actually more important than we realize. Most of the time we think we have to rely on “will power” to move us to do things like this. In reality will power is a limited quantity. We can get tired, exhausted, by exerting will power. That is when the motivation of fun can make all the difference. I have found that the better I get at being a musician, the more fun I am having. The more fun I am having, the more motivated I am to practice so I can have more fun.

What a great cycle to be part of.

Tuning Slide 3.38- The Myths of Practice

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Misunderstanding is generally simpler than true understanding,

and hence has more potential for popularity.

― Raheel Farooq

Last week we looked at the myth/misconception about equipment. While I used the never-ending discussion of the best mouthpiece to use for the example, we could have taken all kinds of twisty, overgrown back roads about equipment. The answer was, of course, that equipment doesn’t make the music. We do. Hence “Holy Truth #1” was

Equipment is not the answer.

Well what might be the answer? Not hard to guess what the answer to that might be.

Practice, of course.

But if you’ve been following the Tuning Slide for a while you know that just the thought of “practice” brings with it all kinds of myths and misconceptions that never seem to go away.

• Just practicing as we have seen in a number of different series of posts over the past three years can do nothing but keep us mediocre if we don’t have goals and plans.
• Just practicing for the sake of practicing gets pretty boring- and getting bored with practice ends up with us not practicing.
• Just practicing without working at what we need to work on keeps us doing the things which keep us mediocre without improvement.

But I found a couple myths and misconceptions on the website Trumpet Journey that we might have missed, depending on how we have learned our practicing skills.

Myth #1 is that old saying

Practice makes perfect.

Stanley Curtis, author of the Trumpet Journey blog says:

Perfectionism, while seeming to be a noble goal, is actually not that good for trumpeters. More than most instrumentalists, we miss notes, and we need to get on with life. By becoming fixated on our weaknesses, we never let our spontaneous self naturally blossom.

Another way of saying that might be, if we work at being perfect, we are just feeding the ego of old Self 1 who likes nothing better than to find out what ’s wrong. I like that second sentence in that quote where Curtis says that we may very well miss more notes than most instrumentalists. It is a humbling thought which may be why we work so hard at perfect. But Curtis is right, the more we work at perfection, the less likely we are to be perfect.

That does not mean that we should ignore what we need to work on! We know what particular aspect of our playing is not going as well as we would like. It is painfully obvious to us. So we then make a plan, a deliberate practice goal, to do something about it. It’s not rocket science.

Before one of the concerts in the community band last year I realized that I was having some difficulty with intervals beyond fifths. An interval jump of an octave or more just wasn’t falling into place. So I dug out the lessons from the Arban’s book and worked on them. The problem was I was not hearing or feeling the interval and my flexibility was sloppy. It didn’t take much to improve. I just had to do it. Deliberately. Intervals are now on my once or twice a week practice plan.

Myth # 2 that I found on Trumpet Journey:

If practicing makes me better, then MORE practice will make me ever better.

Why sure, that makes sense. If I can do a two-hour practice today, maybe I can make it more tomorrow, and on and on.

Curtis nicely sums up why that’s a potentially dangerous misconception:

The error here is that there is a limit to practice, especially the physical aspects of practice. Practice is a lot like a great paint job on a fine automobile. Instead of one sloppy, thin coat, it’s far better to paint many thin coats to avoid runs and smears. When we practice too much, we start to get sloppy, and then we get used to being sloppy. I like to think of weekly practice goals, so that each day can be a little different.

In my own reading and research into practicing, I read somewhere (which means I didn’t note where I read it) that we should make sure we stop our practice session before we have exhausted ourselves, our lip, and our mental capacity to keep growing. The reason is simple, we will learn the exhaustion stage more than the place where we were sounding good. This is the same as an athlete. They do not set records in practice. They want to build themselves to a point of 80% of maximum. The only time they need to give 100% is the race or game when the extra push is needed.

