Won't Power: Part II

There is another phrase that comes out of the Alexander Technique glossary: non-doing. For most modern day Americans, non-doing sounds impossible. Doing is our primary function, and it often leads to over-doing. We are proud of how much doing we can cram into a day, and we boldly exhort it on social media. Even if we choose the quieting of meditation, we "do" that with special clothing, cushions, pillows, candles, music - whatever it is that reminds us we are doing something about doing nothing.

Teaching is about training someone to "do" something, after all, something they wouldn't be able to accomplish without guidance and perseverance and the occasional push from the teacher. And this is all well and good. However, when the doing feels like hard work, it is. When it feels easy and effortless, it is the outcome of the balance between well-directed movement and the natural process of inhibition as explained in Won't Power: Part I. The understanding that the brain will shut down unnecessary movements in favor of well-coordinated movement helps us to focus on the whole body coordination rather than concentrating on one element of movement. This is what F.M. Alexander referred to as non-doing.

How best can we instill this kind of ease in our students playing? Some suggestions:

      1. Teach them how their bodies work in the simplest language possible. If they understand their own structures, they are more likely to move in accordance with them. There are lots of helpful resources at www. bodymap.org., and there are many good anatomy resources on line. Do your best to distill instructions rather than overwhelm the student with too many directions.

     2. Choose appropriate literature rather than pushing them through upper levels before they are ready. When the music is too difficult, there will be more likelihood of interfering neuromuscular patterns that want to take over. As one of my teachers once said, the mind wants to do what the muscles are not ready to do.

     3.  Use vocabulary that encourages ease and clarity of intention. Yes, I've said this before in different ways, but it is an ongoing project for me. If I were to identify the one aspect of my teaching that has changed the most over the years, it would be my use of words. And, yes, I still slip up from time to time and use phrases that promote more pressure than freedom, but far less often than before.

     4. Check in with them and ask them if they are comfortable. Be aware that some students, especially teens, are comfortable in ways that are not necessarily mechanically advantageous, which creates an opportunity for teaching about balance on the bench.

     5. Remember that one of the major interferences with free movement is the state of a performer's emotions. An anxious or fearful state of mind creates physical tension that is hard to override, regardless of how well-informed the performer is about movement. While we can't control how our students react in performance, we can do our best to create a positive environment for learning.

     6. Guide the student toward the expression of the music. Some students get so involved with the technical aspects that they forget to communicate the message, while others naturally know how to get the message across. We are always balancing those two aspects of performance.

Won't Power: Part 1

My dad tried a variety of diets before deciding that what he really needed was won't power. Will power was over-rated when it came to food, he determined. What was missing was won't power, the power to refuse unhealthy foods. Alexander Technique teachers define inhibition as "the refusal to react to a stimulus in an habitual way." Short cut that to won't power.

The word inhibition, like so many English words, has a number of possible definitions depending on the context in which it appears. Here's one from the online Oxford Dictionary: "a feeling that makes one self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way." And here's another from the online Cambridge Dictionary:"the act of stopping or slowing down a process, or the fact of this happening."

On a physiological level, inhibition is defined as "the restraint, checking, or arrest of the action of an organ or cell or the reduction of a physiological activity by antagonistic stimulation." Thanks to Mosby's Medical Dictionary for this thought-provoking explanation. Or, no thanks, depending on whether or not this makes sense to you.

What is fascinating to me about how we decide to react in any given situation is how much of the brain is actually devoted to won't power. At any given moment, there are many options for response to a stimulus that are available. Take my dad staring at the Klondike bars in the freezer for starters. Things he could have done include:

     1. Take one out and eat it while standing in   front of the freezer.
     2. Take one out and eat it at the kitchen table.
     3. Take one out and eat it at the dining room table.
     4. Take one out and eat it in the living room while watching the news.
     5. Take two out, eat one, and give the other one to me. Please vote for this option.


I know what you are thinking - where's the won't power in all of these options? He is still eating the Klondike bar! Correct, he is. That was his goal all along. The won't power came into play as he decided which motor plan to enact to achieve that goal. Once he decided on a location for eating, the other motor plans had to be scuttled.

This is what the Mosby definition of inhibition explains. When a person decides on a motor plan, the brain gets very busy not only directing the muscles required to put the plan into action, but also quieting competing patterns. This is the essence of antagonistic stimulation, a natural process of the neuromuscular response to a stimulus.

