The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 144 Wu Han: Creating with Vision, Passion, & Commitment

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

In this episode, Wu Han discusses the journey that got her where she is today, her approach to learning and practicing the repertoire, how she makes the most of a practice session, how she handles the vast quantity of repertoire she has to perform, her advice to young artists thinking of building a career performing chamber music, and much more.   MORE ABOUT WU HAN Website: https://davidfinckelandwuhan.com/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/davidfinckelandwuhan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chambermusicsociety Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/ Music at Menlo: https://musicatmenlo.org/ Wolf Trap Chamber Music at the Barn: https://www.wolftrap.org/calendar.aspx?genre=symphony%2fchamber&venue=the+barns+at+wolf+trap     Sign up for the FREE Mind Over Finger Fall Workshop here: The Confident Musician – Everything you need to prepare for an optimal performance to FEEL CONFIDENT, PLAY YOUR BEST, and ENJOY YOURSELF!   >> DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT FROM THIS EPISODE HERE

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 144. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, optimal performance, and building a purposeful life and fulfilling career. I'm your host, violinist and certified performance and life coach for musicians, Dr. René-Paul Gauthier. Hi, everyone. As always, I hope this episode finds you thriving. I'm really excited about this episode. For this first interview of season five, I bring you not only a phenomenal artist, but an absolute dynamic force in our industry and an incredible human. I'm speaking about pianist, artistic director, Wu Han, a recipient of the prestigious Andrew Wolff Award

and the Musical America's Musician of the Year Award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. Wu Han is described as the modern model of the American success story, equal parts impresaria, scholar, performer, teacher, cheerleader, and recording producer. She's currently artistic co-director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Music at Menlo, Silicon Valley's innovative chamber music festival. She also serves as artistic advisor for Wolf Trap's Chamber Music in the Barnes series and for Palm Beach's Society of the Four Arts. Her recent concert activities have taken her from New York's Lincoln Center stages to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to countless performances of virtually the entire

chamber repertoire, she still performs as a soloist with orchestras across America. She's the founder and artistic director of Artist Sled, classical music's first artist-directed internet-based recording label. Her more than 80 releases on Artist Sled, CMS Live, and Music at Menlo Live include masterworks of the chamber music repertoire with numerous distinguished musicians. During the past season, Wuhan designed and produced more than 200 digital media projects, including concerts and innovative educational programs, which have sustained the art of chamber music in dozens of communities across the United States. At CMS, Wuhan was instrumental in transforming the CMS2 program into today's Bowers program, which admits through

rigorous and highly competitive auditions stellar young musicians to the CMS roster for a term of three seasons. Passionately dedicated to education for musicians of all ages and experience, Wuhan directs the Chamber Music Institute at Music at Menlo, which immerses some 40 young musicians every summer in the multifaceted fabric of the festival. In our discussion, we covered many aspects of a career in music, including the journey that got her where she is today, her approach to learning and practicing the repertoire, how she makes the most of a practice session, how she handles the vast quantity of repertoire she has to perform, her advice to young artists thinking of building a career performing chamber music, and so much more.

And before I bring Wuhan to join us, I want to invite you to join me on October 14th for my free fall workshop, The Confident Musician, where I will share with you everything you need to prepare for a performance where you will feel confident, play your best, and enjoy yourself. Go to mindoverfinger.com to get the link to join me live on October 14th at 10 a.m. Central. I'm going to have fun surprises live in the workshop. And by signing up, you also get the link to the replay. We're going to discuss how to plan, how to practice, and how to prepare for an optimal performance. Once again, that's at mindoverfinger.com to sign up, and I will have that link in the show notes for you. It was such a true pleasure for me to sit with Wu Han. It felt like

a treat, and I walked away completely inspired and energized. As you'll see, she's someone of great depth with amazing knowledge, creativity, and brilliance, and she has incredible insight on a variety of topics. I know you're going to love this conversation. Let's go to the show. Wuhan, it's such an honor to have you today. I'm so excited to have this chance to speak with you. You have created for yourself a multifaceted musical life that encompasses performing, recording teaching and artistic direction at the highest levels in the tradition of the mind over finger podcast i'd love to start there so would you please tell us about you about your musical journey and how all of this has unfolded i was i started piano when i was nine years old so it's

quite late as a musician i entered a special music training program in taipei taiwan and i graduated high school through this special music training program I entered a college actually graduate college in Taipei and I was offered a full scholarship just as my piano teacher in hard school of music Raymond Hinson came to my recital in Taiwan and he told me that you're very talented but would you like to come and study in the United States and I said of course I had no idea what I was talking about but my teacher sent me a package with a full scholarship so I enter hard school of music and I asked him where is hard school he said well it's in between Boston and New York and I was such a dumb kid I said oh that sounds great I heard of both cities and so I went to Connecticut

and started my journey there I barely speak English I was trained as a soloist in Taiwan I I played a lot of solo concerts, concertos, recital. I also have double majors, so I played viola quite well since I was a kid. I was in the orchestra. I was playing the Chinese jingle. I was playing for the opera company. I was playing everything, throwing my way, and I took all the jobs and totally happy. When I came to the United States, I had to start from ground zero because nobody knew me here.