We have to do it slowly. We have to build. We don’t blow it all in one marathon practice session a day. We will hurt ourselves that way. Slowly, surely, build it up. Curtis’s statement about building many thin coats of pain reminded me of what the master Leonardo da Vinci did. He would add very thin layers of paint slowly over time. The Mona Lisa or Last Supper were not done with thick layers. The wonder of his artistry was how he built it slowly, one layer at a time.

So, again, we have seen a couple myths and misconceptions of practice. There are more. We will surely invent them (or re-invent old ones) on a regular basis. We think we have all the answers, which as the quote at the start of this post indicates, will lead us to more misconceptions. So slow down and keep it patient, balanced, and deliberate. After all this is supposed to be fun, not torture.

Which brings me to the Holy Truth for this week. I think by following this, I may be able to keep that patience and deliberateness that is essential to better musicianship.

When you practice, rest as much as you play!

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

Note:
By the way, Stanley Curtis at Trumpet Journey has a series of weekly lesson plans for trumpet practice over three years. While many of us have adopted the basic routines that we have learned from teachers who were taught by William Adam, there are also other lesson plans that we can use to build certain aspects of our musicality. If we remember it starts with the sound, these lessons may be helpful. Just thought I would pass it along. It should take you the rest of your life to get through it. What a great thought!

3.27- The Tuning Slide- Connecting the Dots

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
-Seve Jobs

This week’s quote from last summer’s Trumpet Workshop owes its existence to a 2005 commencement address by Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs. In the first story in the address he talks about the journey of life (our theme this month) as connecting dots. But, he points out,

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

We can only see our path of dots looking backward! The resulting summary quote, then, from last summer:

✓ Therefore make good dots

I made some good dots musically this past year.

• I met Doc!
• A dot of inspiration and humility
• I attended the Big Band and Trumpet Workshops at Shell Lake for the third year.
• Dots of learning and staying open to growth.
• I have practiced every single day since March 24 (and only missed 7 days before that this year.)
• Dots of discipline and commitment.
• I am now regularly hitting an E above the staff in my daily routine and almost getting F.
• Dots of patience and improving skill
• I volunteered at the Eau Claire Jazz Festival as a “room host”
• Dots of seeing the great future of jazz music and instruction.
• I took several lessons and spent time with some amazing musicians
• Dots of accepting my need for outside input and support.
• I have learned how to relax while playing a performance.
• Dots of acceptance of Self Two doing its work.
• I published my book, The Tuning Slide, of the first two years of this blog.
• Dots of sharing what I have learned so others, too, may learn.
• I continue this weekly blog!
• Again, dots of discipline and commitment,

As a result of these and other dots, my skill level has increased, my self-confidence has improved, my tone and rhythm have gotten better, and my life continues to be filled with music and more music! These dots also add to the ongoing theme of my life that how I do anything is how I do everything. To be honest there are non-dots from last year. Or perhaps it might be better to say attempted dots that somehow didn’t get connected in this rear-view summary. They represent things for next year (and next week’s post!) But what I know is that because I have made these dots this year, I am moving in a direction that these can be applied to more and more areas of my life.

Dots of:

• Inspiration
• Humility
• Learning and openness to growing
• Patience
• Discipline and commitment
• Volunteering and sharing
• Acceptance

In short it has been a good, and growing year. As I am continually amazed, even old dogs can learn a lot of new tricks! Thanks to all of you who have helped make it the year it was!

What dots did you make last year? How do they connect? How do they lead to your future? See you next week in 2018!

Happy New Year!

The Tuning Slide 3.17

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

True enjoyment comes from

activity of the mind and exercise of the body;

the two are ever united.