F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) discovered how to help people obtain natural co-ordination through a process that has helped countless people move with greater ease. He wrote about "getting out of one's way," which meant moving toward a goal with clarity and the freedom that excellent co-ordination allows. In other words, he advocated avoiding conflicting motor plans that would interfere with the natural process of energizing and inhibiting the structures of movement. Because so many options to reach a goal are always available, the brain is busier enacting won't power than will power.

How do we use this knowledge in teaching and performing? Get the scoop in Won't Power: Part 2.

Obstacles and Open Spaces

            A friend decided to learn to hang glide and offered one of the top pieces of advice the instructor gave: don’t look at the obstacles. She reported watching other novices who ended up in trees and on fences because they were so wary of crashing into them. These hang gliders learned the hard way that your vision determines the way your body leans.

            I learned this also in my attempt to become a horse rider. My teacher’s frequent reminder: your eyes are your commitment. The same thing happens on a horse that happens on a hang glider. Your weight shifts according to the direction you look, and the horse responds to the shift. If you are shifting toward an obstacle, chances are your horse will head in that direction as well.

            Our visual systems like to find a point of focus. Staring into space is an action that we tend to consider a negative.  It’s something that teachers notice when a student seems not to be paying attention, not being focused, in both the visual and the mental senses of the word. Those of us who went to school in buildings with very large windows will remember teachers catching us “daydreaming” by looking outside.

            But clearly there are times when it is advantageous to take in the larger view. both literally and metaphorically. Standing on a high point is a great opportunity to see far into the distance and notice what comes into view. If you do this with a friend, you may be surprised at your different aspects of attention. The wider scope provides a different perspective from a directed focus, even though a point of focus may come into awareness during the experience.

            And so it is with our teaching. It is quite easy to apply narrow focus on what seems to matter the most. For some teachers it is fingering, for some phrasing, for me – counting! We may begin assessing the quality of performance from that one point, the apparent obstacle to success.

            What happens when we instead soften the focus and let our attention open? What comes into view?

            I’ve been considering focus in relation to transfer students. Sometimes a transfer student comes in with excellent preparation, the kind that allows us to move forward with ease. But sometimes all I see and hear are obstacles, and they are not obstacles that can be ignored if there is to be forward progress. There are multiple fences to get hung up on, and passing over one treetop only leads to landing in the next.

            This is the time to sit back and find a little clearing. What is working well for the student? Sometimes it’s the student’s desire to play the piano. The student wants to learn and wants to improve. Building on desire helps to put the details in order and gives a frame of reference for the focus on the details at hand.   

Finding appropriate repertoire is the next best step, and possibly the biggest challenge. The music needs to be simple enough to allow attention to the obstacles without being either frustrating or boring. This can be a tall order, but luckily there are many collections of teaching literature available.

Notice also the physical tensions that may be interfering with overcoming obstacles. A chicken/egg phenomenon for sure, but physical tension is often the outcome of being unable to decipher notes and rhythms. Tension can be due to visual issues, a possible learning challenge, or some confusion remaining from previous study. If your larger view of the student includes physical tension, encourage more freedom. This can be done at the piano through approaches such as Body Mapping® or it can be done away from the piano through whole body movement. Playing catch is one of my favorite ways to get a student to experience whole body movement, especially if you emphasize that dropping the ball is allowed.

Perhaps the most important way to look for open spaces is to avoid mentally labeling the student. Thinking of the student as the one who can’t count, uses bad fingering, has an attitude – whatever that means – sets up the likelihood of predicting obstacles rather than looking into open spaces. Every student can surprise by doing something unexpectedly well, even if briefly. Be open to the delight of these changes as they come into focus.

Waiting

"Snow is falling, snow on snow." One of my favorite carols is In the Bleak Midwinter, with lyrics by Christina Rossetti. The words are simple but beautifully arranged, like "snow on snow." I wasn't thinking of these words while sitting halfway up a hillside, unable to get traction to the top, but the word "bleak" may have been appropriate.

My fellow travelers and I were aiming at the top, but not in straight lines. Depending on which way the skids had taken us, we formed a kaleidoscope of angles and colors against the gray surface of the icy roadway. We sat in our metal cocoons, not quite sure what sign would appear to let us know that we could forge ahead. We all waited.

