MINDFULNESS AND MENTAL WELLNESS FOR MUSICIANS

VANESSA CORNETT          
MINDFULLNESS AND WELLNESS FOR MUSICIANS

I loved this session! It was absolutely the best so far. Besides that, the speaker is well known and a friend from the great state of Minnesota. Vanessa had a wonderful sheet of notes on her session. I haven't included those in this post, but my own miscellaneous notes from the session.

Have you ever wondered how far you should go in being a mentor and advocate for a student who may trust you with their innermost feelings, problems, and difficulties. This was so well defined and clarified today in Dr. Cornett's session:

Teacher’s Role

DO	DON’T
Be a teacher, mentor, advocate, supporter.	Be a confidant, parent, therapist, buddy.
Remember the teacher-student relationship is sacred, private and intense.	Forget that students are vulnerable and often susceptible to teachers they idealize.
Listen carefully and take students seriously.	Brush off students.
Teach with the student’s best interest in mind.	Rely on student accomplishments as an indicator of your worth.
Know when to recommend therapy to a student or parent.	Accidentally err on the side of neglect, err on the side of carefullness.
Know what resources are out there for teachers and students.

“What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am.

Who am I, then? The one who sees that.   ---  Ekhart Tolle

Dr. Cornett's definition of Mindfullness: The deliberate and gentle focus of awareness, without evaluation, on the thoughts and events of the present moment.

Meditation: The practice of using contemplation to train the mind for a specific purpose (e.g. to cultivate mindfulness).

Meditation can be the practice, mindfulness can be the goal.

This Does Not require: cushions, incense, chanting, New Age philosophy, yoga, etc.

In an exercise Dr. Cornett had the audience pay attention to our breathing while watching a blank screen. A minute or two into the exercise she flashed a photo of a paperclip briefly on the screen. Then a few seconds later, a picture of Easter eggs and brights colored jelly bean. Both times we were to be aware of the presence of the photos and dismiss them quickly, bringing our focus completely back on our breathing. 

Later the neutral image of colors and squares was flashed on the screen and a few seconds later, an image of BUGS; those were harder to dismiss and bring my focus back!

Tenets of Mindfulness  (These are difficult for musicians under stress to do)

Non judging

Acceptance

Patience

Beginner’s mind

Trust

Non-striving

Letting go

These were then put into the context of a performance

Mindfulness	Performance Context
Non-judging	During the performance
Acceptance	Of both good and bad
Patience	With the self, body, mind
Beginner’s mind	Listening with fresh ears
Trust	In good preparation
Non-striving	Process not product
Letting go	In the zone, a flow state

Tips for Beginners Regarding Mindfulness and Meditation:

• Start simple
• Taking a breath.
• For meditation, aim for 10 minutes maximum. (If you can do 10 minutes, 5 minutes is great; if you can’t do 5 minutes, 1 minute is great.)
• Choose a spot where you will be undisturbed.
• Use extraneous sounds as practice for non-judgement
• Make the body comfortable
• Guided meditations are easy to find online

Some Things to Remember

• There is no such thing as a bad meditation
• The goal is not to calm the mind or quiet the thoughts
• Simply observe what is
• It is the nature of the mind to wander and drift
• Acknowledge and release thoughts without judgment
• Adopt an attitude of friendliness to your thougts as you gently set them aside
• Give yourself permission to think about it later

Simple visualizations

• Thoughts
• Bubbling
• Up and
• Popping
• One by one

• Labeling
• Thoughts
• And
• Setting
• Them
• Aside.

• Observe
• The self
• That is
• meditating

Looking forward to tomorrow!

ON PRACTICING

HANS BOEPPLE        “ON PRACTICING”

Practicing is “where it all takes place.” The lesson serves as making a roadmap for the week ahead. Student knows what to do for their homework. Do piano students have the same clear understanding of what they are doing.

TYPICAL STUDENT ASSIGNMENT: Mozart Sonata      Half hour a day – sight read through as many times as you can , then set metronome At 60 and eliminate places where you have to slow down; then increase tempo. Student arrives and says I got to 80, but playing for the teacher it is mistake ridden. “Let’s go back to 66, then we’ll see.” If you went to the doctor and he told you what to do for the pain in your side, and you came back not having done what he told you to do, he would say “Why are you back, because I’m just going to tell you to do the same things I told you last week.” That’s like some of our students and lessons!