-Wilhelm von Humboldt

We have been talking about how to become a musician this month- at least in behaviors, actions, and attitudes. At the heart of it is always that priority list:

1. The music
2. Our colleagues
3. The audience
4. Ourselves

Unfortunately, since it puts "ourselves" last, people often use that as an excuse NOT to take care of themselves. We end up pushing ourselves beyond our limits into wearing down of our energy, skills, and careers. The issue of balancing extremes that I talked about last week in relation to our actual playing is just as important when it comes to taking care of ourselves. It can be so easy to mess up our lives by not paying attention to what’s important in how we look after ourselves. We ignore warning signs of extreme fatigue, we think that we will always be able to do everything we have always done, we will not take care of our body, mind, and spirit. Many of us will actually take better care of our instrument than we will of ourselves.

In reality if we don’t take care of ourselves we can easily get into deep trouble physically and emotionally. In the end the music we produce will suffer, the relationships with other musicians will deteriorate, and we might not have an audience to play for. Taking care of ourselves, I am convinced, is the same as cleaning, caring for, and tuning an instrument.

Last summer I explained to Bill Bergren at the workshop what I was hoping to get out of an individual lesson. He took my horn from me, pulled out the tuning slide and looked down the lead pipe.

“When was the last time you cleaned this?” He looked in my mouthpiece, handed the trumpet back to me and just shook his head.

I cleaned it that night- and there was way more of the ugly green gunk than I wanted to see. That green gunk is a metaphor for what happens to me when I don’t take care of me!

So I did some surfing around the Internet and found many good bits of advice as I got ready to write this week’s post. They sum up the different areas of our lives that need self-monitoring on a regular basis. That is the “mindfulness” that I talk about so often. The better we pay attention to ourselves and what is going on around us, the better we will learn to take care of ourselves.

I put the things I found into a series of categories:

✓ Balance
Avoiding extremes
✓ Breathing/Relaxation
Developing tension releasing activities
✓ Commitment
Making self-care non-negotiable. (It has to be part of the daily routine!)
✓ Exercise
Keeping the instrument of self physically tuned
✓ Gratitude
Developing an attitude of humility and grace
✓ Mindfulness
Learning to be self-aware both inwardly and outwardly

First, on the Musician’s Way website, (https://www.musiciansway.com/blog/2009/11/the-12-habits-of-healthy-musicians/) Gerald Klickstein had twelve habits of a healthy musician. Here are the ones I felt fit best with this post:

• Manage your workload (Balance)
• Heed warning signs (Mindfulness)
• Minimize tension (Breathing/Relaxation)
• Take charge of anxiety (Breathing/Relaxation)
• Keep fit and strong (Exercise)

On the website Psych Central (https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-clinicians-practice-self-care-9-tips-for-readers/) there was an article about how medical clinicians and counselors learn to take care of themselves. Here are some of the tips from there that seems most appropriate.

• Remember that self-care is non-negotiable. (Commitment)
• Put it on your calendar — in ink! (Commitment)
• Know when to say no. (Balance)
• Identify what activities help you feel your best. (Balance)
• Take care of yourself physically. (Exercise)
• Surround yourself with great people. (Mindfulness)
• Meditation (Mindfulness)
• Check in with yourself regularly (Mindfulness)

To be a healthy musician, then, let's put these together:

• Mindfulness:
  
  • Check in with yourself regularly
  • Heed warning signs
  • Meditation
• Gratitude:
  
  • Surround yourself with great people
• Balance:
  
  • Know when to say no
  • Manage your workload
  • Identify the activities for relaxation and renewal that can help you feel your best
• Commitment:
  
  • Put your self-care activities on your calendar in ink
  • Remember they need to be non-negotiable
• Breathing/Relaxation:
  
  • Minimize sources of tension
  • Take charge of anxiety
• Exercise:
  
  • Take care of yourself physically
  • Keep fit and strong

As to that last one, I have been a wannabe exerciser for years. I manage to keep at it for a while, then something changes and I get lazy or off-track. (I have been a certified group trainer, as well.) Yet I have always known and experienced that when I am taking care of myself physically through exercise and better eating, I am better overall, and I am a better musician. There are many places to find ideas about exercise for musicians. I came across one set that was really helpful. The site is Take Lessons (https://takelessons.com/blog/fitness-exercises-for-musicians) and they had a wonderful bit of information for musicians. They also had a number of links to helpful videos. Here are seven of their ten ideas, chosen more by my own experience to share:

