What works for me

One reason to stop rushing around during the day is it gives you a moment to re-set and make new choices. Practicing warm-ups, focusing techniques, and stillness gives you experience of the calm, clear state needed to make clear decisions. It makes the “thinking” that you do in action also more clear a directed.

As we have discussed, musicians use their proprioception to steer their art. Our sense of where we are in space, which body parts are moving and how, how much effort we are using to do something, how the music sounds in the space around us, in short, all the feedback is noted a processed and turned round in the brain to allow the music to continue.

Since the proprioceptive functions in the brain are fed information by so many senses, it is almost impossible to lose your proprioception. The reason that we know we can see, hear, even feel, smell and taste, is that these senses vary in people, so comparison is possible. Documented cases of absence or lose of one or more of these senses are many! There are only a few documented cases of the loss of proprioception, as proprioception is a brain function, so very hard to lose.

The point of this is that we cannot lose our proprioceptive function, but it can happen that we overload it, or that it becomes confused by external and internal factors. Perhaps you have noticed that sometimes you can play or sing quite easily, whereas at other times it seems to not work so well. Variations in our state from day to day, or from hour to hour, are normal. Professional musicians know how to practice and perform throughout life’s ups and downs. They have things that they do or do not do that work for them! Self-knowledge, and best-practice plans for yourself enable you to do your best and to continue to develop throughout a lifetime.

As musicians, with proprioception as our main training ground for a fine playing or singing technique, it can help to chart for yourself how and why you perform your best. How can you foster a clear mind-body connection? Under which circumstances, and through which habits do you become either clearer or less clear in steering your art? You can then apply what you have learned about yourself to make the best-case scenario a daily occurrence, upping your game!

In class, we take time during a lesson to make a list of all the things that can weaken your ability to receive feedback from your senses. Things that get in the way of organizing your mind and body to play or sing. Some stimuli are external, or internal, in our thoughts, which are somewhat random. In any case, in response to any stimuli there is an internal reaction that we can consider changing. If we are in a good state, if we can stop, think and steer, we can say yes or no.
Here is a random selection of some of the things that musicians named as disturbing their concentration, perception and coordination:

• Phones
• Noise
• Tiredness
• Hunger
• Weather: Light: sun or no sun, Temperature: too hot too cold
• Drinking too much
• Drugs
• Staying out too late
• Anxiety
• Mind-wandering
• External pressure
• Deadlines
• Our own expectations
• Fear of failure
• Rushing
• Over-planning/overbooking
• Lack of planning
• Isolation
• Interruptions

In class, we then each write an example of what our tendencies are as individuals, and any tactics that we use to steer our way back in to a state that we can work well. Everyone is different, yet similarities in stories occur, which shows we are not alone!

You can read some of these examples on the page: Tendencies and Tactics.

Think about this: There will always be a reason why you cannot work well. Creating a good work relationship with your self, being a compassionate and informed boss for yourself can make a lot of difference in overcoming those hurdles! Create work habits with respect for who you are. Explore tactics to discover what works for you. Take small steps daily to re-create the environment inside and out that can allow for small sparks of pleasure and attachment to the music to fire your passion!