For Oz…

I haven’t written for a while because life got in the way, but yesterday something happened which made me think.

It is often hard working creatively. It can feel almost like running through life with your legs tied together. The constant desire to learn and improve can sometimes flip upside down and manifest as a deep sense of inadequacy; the feeling that whatever you do is never enough. The excitement of discovery and creative exploration gets lost in a stagnating perfectionism. You want to be successful too much to allow yourself to begin.

This is a problem I have been trying to understand for some time. In a sense, the time spent analysing these thoughts is unnecessary. Ultimately, it would be enough to be aware of them and acknowledge their complete lack of significance before getting on with the work at hand. However, my analytical brain struggles fiercely against this impending redundancy.

Creative work never arrives, it simply stops in the place we choose to leave it. Skills are never mastered; there is always more to learn. Rather than see this as daunting, it could be exciting; liberating. If there is never any chance of reaching perfection, where’s the hurry in trying?

The last words in what was to be the final blog post of Ozge, a friend and yoga teacher of mine, were, “And who knows what is next?”

Oz died last night.

Since then I have been reminded of some truths.

Truth no.1: Never, ever let anyone make you feel insignificant.

That’s what perfectionism is: Fear of insignificance.

Truth no.2: Every contribution is important. Each of us is validated every day through the connections, energy and love we share with others. We can never know what we give to those around us any more than we can easily understand what they give to us.

Today I spent an hour or so in the yoga studio with a number of Oz’s friends, students and colleagues. Oz’s energy was palpable. Her spirit remained through the energy and love she had shared with each of us.

Something else she gave me today: I find my definition of success rather altered.

“And who knows what is next?”

It doesn’t matter what is next. What matters is who you are now.

Therein lies the potential for perfection.

For what it’s worth…

“The real essence of art turned out not to be something high up and far off. It was right inside my ordinary daily self. The very way one greets people and expresses oneself is art. If a musician wants to become a fine artist, he must first become a finer person. If he does this, his worth will appear. It will appear in everything he does… Art is not in some far-off place. A work of art is the expression of a man’s whole personality, sensibility and ability.” Shinichi Suzuki

Life seems to be a constant search for happiness. Last week saw many people in London and across the UK searching for happiness by means of stealing clothes, electrical goods and anything else they could get hold of. Consumerism leads us to expect a fast-track to happiness. People are measured by what they earn and what they own. Culturally we seem to have misplaced the ideal that a person can be better measured by what he gives.

The previous week saw the Musician’s Union petitioning the TUC on behalf of musicians who it says are often “emotionally blackmailed” into working for free. It specifically refers to charity events where musicians are expected to perform free of charge when other staff such as caterers are being paid. Music is a gift. The best gifts we have are those we give away. But “a work of art is the expression of a man’s whole.” The gift is already intrinsic in the very act of sharing it. The society which has created the moral vacuum which caused the riots of last weekend seems to have lost sight of any sense of true value past the cost of a plasma-screen television. It needs to be appreciated that those who work to become musicians already give. The very act of sharing an experience, a performance and a skill is an act of service.

I am fascinated by the idea of potential. As I’ve studied yoga, meditation and Alexander Technique, so many strands come together and connect in my violin practice. With all of these disciplines I begin to have glimpses of what it is to be truly aware. Occasionally when the technique comes into alignment there’s a moment of absolute consciousness. It’s sometimes called being ‘in flow’ or, in meditation speak, transcending. It’s that feeling when all you’re aware of is the thing that you’re doing; that moment in performance where the ego drops away and all you are doing is communicating the music. But potential has to be worked for. What aligns to cause this heightened consciousness is technique. Technique demands practice. Practice is hard work.

Recently musicians seem to have become a forgotten underclass. Significant cuts to the arts and the country’s focus on the Olympics have made it harder and harder to make a living playing music. There is little Government interest in how much musicians have to offer society, and yes, they are often asked to work for free. It would perhaps have been understandable had we seen a mass gathering of Britain’s orchestral musicians looting Marks and Spencer for sandwiches and ready meals.