• Yoga- Stretching and movement with balance and intention is a great metaphor for musicians. We can learn it well through yoga. The website talked about “power” yoga. Not a necessity in my opinion. Yoga will do it without all the extras added.
• Core Exercises- The core, the abs, are the supporting foundation for all good health. They provide a way for musicians to be more focused and relaxed because they are well supported. The benefits of a strong core I don’t think can be overstated! Pilates is an excellent way to build this.
• Posture- We have all heard that having good posture does a lot- we just ignore it. Yet a good posture will support better music. It also has a lot to do with breathing. And efficient use of breath is essential to those of us who are wind musicians!
  (http://brassmusician.com/posture-and-breathing-by-mike-white/)
• Arm Strength (biceps, triceps, shoulders)- Think about holding the instrument! Need I say more?
• Cardio- A healthy heart will help get that air moving and increase endurance.
• Neck & Shoulder stretches
  (http://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014/06/17/stretches-for-musicians/)
• Meditation- Yes, this can be an important part of exercise. Next week I will talk more about this in relation to T’ai Chi and Qigong.

I hope I am preaching to the choir in this post. I am a strong supporter of self-care. It is not being selfish. It is taking care of yourself as a way of helping others. It is in line with the instructions you hear on an airplane. If the oxygen mask drops down, put yours on FIRST before helping even a little child put their on. You can’t help if you aren’t safe yourself.

Take care of you. It’s the only you that you will have.

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: 3-8- Lifelong Learning

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Every year two things happen with education and learning. Every summer about this time we hear that “School’s Back.” Every spring we hear that “School’s Out.” And every spring I react the same way:
I hope not. I hope NEVER!

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
-Daniel Boorstin

I had another good example of this recently. As many of you know, I have been playing trumpet for over 55 years. I have no memory of having learned how to play the trumpet. It happened in a different world to a person far different from the one writing this blog. In my mind I have always played trumpet even though I was in 8th grade when I started. Playing trumpet has been second nature. Or was until Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop in 2015 when in a few moments of instruction, Bob Baca, workshop director, taught me something I didn’t even know I needed to know. I started changing how I practiced and how I saw trumpet playing. An amazing transformation has been at work.

Fast forward two years to this year’s workshop. For a couple months I have been aware that perhaps my embouchure needed some fine-tuning. I seemed stuck on a couple things so maybe it was something about my embouchure. I had been working on that in my practicing. I need to point out that until then I didn’t know that it might be something I needed to do. I’ve “always” played like this. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I went to this year’s workshop with an openness to get some expert advice and instruction- to be “teachable” as I talked about last week. I signed up for a lesson with Bill Bergren whose opinions and approach to the trumpet have always impressed me as anyone who has read this blog before knows. So I went in for my lesson having previously told him what was going on.

We sat down and what did he do but start at the beginning. No, not the beginning of the lesson but the beginning of trumpet playing, just a few steps beyond “This is a trumpet.” I had watched Bill teaching a non-trumpet player how to play that morning. Here he was using THE SAME techniques on me, someone who has been playing for over 55 years. (Hear the arrogance? It was covering the lack of confidence I was feeling at that moment.)

At first I did everything but say “But, Bill, you don’t understand. My situation is different.” I started to get frustrated. “But Bill..”

“Just do it, Barry.”
“Breathe this way.”
“Blow like you’re cooling hot soup.”
“Sing it first.”

He wasn’t working directly on my embouchure, he was working on my breathing. He was working on how I put the trumpet to my lips. He was working on how I thought about playing this instrument that I thought I knew how to play. He was helping me set my embouchure.