At some point, maybe after 30 minutes or so, one person stepped out to see what was going on ahead. Not only was the surface slick, but visibility was poor. That one person unintentionally gave others permission to do the same. I stepped out to ask for help from the truck driver next to me, who kindly pushed me to the left lane so I was less of an obstacle to those behind me. I then walked back to the car behind me to explain that I couldn't get a running start. Neither could he. We began to connect in our plight, some of us shrugging, some complaining, some making light jokes "in keeping with the situation." (Thanks, Dickens!) In and out of vehicles, in and out of snow, in and out of communication.

After about an hour, a state trooper and a snow plow arrived. The trooper became an impromptu conductor, planning our exit order, and pushing us out with the help of some stronger stranded drivers. I remember one of them smiling with the knowledge that his helping was valuable. His face seemed to say, "I can do this."

All of this excitement happened a week after the fall studio recital. My opening recommendation to my students was to exhale while waiting to play. Let's face it, one of the biggest differences between practicing and performing in a studio recital is the waiting. I've been considering that it is an element that needs to be addressed more directly.

When I assemble the order of performers, I do my best to take into consider the ability to wait. There are some students that I will ask where they would like to be on the performance schedule. There are others with diagnoses like ADHD that I will place earlier in the program.  I also consider the personality differences, hoping to place a calmer student next to a more excitable one. Occasionally there is conflict that requires a student to play earlier or later in the program to accommodate another commitment. Yes, even for recitals we are faced with this dilemma.

But what about the rest of the students, the ones who could potentially perform in any order? What is waiting like for them? I imagine they are not unlike my fellow stranded travelers, some taking it in stride, some worrying and mentally planning what will happen when their turns arrive. When I asked one of my students which piece she liked best on the program, her response was, "I was so close the end of the program that I really didn't listen to the other performers very well."

While as we teachers we may address self-talk in advance of performance, we may or may not address the mental game of waiting. One the few crash-and-burn performances I have experienced with my students proved to me that this can be disastrous. A well-prepared student had spent the whole car ride in crippling self-doubt, which did not go away at the venue but increased, ruining what would otherwise have been a fine performance. These are things we don't forget as teachers, and definitely things our students don't forget. Trauma is not too harsh a word.

As I look back on this year's recital, I am grateful that no one went deep into the land of negative self-talk, but I still remember that the potential is there. At the moment the hands touch the keys, there is no rescue team available, no one to push the student to safety. The success is riding on preparation and learning to wait with an attitude of  "I can do this."

Tools of the trade, trading tools

Watch this video! Then watch it again!

A Man Effortlessly Paints the Symbol of a Person in a Wheelchair on a Handicap Parking Space, video on www.laughingsquid.com, posted September 12, 2017. (Go to About and scroll down to the search box.)

Up until I saw this video shared on Facebook, I assumed that all handicap symbols were made by stencils. Many are, I learned by further searches. But in this case, a perfect symbol was made by one man who knew exactly how to complete the shape with one roller full of paint. Without self-consciousness, he completed his task artfully, despite someone watching in the background and someone making the video in the foreground.

As one of my friends so wisely observed, this man knows his tools. He knows how much paint it will take, he knows how to place the rollers on the pavement, he knows the shapes and angles, and he knows not to step in the wet paint at the end of the design. So much knowledge and so much ease.

When F.M. Alexander was making his discoveries about human movement and awareness, long before the advent of handicap symbols, he summed it all up as getting out of your own way. More recent references to finding focus and ease include being in the zone, being in the moment, and being mindful. The challenge remains, regardless of the label, to be one with the tools and the task.

If we think of our instruments as tools, the mindset changes from something to act upon to something to act with.  For pianists, this can be a particular challenge when faced with working with an unfamiliar tool. How quickly we can adjust to another instrument can determine our success with someone else's tool. Our motor plan is trained not only to play the right notes at the right time, but also to the responsiveness of the instrument we play most often.

What do we need to adjust to in order to make an unfamiliar instrument work? Speed of key descent, speed of key ascent, pedal depth and response, overall evenness of action, sound of the hammers both with and without soft pedal, and the presence or absence of a sostenuto pedal. In other words, a lot.

Yet each of us has no doubt learned to improvise with an unfamiliar tool in other settings. When you can't find the right screwdriver, a coin may do as well. When a needle and thread are unavailable, there just may be some tape nearby. Maybe not ideal, but the quick fix just may work.