In practising to reach a professional standard, musicians work hard to achieve their potential. In doing so they are practising that discipline which is also intrinsic to many spiritual practices such as yoga. From this practice, by its very nature, comes a deeper benefit than mere instrumental skill; there is the opportunity through hard work and self discovery to become a finer person, as Suzuki so beautifully expresses.

Society needs its musicians. In a time where it seems many people are resigned to blaming everyone else for their perceived lack, where people are looking only for what they can take, music is still a gift, and those who give it should be appreciated, respected and yes; paid for their time.

In a destructive time, creativity is of more value than ever.

“I came to the end of my search and realised what art truly is. After I found out, the rest was up to me.” Suzuki

Counting for something…

I’ve just got home from a fantastic Ashtanga yoga workshop in Goa with the wonderful John Scott. John spent the entire week teaching us to count. We counted in Sanskrit; we counted breath; we counted movements within sequences of movements; we created a mantra consisting of the Sanskrit count which flowed through our thoughts steadying and focussing the concentration.

Yoga creates that deep level of concentration  and awareness which amongst other things brings the ability to function at your highest level. Practice of yoga is also about developing accountability; behaving as if you count and aligning yourself so as to be centred and open to whatever life throws at you.

When I came to pick up my violin after the ten-day break I was struck by how many parallels there were not only with the Alexander technique, but with my study towards greater potential within my own playing. Ten days of practising the correct alignment of my body made it glaringly obvious how easily I was tipping off-balance when I played. It’s not always easy to maintain good posture, particularly whilst  sight reading with jet-lag, but it’s even easier not to notice the physical tensions whilst your concentration is elsewhere. It’s one thing to know where the tension is occurring and quite another thing to feel it. I found that in becoming aware of how my body was functioning, the mechanics of reading and playing became simpler and imbued with a basic acceptance which made a day’s work much more enjoyable. I was able to get beyond the monkey chatter and listen to what was really important.

This is the reason for the counting in yoga practice. By creating the ‘mantra’ of counting, the mind becomes clear of distractions and focusses entirely on the sequence of breath and movement. If it is possible to achieve this in yoga practice then why not in violin practice? By quieting the negative self-talk which often clutters the mind, not only would practice become more effective, the communication between mind and body would increase, creating more freedom of movement and with it greater creative confidence. The acceptance and calming of the internal chatter also has huge implications for stage fright. Acknowledging nervous thoughts as merely products of the chattering brain discredits them and allows a greater feeling of security, self-control and accountability.

By focussing on the counting during yoga practice, just as by focussing on a mantra in meditation, what happens is not that the other thoughts disappear, but that you begin to realise the nature of many of those thoughts. Rather than becoming overwhelmed by the emotions which the thoughts might trigger, it is possible to merely acknowledge them and move on, giving them no importance. It quickly becomes obvious how mundane, illogical and plain ridiculous the majority of the mind’s chatter is, for example when you have practiced diligently for a performance only to be crippled by nerves.

My differing awareness of my thoughts has given me a new perspective on my own tendency for performance anxiety. For me it is a way of denying accountability. If everything goes wrong when I play it’s not because I’m not good enough or haven’t practiced properly, it’s because I get such terrible nerves. It strikes me now that this is hilariously self-defeating in light of the number of hours practice I have put in over the years.

So for me, practice now comes in two forms. First there’s the yoga practice of meditation and asanas, then the violin practice. I think every lesson learned in yoga can be applied as much to musicianship as to life. Developing a belief that I count forces me to take responsibility for myself. This means committing to my practice so I am able to offer the best contribution. It also means accepting that I am not perfect. But then I wasn’t counting on that…

Crumbs of encouragement…

Playing music is a totally personal thing. Even on the most mundane gig it’s very different from another day at the office. Whatever the occasion, musicians are asked to give something of themselves, and it can sometimes be hard to feel appreciated.