Back to basics to learn what I didn’t know I didn’t know. It took a few minutes for me to relax and realize he was doing exactly what he knew I needed. I relaxed a little as I struggled with something I thought I knew how to do. I kept listening and attempting to do what he suggested. I worked on turning off Self One. That’s the part that wanted logical how-to instructions.

“But, Bill, how do I…?”

“Let Self Two just do it.”

We made a little progress, but time was up. I went back to the rehearsal room and tried some of Bill’s techniques. They sort of worked. I went back to my room and worked on it some more. The next morning as I started my daily routine I applied them some more. They began to happen- after some frustrated mumbling, of course.

They have a way to go yet, but now, a few weeks later, I am seeing the results.

Amazing.

We humans are not dogs! You can teach an old human new tricks. At one point I asked Bill, “How do you break a 55-year old habit?”

He quickly came back with the most common answer that has been around for the past 50 years. It comes from the book Psycho Cybernetics which says that it takes a minimum of 21 days! That’s how long the old mental images take to fade and to be replaced by something new. A lot of all this is changing how we see ourselves. If we believe we are too old to learn something new- we won’t learn anything new.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t,
you are right.
-Henry Ford

More recent research emphasizes the “minimum” part of the 21-day rule. The more complex a habit, the longer it takes to replace it. It is meant to be more difficult to break a habit. It helps us run on autopilot when we need to. It is what Self Two runs on! In general, though, I know I have to be working on this for at least 21 days before it begins to become more habitual.

So far it’s been 14 days. And it is happening! Self Two is beginning to be in charge of how I set my lips to play- relaxed and ready to simply breathe out. I now believe I can do it differently. In fact I am at the point where I have to stop and think about how I used to do it. A sure sign that things are moving in a new direction.

It doesn’t matter what it is we are trying to do differently. Part of our success will be in our ability to visualize the new way. It may be getting the right note in our head before we play it; it might be in taking time to exercise or practice or eat healthier food. It isn’t willpower, it’s habit.

Learning is not a part-time experience nor is it simply what happens in schools. If that was the extent of learning, we would be a far poorer people and our individual lives would be quite dull. There are people who do stop trying to learn. They become satisfied with where they believe they are or that they have nothing new to learn. The past two years for me have shown that even in something as ingrained as my trumpet playing was, it can change and grow.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.
Anyone who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
-Henry Ford

School’s Out?
No way. I have too much to learn.

The Tuning Slide: 2.22- You Gotta Have Grit

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

“Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you’re willing to stay loyal to it.”
“It’s doing what you love. I get that.”
“Right, it’s doing what you love, but not just falling in love—staying in love.”
(Grit, p. 53)

Back in November I did some posts on “deliberate practice” as one of the most significant keys to developing skills. It isn’t 10,000 hours, it's how you spend those 10,000 hours. That was taken from the book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. They clearly believe- and can show- that there is not such a thing as “natural talent. It takes work- and lots of it.

Another book from last year takes this to a different level. Angela Duckworth, in her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance asks the excellent next question. “How do you stay motivated to practice all those hours?” Ericsson and Pool raised the same issue when they noted that this “deliberate practice” is not always fun or easy. You have to keep working at it. Duckworth digs deeply into what she calls “grit.”

Like Ericsson and Pool she demythologizes “natural talent.

Nietzsche said. “For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking. . . . To call someone ‘divine’ means: ‘here there is no need to compete.’  In other words, mythologizing natural talent lets us all off the hook." (Grit, pp. 43-44)

Great quote, and right on target. I can never be as good as [fill in the blank] because they have natural talent. Even trumpet players, known for our supposedly over-sized egos, may try to imitate Doc, Miles, or Maynard, “but you know- those guys had natural talent. I can never do what they do.”

Malarkey Nietzsche says. As do Ericsson and Duckworth and many others. There may be other reasons why we may not end up at the level of the greats, but natural talent isn’t one of them.

