Losing it to Find it

 I have definitely fallen off the wagon of blogging.  And I think it's time to pick up the cart again.  So although this may be a slightly meandering post, I've decided to air what's on my mind in an effort to keep a more faithful blog presence here.

A topic that has been plaguing me lately is the relationship between a person's mental state and musical performance:  The way that your own feelings/stresses/awareness manifest themselves in the way you embody your music.  Actually, this is such a gigantic topic that I'm sure I have no hope of successfully exploring it within these confines.  But I can still attempt to record a few observations of my own fledgling experience of mind and music.

As a school exam to qualify for a master's degree, I was once asked to define my musical philosophy.  As with most students, I was fully prepared to explore such a nebulous question with equal parts academic jargon, earnest  passion, and bullshit.  But I ended up finding an answer I rather liked - a sort of Maslow's hierarchy of musical needs.  It went something like this:  As a trumpet teacher, I aim to make students first into highly-functioning people, capable of taking care of themselves.  Next, I try to help them successfully interact with their peers and the world around them.  The following level hones these talents into collaborative communication with musicians around them, seeking a willingness to listen, adapt, and respond specifically in musical performance situations.  The final and least important tier of this philosophy is to address trumpet technique specifically, in order to increase their facility on the instrument.

I think this approach rather took my instructors by surprise, as I spent scant time actually talking about the trumpet and its myriad of hidden traps for players.  However, that hazy and hastily-cobbled schematic has actually rung more and more true for myself personally as time has gone on.  My most marked improvements in trumpet technique, tone, creativity, and consistency have come at times when I am simultaneously experiencing great personal growth or freedom or awareness.  Now, I know that this is a bit of an exaggeration in some ways:  I can't claim that personal safety or happiness will take you from a beginning honker to a dexterous trumpeter swan.  But I do think that at the boundaries of development - where you are moving from learning notes to stringing together melodies - or from memorizing complex scales to implementing them spontaneously - that there is a key relationship between the ability to relax and the ability to perform.  And this is all connected at least in part to how comfortable or confident you are in your own shoes.

I'm sure as well that these ideas are nothing new to the artistic community or indeed any performance community, from sports to public speaking to piloting an aircraft.  It seems that in all of these arenas, some of the most successful performers are ones who are able to step outside of themselves in a way; to have completed enough technical preparation and be in the right mental state to push past the details of reality and access a sort of higher level where all of the performance elements seamlessly combine into a cohesive achievement.

Before you cast labels of hopeless hippiedom in my direction, I'll reassure you of the many performers who focus intensely on their own mental state when seeking to push their execution even higher.  Indeed, the framework of Olympic running coach Joe Vigil's training regime was based around achieving a positive cognitive state first and foremost.  His walls were covered with self-training goals such as "Practice Abundance by Giving Back," "Improve Personal Relationships," and "Show Integrity to your Value System."  He believed you needed to become a strong person before becoming a strong runner.*

In short, I just wanted to call attention to the mind's incredible ability to reorganize itself in fascinating ways.  As many a writer's block victim can attest, the effort of moving away from the problem at hand and focusing on solving other life dilemmas can often be a springboard to discovering powerful artistic ideas - or indeed executing that next level of trumpet triumph.

  *Paraphrased from Born to Run by Christopher McDougall


Check out a great Israeli R&B/soul singer I have been listening to - Ester Rada, Lose It: 

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