Next week I will be playing for an orchestral workshop at a conference for one of the major banking groups. The idea is that the musicians demonstrate various teamwork and interpersonal skills which the corporate world can learn from. The trend for events such as this recognises what I have often felt; that my fellow musicians are some of the most highly skilled and intelligent people in the world. They have administrative, team-working, interpersonal and organisational skills well beyond many highly paid business people. They have talent and dedication. It is right to assume they have skills which are valuable to society in many important ways. So why are many of them struggling for work while the funding for the arts is cut back further and further? Things being as they are, it is unsurprising that many musicians become disillusioned and find work in other fields, and the world is a poorer place for it.

Personally, having discovered that life really is not the same if I don’t play the violin, I’m still having to think of new ways to keep my motivation.

I’ve been on tour for a long time. I’ve been lucky enough to be performing nearly every day. Now I’m back in London at the grimmest time of year, watching money haemorrhaging from my profession and my savings account. The thing is, I don’t subscribe to the view that it’s difficult and therefore we must all be miserable. The music world is not what it was, that’s true, but I believe there are opportunities for those who are able to adapt. I feel I must be open to as many opportunities as possible. Anything could happen next.

Meanwhile I need to keep laying the groundwork.

It can be difficult to motivate my practice day after day, but I find that by just starting I always get somewhere. The only way is to approach everything I do with 100% commitment, viewing nothing as a waste of time. I find a lot of value in practicing badly because then I can see that there may be another way of doing it. I record my practice. I sometimes forget to switch the microphone on, but nothing is wasted because I’ve still experienced the sense of the performance.  My lessons are important too. For anyone who needs to perform, the simple act of standing up and playing to another person is invaluable. Performing gets easier the more we do it, so it makes sense to practice it. Last week I played two concerto movements to my teacher. I shook all the way through, but it didn’t seem to matter because I have done so much work on accepting and working with my nerves rather than pointlessly fighting them.

Also, I have begun restoring a sense of fun into my life. I have begun to integrate activities into my day that I used to enjoy as a child. I used to play the violin because I loved the sound and feel of it, I loved learning new music. Perhaps I could practice with this sense of joy and discovery? And then I can go out on my bike, bake some bread or write a story. All the time I am PLAYING, and this is much easier to motivate. It also adds greatly to the sense of confidence I find in my violin playing. By focussing on things that I enjoy I am getting closer every day to what the point of it all was in the first place. By integrating creativity into as many parts of my day as possible, I have more resources to put into my playing. I have more to give. Society may have forgotten that musicians count, but we must as individuals retain the sense of what our contribution is worth: It’s a contribution which makes us worth looking after.

And ultimately I think that may be the way to get through these months when work seems thin on the ground and there isn’t much good news.

So don’t talk to me about cuts in the arts. I’m baking.

Do you wanna see my scar?

Will all last week’s philosophising about the psychological effects of an old playing injury, I forgot something deeply, blindingly obvious.

It was never all in my head.

And so three days ago I pulled the muscle in my right shoulder again.

Although it is necessary to work through the psychosomatic reasons behind physical tension, it is also important not to dismiss the less metaphysical elements. When a muscle has suffered a trauma such as a pull or tear, it develops scar tissue as it heals. This new tissue will never be quite as flexible as the muscle around it. It is also likely that any muscles which have been tense for a long time will have been starved of oxygen causing trigger points to develop where, if the muscle is then put under strain, the original symptoms will recur. This will keep happening until the area which is triggering the pain is properly treated.

So basically, once you have had an injury you need to be a little bit nice to the place you injured for a very long time. Which means that I need to acknowledge that my right side may never be able to do quite the same bendy, twisty yoga poses that my left side can slip into with supercilious ease.