After showing her reasons why she doesn’t accept “natural talent, Duckworth went on to study “grit”, stick-to-itiveness, motivation in many different areas. When she got to music she affirmed Ericsson’s ideas. She then lists four barriers, “buzz-killers” she calls them, that keep us from sticking to the long haul.

“I’m bored.”
“The effort isn’t worth it.”
“This isn’t important to me.”
“I can’t do this, so I might as well give up.” (Grit, p. 80)

I don’t know about you, but any one of those can- and does- crop up on a much too regular basis. These are the questions raised by the inner voice that tells us we aren’t good enough or that fears failing. In the book The Inner Game of Music, Barry Green calls this voice Self 1. It is the voice of interference. On the other hand there is Self 2, the voice of our talents, abilities, desires, grace. The trick is giving Self 2 the go-ahead and bringing Self 1 along. Duckworth then writes (with my comments in between):

…the research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in common. There are four. They counter each of the buzz-killers listed above, and they tend to develop, over the years, in a particular order.

First comes interest. Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do. Every gritty person I’ve studied can point to aspects of their work they enjoy less than others, and most have to put up with at least one or two chores they don’t enjoy at all. Nevertheless, they’re captivated by the endeavor as a whole. With enduring fascination and childlike curiosity, they practically shout out, “I love what I do!”

I love the phrase enduring fascination and childlike curiosity. Remember last week and the discussion on mindfulness? This fascination and curiosity is part of what we are building when we practice mindfulness. (By the way, how are you doing at developing that? Just thought I’d ask.) Not everything we do is exciting and adrenaline producing (think- long tones.) There are aspects of every job that are mundane and, yes, boring. But there is that initial interest. Don’t lose it. Stay mindful

Next comes the capacity to practice. One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday. So, after you’ve discovered and developed interest in a particular area, you must devote yourself to the sort of focused, full-hearted, challenge-exceeding-skill practice that leads to mastery. You must zero in on your weaknesses, and you must do so over and over again, for hours a day, week after month after year. To be gritty is to resist complacency. ““Whatever it takes, I want to improve!” is a refrain of all paragons of grit, no matter their particular interest, and no matter how excellent they already are.

For some of us the capacity to practice may be greater than for others. If you have a 40-hour a week job, you won’t be able to put in four hours of practice every day. But there has to be a discipline of doing it- and seeking to do it better than the day before. This goes on month after month. There are days when we don’t want to pick up that horn and go through the routine. But I have never met anyone who was sorry they did when they finished.

Third is purpose. What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others. For a few, a sense of purpose dawns early, but for many, the motivation to serve others heightens after the development of interest and years of disciplined practice. Regardless, fully mature exemplars of grit invariably tell me, “My work is important—both to me and to others.”

Why am I doing this? I am sixty-eight years old. I will never be at the level of my trumpet heroes. Why is it important for me to get out that horn and practice every day? If I was just doing it for my ego reward of sitting in my practice room and hitting a high C on a regular basis, I would soon lose interest. Even (finally) being able to play Al Hirt’s Java never kept me going. But ever since I have been playing in groups- concert bands, big bands, a quintet- I have begun to (re)discover the joy of playing for others, of watching an audience respond, and yes, the ego reward of playing more challenging music. I may never play the Charlier etude in public, but it gives me the skill to play Copland or Gabrieli.

And, finally, hope. Hope is a rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance. In this book, I discuss it after interest, practice, and purpose—but hope does not define the last stage of grit. It defines every stage. From the very beginning to the very end, it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even when things are difficult, even when we have doubts. “At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.” (Grit, pp. 80-82)

Again, a great phrase- hope “defines every stage” of grit. Yes, I have blown solos with the band, or missed entrances with the quintet. Yes, some days my embouchure just doesn’t want to cooperate. Does any of that mean I have reached the end of my skill development? I HOPE not. When I have gone as far as I think I am able to go, grit will lose. I have always wanted to be a skilled musician. Other passions, such as my career vocation, were more important. Now, with time and practice, I have the hope that this dream will continue to be fulfilled.