It’s all about details and following instructions.

How much time should I spend practicing?  Depends on your goals.

Play for your own amusement.

Sonatina-Sonata Level.  Half hour

Advanced Level  An hour a day.  

Competition.  2-3 hours. a day

Scholarship to a top school   3-4 hrs. a day

Your practice must be enough to support whatever level is your goal.

Technical Exercises.   It’s not really technique until certain standards of speed and refinement are involved.

ANYTHING under 120 is slow

GOAL should be scales at 160 to be able to handle Beethoven Sonatas

25% of practice should be technical exercises of all kinds.

MAKING BIG SKILLS into HABITS

HB: Account of what his music looked like under a teacher: Measures are filled with pencil marks, every measure is filled. Imagine how many marks would disappear if you just did what the music tells you to do!

FOUR MAIN IDEAS IN ALL HEALTHY PLAYING:

1.     Do what the music says to do.

2.     Play the rhythm accurately.

3.     Bring out the melody.

4.     Shape the melody.

What would I have to do in order for the teacher to say “Play the melody less loudly.” So HB made overemphasizing the melody a habit.

Counting out loud – the single most important musicianship skill. Counting is verbal conducting.

Sophisticated reasons for counting:

• ·       Important things happen on the 1^st beat
• ·       4^th beats tend to roll into 1^st beats.
• ·       2^nd beat seems to fall away from beat 1
• ·       Think 4, 1, 2, 3   or 3 4 1 2  or 2 3 4 1  with an accent on beat 1
• ·       Hyper counting – Minuet in G   Counting reveals all of these levels:

o   1  2& 3  (Beginner)

o   1 2 3 4 5 6 (measures in pairs)

o   1          2          3          4  OR     1    &     2   &     3    &

• ·       Counting helps organize

Bring out the melody – make it a habit!

Shaping a melody is sophisticated and requires thought

·       Two melody notes must be either louder or softer than each other

·       Long notes emphasized – Play TO the long notes

·       Use a + or – on each note of a phrase

·       Now play it that way!

·       HB: I see a committee in my head – one conductor, one is in charge of beauty, one musicianship police, just like a finely tuned  basketball team.

SLOW PRACTICING – WHY?

·       Some people believe that in slow melodies each note is so important, but in fast melodies notes are not as important. NOT TRUE

·       Every element in a slow performance must be retained when speeding up.

FAST PRACTICING has its place, too.

Develop stamina; nothing can take the place of playing through the piece many times.

Wonderful Session! So inspiring!

FROM HOT CROSS BUNS TO LES ADIEUX

INGRID CLARFIELD  -  FROM HOT CROSS BUNS TO LES ADIEUX

Ingrid says in the convention book “Inspiring artistic performance should be an integral part of piano study from the first lesson. “

I stuck with the Teaching Artistry and Technique track for Pedagogy Saturday because it’s been a passion of mine for years, and I’ve presented “Teaching Artistry from the Beginning” to several Minnesota Local Teachers Associations for the past few years. I was eager to find out what Ingrid Clarfield’s stand on it was. But first, I stood in a long line at Starbucks for coffee! First things first, you know.

I walked in on the session a few minutes into it, and Ingrid was saying, “Teach artistry from the beginning stages of learning a piece, even with beginners.” She went on to demonstrate (with her LH helper Alejandro Cremaschi) from repertoire pieces, focusing on the ends of phrases. I always think of Marvin Blickenstaff saying “the last note of the phrase is the quietest.” If we could just drill that into every student and check to see they apply it to every phrase, how happy would we be with our student’s artistry? I’m convinced we need to harp on it a little more after hearing students this past judging season. Ingrid and Alejandro use many repertoire pieces to demonstrate elegant phrasing over and over.

I loved her suggestion to use the words “Big Fat Arm Circle” when the student is performing pentascales. I tried to get a picture (but was too far away) of the cute cartoon character on the screen flexing Big Biceps as she demonstrated how to play a pentascale artistically with a crescendo and decrescendo.

Some of the repertoire pieces used to demonstrate were from William Gillock, Dennis Alexander (Forest Murmurs) Brahms Opus 118, Beethoven Sonata Opus 2 No. 1, Chopin Waltz Opus 64 No. 2

VOICING   Some interesting thoughts regarding voicing:

·       Teach to voice the top not of RH (or LH) in the simplest of patterns.