So far this week has not been easy. The constant pain from my shoulder which referred down into my right arm, giving a remarkable impression of tendonitis, has been tiring and depressing. The fact is, I’ve been so determined to get fit and strong so as to create a sound basis for a healthy, happy career as a violinist, it had not even crossed my mind that there might be scar tissue in my shoulder muscle. For a few hours after I pulled the muscle again, I felt dreadful; as though the whole sorry saga was going to begin again. The pain was quite amazing. My whole shoulder and arm was actually screaming at me, and I wanted to scream back.

Then I remembered that I know what to do now.

It’s no longer a playing injury, so the first thing to do is to stop freaking out.

The second thing to do is to keep it moving gently. This is not easy if the first thing you do in the morning is stuff yourself onto a rush-hour tube train where you are contorted into a space the size of a packet of crisps by a crushing medley of foul-tempered, coffee-starved armpits, so I walked most of the way to work.

I had a massage.

Then came the information that what I’d pulled was actually scar tissue. My muscles have emotional baggage. So maybe insisting on improving the flexibility of my right shoulder by, say, April, isn’t such a great idea. Maybe I need to be a lot more patient. I can do that.

I can also reduce the amount of practice I do back to 20 minutes at a time. This is the most positive outcome so far. I’m suddenly achieving much more concentrated bursts of practice and wasting much less time. An hour goes by easily in 20 minute slots. I can be aware of my physical state and practice focussing my attention in a much deeper way. To save time I record myself and listen back a few days later. None of these ideas are new, but I just wasn’t using them before. Also, the effect of having a 20 minute time limit is that it’s easy to practice picking up the violin and playing. A longer practice always involves elaborate warm-ups which there is never time for in the real world. This way my practice can be truly integrated, physically and mentally.

So the lesson I learned this week was just to be a little kinder to myself. I was so busy giving myself a hard time for the negative thought patterns which caused the injury, I forgot to acknowledge the way my body had reacted. My muscles, it seems, have a better memory than I do. Not everything needs to be analysed. Sometimes we just need to listen to our bodies. There is a school of thought that says every injury and illness has a psychosomatic element. But it also has a physical manifestation.

Perhaps everything is simpler if we just take time to notice the bleeding obvious.

Violin Practice - Little and Often

 

Re-solving it…

I sometimes have this sense that my mind and my ego are perpetually caught in whirling rush of destructive energy; like two scrapping Jack Russell Terriers rolling over and over in a ball of teeth and tails. Which is not a state particularly conducive to creative wellbeing.

Before I injured my back in 2008 I had a problem in my right shoulder for about five years. This affected my violin playing in that the shoulder would not move freely and was constantly extremely painful. Some days the mobility was so bad that I couldn’t brush my hair. I would come home from a days teaching, overdose on Ibuprofen and burst into tears (through a sense of pain and hopelessness rather than because my hair was a state). Nobody could tell me what the problem was, yet I was convinced I was doing something wrong and would spend hours practising technique; hammering myself further and further into the ground. I began to struggle with nerves because I never felt confident that my body would do what was needed under pressure. I just couldn’t move that arm fast enough. Thank God I slipped a disk and had to sort things out, because a lifetime of that would have been a waste of everything I love. Five years was more than enough.

Back when I was receiving treatment for the slipped disk, my physiotherapist was pretty tough with me. “If something is hurting,” he would say, “It’s because you aren’t moving it properly. Just move it.” I remember coming home from the hospital one day and standing in front of my mirror. First I rolled my left shoulder round as freely as it would go. “Right,” I said, “If the left shoulder does that, then the right one must also do that.” I tried. It hurt. I tried again. Forty minutes later, I had managed to get my right shoulder to rotate as freely as my left. And it didn’t hurt. I felt like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: “Wiggle your big toe.”

My right shoulder has been completely pain-free ever since. Until last week.

It started off simply enough: I was practising my yoga and the mat slipped. I slightly pulled a muscle. I tried to stretch it out. I pulled it more. I tried to practice the violin and my bow arm started distorting the stroke. So I went for a deep tissue massage and my whole body went into meltdown.

A friend of mine calls periods like this Seasons in Hell.