Could I have done this earlier? Sure, but I wasn’t ready I guess. The old saying- when the student is ready the teacher(s) will appear- is true. I didn’t know it was possible. Now I do. I have lived this way in my vocations, however. Those four things of interest, practice, purpose, and hope led me through over 40 years in my careers of choice. No matter what you or I do for a living, we can apply them there- and in whatever else may be important to us.

Just don’t quit.

The Tuning Slide: 2.16- Give Yourself a Gift

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Stephen Covey, educator and speaker, wrote one of the basic books on self-management in 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Sometime in the new year I will be looking at these seven habits and applying them to our being and becoming musicians as well as effective humans. But for this week I simply want to think about the 7th habit which he called Sharpening the Saw- continually improving what we do and who we are.

On the Change Management Coach website, counseling psychologist and life coach Mark Connelly described it this way:

Habit 7 is about looking after yourself. You are the greatest asset you have and we have to learn to take time to look after ourselves. Stephen Covey suggests we pay attention to four areas in our lives:

Physical: Exercise, Nutrition, Stress Management
Spiritual: Value Clarification and Commitment, Study and Meditation
Mental: Reading, Visualizing, Planning, Writing
Social/Emotional: Service, Empathy, Synergy, Intrinsic Security.

Not a bad idea to consider this season. I have noticed that for many people this year’s season has been more low-key than usual. Several have said to me that the intensity and downright unusual behavior of the recent election campaign have worn us down. Energy levels have been depleted. The stress and tension evident in so many places can fog our brains and actions. We may find ourselves sitting and just wondering about everything and nothing. The physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional assets have been nearly exhausted. Many look around and wonder what happened to them and to the world we used to know. It feels dark- or at least gray and uncertain.

Yet this is a season of light. The three major holidays in the next two weeks are celebrations of light coming into the darkness. The Christmas season vibrates with light from stars, candles, and the hint of angels’ trumpets. The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah is called the Feast of Lights, celebrating the miracle of light in a dark time. The African-American Kwanzaa, begun 50 years ago, seven candles are lit bringing the light of the principles of the holiday season.

In addition to light and celebration of hope and unity and peace, gift-giving is very much a part of all three holidays. So, let me suggest that Covey’s 7th habit could also be described as giving yourself a gift and sharing your gift of yourself with others. As musicians we can be overly busy this season- but perhaps it can be seen as bringing the light of music to others. That shift in perspective can go a long way to changing how we see what we are doing. For example, I have been looking forward to playing with our quintet in church on Christmas morning. It is a gift to myself to be able to play the seasonal music in public. It is a gift to my own spiritual life to do it in church- even a church that is not part of my own tradition. It is a gift I am excited to share with those in church that morning. It is not a burden- it is a gift-receiving and gift-giving joy.

Then there are the many other ways we can gift ourselves this season. We can find those moments of rest and relaxation. Maybe we will have time to do some exercise or getting outdoors. (The physical.) We can look around and give thanks for what we have been given. We can celebrate our own spiritual and communal traditions and renew our commitments to our family, friends, and communities. (The spiritual.) We might want to take time to do some reading or meditating or listening to some good music. (The mental.) We can find ways to reach out to others, either with our music, a phone call, or connecting with friends. (The social.)

We need to take care of ourselves. That is not an end in itself. It is part of who we are. We need to be healthy for ourselves and to be able to share with others. We are social beings. We are spiritual beings. We are physical beings. All these come together when we keep ourselves as healthy and focused as we can.
Take care of yourselves. It has been a tough few months. Be good to yourself and those around you. You will be richly blessed.

Christmas. Hanukkah. Kwanzaa.

Celebrate the light and hope and peace within and around you.

Oh- and make sure you play your trumpet. That may be the most important gift to give yourself this year.

The Tuning Slide: Taking a Day Off?

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

What you do everyday matters more
than what you do every once in a while.

