Breaks, Sleep and Imagination

Let’s talk about three under-rated tools for the musician. Pay attention to these tools:

Breaks, sleep and imagination have great power to improve both playing technique and musical expression.

We musicians spend a lot of time alone in the practice room. Unlike sports professionals, who have a coach, trainer, physiotherapist, sports psychologist, masseur, etc., we have to not only progress on our own, but also monitor how we are doing during these long hours of practice. This means that we have to remain fresh and alert; we have to be in a good state to do our best both as player and as witness. Yet, we tend to drive ourselves over our boundaries, until through exhaustion or boredom we stop.

For a long time, at least in the western world, it was thought that the brain was the boss over the body and could dictate from above exactly what the body would do, and then the body would just do it. More recently, with the ability to do live scans of the brain, science has discovered that it is actually an equal dialogue between mind and body, with mind informing body, and body informing mind continuously. When we get tired, or overloaded, this dialogue becomes fraught and we become confused and uncoordinated. We observe less well, and can get locked into a stressful way of functioning that undermines our progress in our work.

That is why it is important to take a break. Worldwide it is now understood that taking a break about every 25 minutes for 5 minutes improves concentration and memory. This method 25-5 is used in many schools of higher learning.

But what is a break? It turns out that looking at your phone or checking e-mail on the computer or other screen activities for even five minutes actually disturbs your concentration for the next 15-20 minutes. Better to change position, walk about, look out the window, get a drink, any of these activities that refresh you and remind you where you are, giving you chance to monitor how you are feeling.

Before beginning to practice, or after one hour or so of working, concentration can be lifted to a higher level by a mental/physical warm-up. That is why we do directed stretches as warm-ups. However, the most effective, concentrated warm-up or break procedure is a conscious lie down. This is called: Semi-Supine. “Supine” means lying down, and “Semi” means partly. In semi-supine we find the lying down position that most supports the postural structures, bones, etc. You lie on the floor on a mat or folded blanket, with a few books under your head to support it and your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. That’s it.

This is such an effective procedure for improving performance, that it is standard practice at the Royal College of Music, London, to alternate 20 minutes of practice with 10-minute lie down. It not only allows your muscles to release and re-set, it also lengthens and widens you, calms you and improves concentration! If you try this, you will notice that your brain is not still during the lie-down, but continues on solving things that you might have been busy with in your practice. Even when you are completely still in your thoughts, your brain goes on to link one thing with another to make a harmonious whole. As you release your muscles and joints with the help of gravity, your body and mind will give up tension built up during practicing, which leaves your refreshed and ready to go on after your break.

Research has shown that people who take breaks early on in practicing (after 25 minutes) progress more quickly in learning tasks. Those who take breaks late, or not at all, progress more slowly. Strangely, after a night’s sleep, the first group, the early break takers, have actually gotten better just by sleeping a night on it, whereas the late-break takers and non-break takers get worse than before they slept. If we think about this it makes sense: if we stop a task just when it is fresh in our minds, and before we get tired, then the brain can remember and process it better. If we go on and on, we get worse at it before we rest, leaving a bit of a mess in the mind. The trick is to learn to notice when something went well and stop, not going on to try and “get it right” over and over again.

Other studies have shown that imagining a coordination task over five consecutive days had the same effect in the motor-skills section of the brain as actually doing the task! This means that imagining playing builds coordination! There is a catch: you have to already be pretty good at a skill to be able to practice it mentally with success. For instance, children who had played soccer a lot got better at it by watching films of professionals playing the game. Children who had never played soccer did not get good at playing soccer by watching people on film. But all of us musicians on the way to a professional life have played or sung for some time, so imagining works very well.

Some musicians say they can imagine themselves playing or singing, and correct their mistakes mentally, steering themselves out of bad habits before they actually sing or play. It also gives them time to learn a piece first without the raw movements that we might use to sight-read. These first movements used to “try out” a piece can sometimes get stuck and prevent us responding in a coordinated way to the messages of the music. By alternating playing a phrase and stopping to imagine it, you can also give room to the creative dialogue between mind and body.

Then the art is to stop on time, while the experience is still fresh.
And sleep on it!

Research information taken from pages 116-121 “Muziek en Brein” by Dr. Ben van Cranenburgh