What can happen with a deep tissue massage is that the muscles react by trying to return to a position they remember, even if it’s an unhealthy one. Because I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to improve my playing, my body decided to revert to the old reaction to the shoulder pain. I started to notice tension where I thought I had eliminated it; in my neck, my jaw and my shoulders; and I started to feel anxious. I had an important week of concerts and recordings. I thought I was done with this.

Sometimes problems we think we are done with will keep popping up until we resolve them, and resolving them is all about changing your thinking. In the past, I would have focussed on the pain in my shoulder. This would make the arm stiffer and the pain worse. Now I know to look at the bigger picture and to make sure the other muscles are not working too hard to compensate. The more I focussed on my hand following the movement of the bow and my arm following my hand, the less the shoulder resisted.

My most important awareness is that the physical pain was always caused by resistance; by a conflict between creative freedom and fear. Now I understand. My right shoulder is where the fear goes. This makes sense: Firstly, I’m left handed, but secondly, the bow arm is the voice and until recently I’d lost my creative voice. Now I know that my fear is lodged firmly in my right shoulder, I can coax it out. It is no longer a stranger.

Today I had a lesson with my wonderful Alexander Technique and violin teacher. “I’ve brought more fear than music to show you today,” I said. My shoulder has not hurt since.

For me the trick here was to acknowledge what was going on without any of the judgement I would previously have felt; to understand that my shoulder was hurting because my muscles were reacting to the tension of a slight pull with a memory of negative feelings; to notice the physical affect those negative memories were having; to allow myself to have those feelings and then to allow myself to gently work my way out of them.

And the most useful thing my teacher said?

“Just calm down.”

Sometimes we aren’t quite done with things we thought were resolved. This isn’t a bad thing. By acknowledging them and allowing ourselves to be human we can find enjoyment in the discoveries we make, and ultimately a deeper confidence and self knowledge. And then we can thank ourselves for the lesson, kick the negative thoughts in the backside and move on to the next thing… Which may well be a cup of tea and a well deserved packet of Rolos.

Yoga Practice…

Yoga means union. It is the act of learning to access the divine through physical practice, meditation and study. So for me it’s a bit like trying to get under the skin of a Mozart concerto.

I’m in the middle of reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, an autobiographical account which she describes as “One Woman’s Search for Everything.” I’ve finished the bit about the three months she spent in Italy, gorging herself on incredible food, and I’m now at the part where she’s studying at her Guru’s Ashram in India. She’s struggling with her meditation practice: “The truth is,” she says, “I don’t think I’m good at meditation. I can’t seem to get my mind to hold still. I mentioned this once to an Indian monk, and he said, ‘It’s a pity you’re the only person in the history of the world who ever had this problem.’”

So my violin practice today went something like this:

Me: “I think I might have a go at the Mozart. Ok, let’s have a go. How do I want this to sound? Let’s put the metronome on and do it slowly. Ah! But I must remember to ‘play’. I don’t want it to be lifeless. Ok! So I’m going to enjoy this.”

Metronome: “Tick tick.”

Brain: “Hmm. Are you sure you’re going to make that shift?”

Me: “Shut up.”

Brain: (tauntingly) “But you missed it yesterday…”

Me: “But I’ve practiced it since then. Hang on! Go away! If I just focus on this instead of talking to you the shift will be fine.”

Short pause while I manage to focus for long enough to play the two bars in question…

Metronome: “Tick tick tick tick…”

Brain: “So you made it that time… But what if you’re nervous? You’ll mess it up.”

Me: “I cannot believe I’m getting involved in this conversation! I’m just practicing! Why won’t you just let me get on with it?”

Brain: (sulking now) “I’m only trying to help. You won’t remember all the things your teacher said at college ten years ago if I don’t chip in.”

Me: “But I’ve moved on since then. I’m sure I should be working with what I have now, not thinking about how I played this at college?”

Metronome: “Tick, tick.”

Brain: (sarcastically) “Oh. Going it alone now are you?”

