Involving the Mind with a Holistic Approach
This semester I’m finishing out my violin performance degree with some really interesting classes – Human Physiology being one of them. Our professor takes an interesting approach to the area of study. Rather than spewing a bunch of different facts for us to memorize and spit out during the 4 exams we’ll have this semester, Dr. B relates everything back to the goal of our body’s numerous systems: keeping us in balance, or homeostasis.
Three things can impact our balance: us as individuals, the task we or one of our systems wants to accomplish, and our environment. Everything in Physiology factors into these three things and has homeostasis as the goal.
I learned later from the CorpSonore podcast that there is a similar macro lens approach to medicine called the biopsychosocial approach. The biopsychosocial model takes into account not only a person’s biological symptoms and history, but their emotional and social well-being when treating them.
I thought this holistic approach applied really well to musicians. If we just focus on our playing and how we produce sound, and that is our only goal as musicians, we’re missing out on developing so many skills, knowledge areas and habits that all factor into our music-making and quality of life. Maybe we can have the most perfect vibrato or look really good while we play, but if we are neglecting training our mindset, our habit building, our resiliency, our physical strength, our creativity, we are not developing ourselves into the best musicians we can be.
With this series, I wanted to apply the holistic approach of the biopsychosocial model to our development as students of music: our “practice”. So, now that we’ve covered an overview of practicing creatively and talked about some of the universal techniques that all musicians can use on their instruments, let’s talk about perhaps the most difficult aspect of our practice: training our minds.
There are several things we can do involving our minds that directly benefits our playing. One technique is practice planning. At the end of my practice (when I remember!), I like to take a few minutes and loosely plan what I’d like to accomplish the next practice day. This can be pieces or etudes I’d like to work on, skills I’d like to hone or what practice techniques I’d like to try.
**Be careful not to over plan! This happens to me all the time, and can lead to feelings of inadequacy. I like to write down the things I’d like to do, then check myself as far as what I can get done realistically in the next practice day, and rank each activity I’ve put down in terms of importance and energy level. Ranking your practice goals for the next day can help you conserve your mental energy for the things that require your immediate attention and match the energy you have available for it the next day.
You may have heard of the technique mental practicing, the act of visualizing performing a task and feeling how to perform it successfully. Maybe you thought the technique sounded a little woo-woo. I did, until I learned about the science behind it! Dr. Noa Kagayama, creator of The Bulletproof Musician, references a study where pianists who participated studied a 5-finger pattern for two hours every day. They had the same neurological pathways built up and the same amount of mistakes as pianists who practiced physically. Several studies have been done examining the efficacy of mental rehearsal in athletes, and musicians can reap the same benefits from the technique.
Another mental aspect of our practice worth integrating into your routine is setting aside time for goal-setting and planning for deadlines. Setting goals ensures your practices are building upon each other and working towards a tangible goal and deadline. Just be sure your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.
Memory work is a great way to integrate score study with mental practice and can be done on or away from your instrument. Setting aside time to mentally map out your pieces and work out memory issues can give you solid mental security while performing, since you’ve done the work of committing the piece to memory both on and away from your instrument. It’s also a great time to commit to your musical ideas and expression.
I want to do a whole blog post (or series of them!) talking about mindset work and strengthening your growth mindset muscles. As musicians we are such perfectionists. It can be very difficult to voluntarily put yourself in a space where you are critiquing yourself and your work (which we put a lot of our souls and time into), without letting it affect your confidence and self-image. Building up curiosity, joy, play and confidence, letting go of perfectionism, unpacking limiting beliefs, and battling that imposter syndrome within the practice of your instrument and expression of your creativity is a full-time job and a life’s work.
We’ve all had the experience of having too much going on in our brains to focus on our practice. Often, if I’m in the middle of a long school day and am anxious about the 1001 things that have to get done after I practice, it doesn’t do me a lot of good to ignore my mind freaking out at me. At that point, I’ll get a pen and paper and do a brain dump. I’ll write down everything – yes, everything – that’s going on in my head.
Sometimes the act of externalizing my thoughts is enough to clear my head and get back to what I was doing before, but sometimes I’ll need to give more attention to whatever was bothering me. In that case, I’ll spend some time journaling about it, praying or sitting with the anxiety or the thought before releasing it.
Practice journaling can be a very helpful companion to mindset work and brain dumping, especially if you struggle to through your emotions (as I do) or if you would like a clear map of your progress. Also, it is excellent for goal setting and tracking physical symptoms. I find it fun to go through my practice journals at the end of the year or when I run out of pages in the book to see how far I have come!
The above practice methods are just a few ways to intentionally involve your mind in your practice routine. I hope you gained some new ideas! Let me know if there are practice methods involving the mind that you’d like to hear more about, or if you’d like to take a deeper look with me at the ones I mentioned here. Until next time,
Happy practicing!