Keep in mind that we learn by contrast, and that we have very highly developed kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses. We can adjust without blaming the tool. And if we find ease in our bodies rather than tensing against the instrument, we can do it more quickly and efficiently.

Ear blind

My husband gave me a gift of expensive perfume for Christmas. I love the scent, and at first even a small dab smelled gloriously strong. I looked forward to a gentle breeze wafting it back to me. I enjoyed the delicate hints that lingered on my winter coat.

But now April is over. I have been wearing this scent most days for four months. A little dab creates less excitement in my olfactory system. I have become habituated to the perfume’s notes. I have become, as the saying goes, a bit nose blind.

Which got me thinking about other ways I may be habituated in my daily life, especially in my teaching. Perhaps I am so accustomed to certain habits in my students’ playing that I don’t sense them with the intensity I did as a beginning teacher. I’ve become habituated to the sounds of their notes. Maybe I’ve gone ear blind.

I had this conversation with an experienced teacher who agreed that, as a young grad student, she was extremely aware of nuances in expert performances. Now, after years of listening to students in the progression of learning, her ear has become attuned to less-refined qualities.  It can happen.

We may also anticipate how a student will play -  “always-too-soft”, “always-too-fast”. Does that color how we hear the performance in real time?

Another experienced teacher friend had a project of planning a sound to focus on during the school year. She would select something like “melody” or “dynamics” or “articulation” and post a sign in her studio to remind students of that particular element. While it wasn’t the only sound that required students’ attention, it was the one they would come back to throughout the year with fresh ears, as did the teacher. As I reminded a student this week, the intention to hear something helps to shape the outcome. If you have no intention to hear even 16^thnotes, chances are you won’t play them evenly. If, as a teacher, you don’t listen for even 16^thnotes, you won’t encourage your students to perform them.

One of the advantages of hearing our students play in different venues on different instruments is that it wakes up the auditory system. I recently heard a recording of a student playing in a performance on the school grand piano, and I have to admit that I was pleased to hear things in her playing that I had become less sensitive to in my studio.  This also happens at the studio recitals when my students play on a beautiful 7 foot Steinway in a large space, quite different from my Kawai in my small studio.

How else can we sharpen our listening skills? Go to performances or watch them on YouTube, especially those that grab you by the ear. Record your own playing and take notes on what you hear or don’t hear. Record your students’ performances and let them listen with your guidance. Create a grab bag of reminders that say “pedal” or “melodic shape” or “harmonic colors,” and pull one out before each lesson. Share it with the student so you are working toward the same goal.

Another simple practice is to listen to sounds in your daily life that may be going unnoticed. Yes, you may find it temporarily distracting to hear the ice machine in the refrigerator or the fan of the furnace. Don’t worry, your brain will soon pay less attention to them. In the meantime, your auditory system is getting a needed boost.

View from the pit: Self-care

One of my former students became a civil engineer. She told me there was one rule of engineering: the bridge may not fail. As musicians, we have a similar rule: the performance may not fail. We do whatever we can to make sure the performance is a success, and sometimes we lose ourselves in the process.

A few reminders about self-care:

• Create a performance set-up that is as healthy as possible. Do what you can in regard to seating, lights, space for movement, comfortable clothing, whatever you can control that will help you to be more at ease.
• Stay hydrated. Playing for several hours requires significant muscular action, and your body will need water. 
• Practice with awareness. Notice when a lack of trust causes muscle tension.
• Practice to problem-solve. If you are playing on short notice, don't waste time on the easy parts. Score study and mental practice can also be helpful.
• Communicate with other pit members and the conductor. When in doubt, ask!
• Take advantage of breaks. It may be better to walk around and shake out your arms and legs than to spend the whole break practicing that hard spot. Break time is also an opportunity to get some protein in your system.
• Get adequate sleep. Seriously.
• Put mistakes in perspective. Accept that they will happen because you are not a machine.
• Last, but not least, breathe.

In retrospect, this last minute call turned out to be an opportunity to re-evaluate the elements of pit-playing. And I did have some fun! If you have a student performing in a pit for the first time, you may find it helpful to share my ideas. If you are an experienced pit player who would like to add more helpful hints or share some amusing anecdotes, please do so.