Me: “You’re driving me nuts. Please just let me play the violin! This is meant to be fun!”

Brain: “Perhaps you could write your blog about this. You can do like this whole section where you write out the conversation we were having while you were trying to practice, and how you managed to get your mind back to the moment and it all started getting a l…”

When we practice music, we are always encouraged to concentrate. Somehow, concentration for me implies trying hard to get something right. If I try to concentrate it seems to take my mind off what I’m doing. Thinking back to my Alexander Technique lessons, the idea of being in flow, fully focussed, is more like the focus in meditation or yoga, of simply being where you are – the practice of slowing the mind from its constant jumping from the past to the future. In my violin practice this jumping manifests as the brain’s obsession with past and future mistakes while I’m actually supposed to be working calmly towards improving my performance and understanding of the music. But if I can stay fully in the present, my practice is not only more effective, it’s more enjoyable too. I find that if I follow the thread of the sound as I play as though it’s almost a visual thing, I am suddenly much further inside what I’m doing with a much more intense quality of attention. This mindfulness is the most powerful practice tool I have yet found, and will, despite what my brain is telling me, not be shaken by  nerves. It gives a clarity of confidence and a sense of joy which lesser forms of concentration don’t seem to achieve. The only problem is, I don’t think I’m very good at it.

“Meditation is the act of listening,” says Gilbert.

So perhaps practice is the art of listening.

Nice Work if You Can Get It…

Nice work if you can get it.

My last post was over a year ago. I had just done my first concert in a year after overcoming a back injury, and at the time it felt like a small step on a new and exciting journey. I couldn’t have known what an incredible journey that would turn out to be. In October 2009 I went on tour with the show Star Wars in Concert; a seven week tour of America and Canada. This was followed by a six week tour of Europe. In May this year, I began five months of work on Sting’s Symphonicity tour; nine weeks in America and Canada followed by eleven weeks in Europe, Russia and Bellarus. Two weeks after that I joined Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds tour of Europe and the UK, and rounded the whole thing off with a two week cruise on the SAGA Pearl II to the Caribbean.

When I accepted the first tour everyone thought I had lost the plot. “Seven weeks of sitting on a bus when you’ve had a slipped disk? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” But I had confidence in my ability to manage my back. I remember every day I would get down on the floor of the hotel or the dressing room and do the sequence of stretches worked out for me by my physiotherapist. At times it was boring, but I still did it. Jill, my physio at BAPAM (The medical service for performing artists) had ingrained in me that I should equate the health of my spine with the health of my teeth, so as I clean my teeth every day, I must also look after my back. Initially I had some niggling pain, but it got better the more my confidence grew. By the time I came back from the first American tour, not only had I developed a taste for cocktails, I had learned to put into practice the very important lessons I’d taken from Alexander Technique, and was able to sit comfortably and easily on the chair while I played. This sounds like a small thing, but for violinists with long backs and long legs, it can be a real challenge to find a comfortable posture, and it was invaluable for me to learn to really connect with my sitting bones in the same way I’d begun to learn to work with my feet. I had some helpful blocks under the back legs of my chair which level out the seat and make it easier to breath and support the shoulders. I know many people wonder where they can find such a thing, and I recently discovered that the gap in the market has been filled. They can be purchased very cheaply at Cello Classics, and are really worth investing in to adjust the angle and comfort of low or sloping chairs.

Chocolate Martinis in Omaha

The European leg of the tour was just as successful. I began to see that my decision to play the violin full time was being realised; it had just taken me to be courageous enough to believe in myself. We travelled to some truly beautiful cities such as Milan, Madrid, Lisbon and Antwerp. In Antwerp I made another important decision. This might sound silly, but I’ve always struggled to spend money on myself. I’m good at gifts, but when it comes to splashing out on something I really want I would always in the past have worried that I couldn’t guarantee being able to afford it. I never trusted my ability to earn money. I decided it was time to address this and learn to have faith in the abundance of the Universe. In spectacular style, I well and truly blew my negative financial thoughts out of the water by strolling into a diamond shop in Antwerp and walking out with earrings worth three months rent. I wouldn’t recommend this kind of extravagance if it’s going to plunge you into debt, but this gesture for me was a real statement of faith in myself, in my playing and in my physical wellbeing.