-Gretchen Rubin

Habit: (noun) a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

After last summer's trumpet camp I managed to get into an early habit of practice. I had never been that consistent before and it took a while for the habit to sink in. Do it every day, we were told. Make it a habit to play the trumpet every day. One of my notes from our closing session was a quote from someone:

You can take a day off, but you can never get it back.

Then, of course, there's the famous quote attributed to just about every musician who has ever been famous:

If I miss one day’s practice, I notice it. If I miss two days’ practice, the critics notice it. If I miss three days’ practice, the public notices it.

I was a little concerned, though, since I knew that daily exercise with no breaks is not a good idea in any exercise program from biking to weight-lifting. In fact it is a cardinal rule of exercise- you need to take a day off in order to allow muscles to rebuild. If I work my upper-body today, I shouldn't work those same muscles tomorrow. Shouldn't this apply to trumpet playing? What about the muscles in my lips and cheeks?

I checked with Bill Bergren and he tried to change my mind on that. He said that the day-off rule is

not in all forms of exercise. We are building coordination. Trumpet playing has very little to do with strength.

That made a little sense to me, but unlike my work-outs there are just the facial muscles we are working on. I can't work on some and not others. They are muscles, after all.

So I started paying attention to things like how long it takes to get warmed up after a strenuous day of playing. I took note of endurance and range. I began to notice that there were good days and less than good days. Some days I was warmed-up in no time. Other days, I was having trouble getting to "G" above the staff without straining. I made sure that I was taking appropriate breaks while practicing and doing my daily routine- the old "rest as much as you play" rule. Overall, the progress was positive, but not a straight line. Only natural!

This was also after I had been working for nearly 5 months on building my embouchure, endurance, and technique. It wasn't early on so I felt I was in a better place to decipher what was happening.

So when I missed a day of practice, usually due to circumstances, I paid attention to what might have been different. What I discovered was that, in general, one day off like that did not have any major impact. Sometimes I noticed that the day of rest was actually helpful to my endurance, range, and even tone on the next day. (There probably was something to the idea of a "Sabbath day" after all.) Sometimes my technique would be slightly off, but it usually came back in warm-up.

Then we were traveling and I missed four days in a row. That I noticed. I wasn't back to square one, of course, but I had lost some of the edge. I also was not as on target with my scales or even chromatic runs.

With these experiences I did some more digging on the Internet among some of the many trumpet-based web sites. I found that most do feel that a day off on some regular basis can be helpful. It does allow for some recuperation, especially after a particularly heavy performance or strong of performances. But even those with that view were very clear- taking time off can be dangerous. I pulled out a few "guidelines" from my research:

• Take a day off by choice, not laziness- "I don't feel like it today" is not a good reason. As I write this, I have had an easier day. I didn't do my routine- by choice. I had a relatively unstrenuous gig this evening, so for the day I didn't push it since I had a more strenuous day yesterday. It isn't a true day off since I did play this evening, but it was planned this way.
• Don't play fatigued- Be aware of the limits of your body. Your muscle memory will work better if it has "good" memories of playing and not memories of how fatigued you were.
• Rest as much as you play- this goes with the fatigue issue, but also with the building of endurance.
• Do something musical even on the days you don't play- listen to some music, do some study of some music, do some musical research, keep yourself connected to your music.
• Don't make it a habit to not play. Sure you can get by with only 2 or 3 days of practice a week. I have many years experience at that. It doesn't work. You won't improve very quickly and may very likely get frustrated with your lack of progress. 
• Have fun while practicing. Don't make it a chore- make it a joy. That routine you do every day? It is essential so make it a habit. When it becomes a habit, you will miss it when you don't do it.

So, in general I agree with my friend and mentor, Bill. Daily practice is good and essential. Know that there are times when you can't practice and don't kick yourself if one of those happens. But work at it so it doesn't happen except by accident- or a clear, reasonable choice.

What have been some of your experiences with missing days of practice? Share them in the comments.