·       “BURY” sections that repeat

·       When the student doesn’t even know where the melody is! (using Clementi Op. 36 RH repeating octaves)

·       They must listen to professional orchestral records to understand the sounds of orchestra instruments to be effectively color sounds and make their playing mimic orchestral sounds.

Ingrid Clarfield ended exquisitely, with “Arioso for Right Hand Alone” by Dennis Alexander from Keys to Artistic Performance Book 3. Long sigh . . .

Hello Again

This "all but forgotten" blog is about to get some new life! The past few years have been hectic and eventful, to say the least. Everything was compounded last May 1st, when I was driving my mom and myself home from an out of town funeral. We came about to Le Seur, MN, and a semi pulled on to the on ramp at the same time I tried to take a drink of coffee. My mom had finished her coffee and had tucked my cup into her mostly empty cup, so the coffee splashed all over my face and we were on top of the semi in the blink of an eye. It was a terrible accident. We were transported to the hospital in Le Seur. When the doctor came in to see me, x-rays had already been taken, and he gently told me I would recover from my injuries, but my mom would not. She passed this life a little while later, with my brother at her side. While I'm sorrowful that she died, she went the way she always wanted. She spoke to us many times to tell us she did not want any extreme measures to prolong her life. I'm just sorry I can't talk to my mom and best friend the way we used to. 

My comfort comes through my personal faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I grew up with great parents who were Bible believers and took me faithfully to church, where I was taught the gospel story from the time I was a toddler. When I was 16 I accepted Christ as my savior, and have walked with Him every since. What comforts me is that I know I'll see both my mom and dad someday, and it will be a great reunion. What's more, I'll see my savior face to face. "What a day that will be, when my savior I shall see, and I'll look upon His face, the One who saved me by His grace. And He'll take me by the hand, and lead me to the Promised Land; What a day, glorious day, that will be." This is the Ultimate Comfort.

Scarlatti and Pickles and Peppers

I just love when it nears MMTA Contest time and students are almost fully prepared. I can sit back and just enjoy their music! Thanks for all your hard work. Here are Ellen, performing Scarlatti Sonata in D Minor and Katie, performing Pickles and Peppers by Adaline Shepard.

 

 

Best (and WORST!) Ways of Practicing

I'm indebted to Louise Mann for the following contributions, which I agree with wholeheartedly! Which camp are you in?

The Top 10 Best Ways to Practice
1. Play at a speed (tempo) that allows for accuracy and no fumbles, frustration, or stops and starts.
2. Step 1.
3. Continue to repeat Step 1.
4. Gradually increase tempo.
5. Note where, when and why mistakes occur and analyze for solution.
6. Cut out hard spots and work ‘em to death, then back up a bit and paste them back in.
7. Remember: 3 times in a row without a mistake. This can be done on a small section, larger section, or the whole piece.
8. Patience - practice right no matter what. Take plenty of patience pills (breathe!).
9. Start today, don’t delay! And plan fingerings early!
10. Engage the ear and brain!

The Top 10 Worst Ways to Practice
1. Start from the beginning and fumble through to the end.
2. Repeat Step 1.
3. Continue to repeat Step 1 while growing tired of making the same mistakes in the same places over and over again.
4. Make mistakes and correct/continue without making mental post-its of where or why they occurred.
5. Repeat Step 4, probably while repeating Steps 1, 2 and 3.
6. Practice the parts you can already play, and neglect the ones you can’t.
7. Repeat Step 6, probably while repeating Steps 1-5.
8. Too fast—too soon—too often. Get pulled over for speeding.
9. Ignore all those numbers above and below the notes.
10. Last minute cram-sessions.

Is your student practicing enough? See this Table of Practice Times:

1 60-minute Practice per Week = 2 Months Progress in 12 Months
1 30-minute Practice per Day = 6 Months Progress in 12 Months
1 45-minute Practice per Day = 12 Months Progress in 12 Months
1 60-minute Practice per Day = 15 Months Progress in 12 Months
1 90-minute Practice per Day = 24 Months Progress in 12 Months
2 Hours Practice per Day = 36 Months Progress in 12 Months