A month or so after the Star Wars tour came to an end I set off again, back to the USA on tour with Sting. This was incredible. We played iconic venues like the Hollywood Bowl, Woodstock and the New York Metropolitan Opera. The weather was amazing. What a trip!

At this point I was still doing my regime of stretches and swimming as much as possible. I was a lot fitter, happier and more confident. But I was getting very bored with my stretches. Then a really good thing happened. One of my colleagues was interested in Ashtanga yoga and started a small yoga group. Initially I was a bit wary. Ashtanga yoga is yoga in flow sequences. You can’t be too precise when you start. It’s possible to hurt yourself. I’d done some Iyengar yoga years ago and I wanted the comfort of the slow precision I was used to. I stuck with it. Gradually, I began to realise that the Iyengar yoga had given me a fairly good basis for the sequences. I also felt that all the work I’d done with my physiotherapist and Alexander Technique teacher had given me a fair idea of how I needed to use my body. I began to enjoy it. Then I remembered the sense of flow the John, my Alexander teacher, had discussed with me. It struck me that here was a perfect opportunity to practice non-perfectionism. In Ashtanga yoga you start with an outline and get gradually deeper into each pose. The breathing is integral. Each time we practiced this process, I would find I had gained a deep sense of calm; a deeper sense of I; and my brain would begin to quieten. However many wonderful places we visited, the most important journey for me through this period was this discovery of the real power of yoga. After every sound check we would put our mats down and practice, and I never once had any sense of pain, stiffness or tiredness in any of the shows.

Red Rocks Stadium

Things just carried on getting better. We toured Europe, Russia, Bellarus and the UK. It was the most wonderful experience, travelling and playing. The audiences were incredible. I sat on stage night after night feeling immensely lucky. I still find when people ask me how the tours were, my face breaks into the hugest grin and I find it hard to explain how much fun it was.

Anyway, to cut an already long story short, I continued touring into December and then after a break for Christmas found myself on the way to Barbados playing string quartets. In this short time another good thing happened. Through working in detail on some a really beautiful Haydn quartet, The Lark, I discovered that the nerves I was suffering before my injury are developing into something more positive. As we performed, I became aware of a very much heightened sensitivity. I started to feel anxious. Then a moment later I began to enjoy the delicate sensations in my fingers and the clarity of awareness. So that’s what people mean when they say their nerves are helpful! I was nervous, but I was enjoying myself at the same time.

So it has been the most incredible year. Now I’m back in London, practicing, exercising and planning, and my to-do list has just exceeded the bounds of my perceived reality. The great thing about this journey is that it just seems to keep getting better. I guess I wasn’t wrong when I named this blog My Wonderful Life.

Footwork…

I had my first gig in almost a year yesterday. It’s another milestone, but what’s really fun is that now it just seems like another step on the journey.

My latest Alexander Technique lesson was incredibly helpful. While I’ve been unable to work I’ve had all sorts of anxieties about what would happen next, what it was I should do, how I could strengthen my body to prevent further injury and how I would support myself financially. In a sense, an injury in the back can be seen as representing this need for support. During the lesson, my teacher John gave me an exercise which involves rotating my body with and against the direction of the bow stroke, feeling the rotation from my ankles. This gives not only a sense of continuous and flowing movement, it also gives a real sense of support from the feet. I found my tone and articulation improved immediately.

The other idea that has made a huge difference is that of the simple power of awareness. “Don’t try to concentrate,” he explained. “As soon as you have noticed that you’ve slipped into auto-pilot or tensed up, you’ve already done the work. You don’t need to go in heavy-handed and concentrate or relax. The secret is in the awareness; the quality of your attention.”

After years of worrying about my technique and talent, I suddenly had a new concept altogether. I realised that my mistakes are not a failure of technique or a lack of ability, they are purely a consequence of a dip in the quality of my attention. Developing that complete sense of absorbtion in what I am doing has been a revelation. I’m in love with my sound. Practising is a joy and I can’t help wondering what it would be like to experience that joy at every rehearsal and concert, every one-off gig. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the next time someone says, “So you play the violin for a job? That must be amazing!” if I could say, “Yes, it is. I’m very lucky.”

So I’m continuing to work on this quality of attention, and every time it slips I have to find my feet again; find that support. And each time it becomes easier.

The Practising in Flow website contains useful articles about this idea of being fully engaged in your playing. I found it takes courage; you have to believe that what you have to offer is valid; but the more I practice this awareness the better the results. We all have to start somewhere. It’s just a question of doing the footwork.

Keeping Your Nerve

Keeping Your Nerve - Confidence Boosting Strategies for Musicians and Performers

Kate Jones/Faber Music

This little book is an encouraging and promising guide to understanding and overcoming stage fright, written by ex-music student and now counsellor for musicians, Kate Jones. It’s just the right size to slip comfortingly into your instrument case to refer to as anxiety strikes and it contains helpful hints and anecdotes from well-known performers such as Joanna MacGregor, Elvis Costello and Steven Isserlis on their own methods of accepting and working with performance anxiety.

Unfortunately, in my experience, it’s one thing to know in principle how someone else deals with stage fright, it’s another thing entirely to find your own way to work with it. The point I found most interesting, which would obviously have required a much bigger book to cover in depth, was made by pianist Stephen Kovacevich for whom the key to getting over nerves was to develop a greater understanding of himself. He came to realise that at some point in his youth he had not felt entitled to his own feelings about performance – as a child his experience was that he would be judged for a less successful performance. Basically, he came to equate his performing achievements with how accepted he was as a person.

For students going through Music College at an age where their vulnerability and susceptibility to criticism is heightened, crippling anxiety can develop as technical prowess grows. There is little opportunity in pressured conservatoire environments for students to develop an idea of who they are or what the music means to them – it can easily become all about what the exam panel thinks, of what is the ‘correct’ way to play Bach, of how they are doing in relation to the ‘competition’.

This little book gives lots of good advice, but to those who have developed a deep rooted problem with anxiety it is missing the vital advice which could have easily followed on from Kovacevich’s story; that there are people who can help you rediscover why you perform and return the autonomy that pressured study environments have the potential to erase. If your nerves are founded on a fundamental lack of self belief, it is not particularly helpful to know that Steven Isserlis suffers and overcomes his stage fright. He is, after all, Steven Isserlis, and therefore ‘better’.

Another problem with the book is the great emphasis placed on knowing the music well. It stands to reason that you might be less nervous if you are actually prepared, but I have personally suffered some of my most damaging nerves when I am most prepared. It is necessary to learn not only to prepare, but to be truly present in the room while you play. A common effect of stage fright is the terrifying feeling of being cut off from what you are doing, as though you are playing through a veil or a glass pane. This is not helped by preparing the notes, but again by building the self belief that what you are offering is valid.

The practicalities of learning the music thoroughly are not covered either. There is no acknowledgement of the situation of the vast freelance population who are frequently only reading the music for the second time in the performance. Do they not get nervous? Again, it’s a matter of physical preparation, of being alert and fit enough to do the job, but a level of self-belief is intrinsic to playing in these conditions. It becomes common for people to have a drink to settle the nerves, or for physical tensions to shorten their careers.

This is a cheerful, positive book which I think would be a great help to those who are already fairly able to deal with their nerves and just want to know what causes nerves and how best to rationalise and work with the feelings. For those who really suffer from performance anxiety, a short appendix directing them to the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine would have been a valuable addition.

Keeping your nerve is all very well, but there is something you can do if you feel you have lost your nerve altogether.