I did not speak English. Mr. Hansen, one day in a lesson, said, do you play chamber music? And I said, I don't. What is that? I'm a soloist, like all of the Chinese musicians. My teacher said, you can be a really great pianist, but if you don't play chamber music, you probably will never be good musicians because of requirement of intense listening,

as well as a requirement of understanding the complete score. and that immediately poked my interest. I said, well, how can I do this? I need to be a great musician. He said, well, there's this young quartet that just entered the school faculty. They have a chamber music competition, but if you don't know any chamber music repertoire, you ought to learn some. So I picked the Schumann Quintet. Actually, Mr. Hansen picked the Schumann Quintet for me. I entered the competition. I won the competition, and the prize is to get to play with this young quartet that just entered the school faculty and that just happened to be the emerson quartet i was very very lucky my first piano quintet was with the greatest quartet in

the world and i just thought this is amazing i want more of this so i did a lot of research i started to build up my chamber music repertoire after 10 years i pretty much know all the trio quartet, violin sonata, cello sonata, viola sonata, quintet, sextet, you name it. I chewed it all up and by the time, three years later, I actually entered also the Marlboro Music Festival. The year before I was in Aspen Music Festival, so I was a festival musician. I made all the friendship there I learned the craft that I had the performance opportunity both in Aspen and Marlborough and then both place rehired me in Marlborough's case I went to music by Marlborough tour in Aspen's case that after Marlborough I went back there not only perform also teach there

um for the last 30 many years 30 some years um and then i started to be hired by many music festivals on chamber music northwest from santa fe music festival for from la jolla music chamber fest uh summer fest um after hitting all the festival not only in united states also um in finland in japan um i was hired as a young artistic director together with david we were the young artistic directors in the summer fest for three years after that we decided to found um found our own festival venue so we founded music and menlo in the silicon valley and that just celebrated 20th anniversary our music and mellows work uh chamber music society in new york uh love the brochure love the concept of the thematic programming so then we were hired by

i think a center chamber music society and we are there in the last 17 years and we just had a five years renew contract so we will be the longest serving artistic directors after we finish this sets of contract and through chamber music we have done a lot of work from education to media to expansion of the satellite series so it's a very busy life I'm holding both posts as artistic directors sharing the position with David individually I am the artistic director for Wolf Trap in Virginia as a mounting their chamber music series as well as in Four Arts Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach which is I did all I do all their programming and I'm artist advisor for both places on top of that chamber music society has eight concert partners yesterday

I was in Satoka Spring Performing Arts Center where we mount a summer series. We play 12 concerts this summer and we just announced a winter series coming up starting this season. And as well as many other plays, I drew University Purchase, Chicago Harris Theater, Grand Rapids and Cecilia Center, Shaker Village in Kentucky, and as well as partners in Taiwan and China. So it's a very busy life um it's very busy what a wonderful and very rich journey and your contribution you and david everything that you do has been so valuable for the whole community i know that on your website it mentions that you are igniting the industry and i have to agree with that i think that the work that you're doing is so crucial right now well we're privileged to have these opportunities

and there are lots of principles that we believe in I think every project is all based on very simple principle of artistic excellence of complete devotion to the music and nothing else and and so we're here to serve the music we're not here to be told that what's best for the community we're here really purely as a musician um in the end the artistic excellence that was happening on that stage always are inspiring for not only musician as well as all the audience and young musicians that follow us and around us so that principle is so pure there's no other agenda so in the end of the day it's actually quite easy to make a decision as long as your goal and your motive and your principle and your mission are very focused and very pure

I love that that word pure and that clarity of mission is so important you talk about artistic excellence that is always a topic that my listeners are interested in of course I would love to learn how you approach learning and practicing the repertoire hear a little bit more maybe how that works for you both as a soloist you're still very active as a soloist and also in chamber music how that works for you well I because I started late when I was nine years old I'm old I remember when I first started I was always in a catch-up mode but I have to really catch up with all my friends that started from age four and five in the special music training program so I learned from very very young age to be super strategic and focused

I did not have a choice in order to survive and sustain my scholarship so um i really learned quite quickly that my practice session has to be really um yield results and i learned very quickly to analyze things myself um i had um in the early stage that my teacher a few really important teacher has set the groundwork of all the technique the first two years because of catch-up work I did not play anything musical at all I play only scale arpeggio churning etudes which sometimes is five or ten ten etudes a week or I did it myself I just chew it up because I had to set the basic technique and then all of the Bach two parts three parts inventions prelude and fugue those were my diet for the first two years I was not

allowed to play my beloved Chopin and all the fun pieces that everybody else enjoyed. I did not have that choice. What happened is by the time I get to the real music, I was so hungry for it. I was dying for it. It's like somebody keep the candy away from you. And the taste of the candy was just spectacular. I never forget. And then also what happened is I had at that time, two full years of just building technique i had a very very um basic setup pretty solid so once i could control the instrument i really enjoyed it i did took um i took two breaks uh one is when i was about 14 the other was when i was about maybe 16 or 17 completely stopped playing concerts and start playing the musical thing to build extra technique of the octaves of the chords of all of

the more fancy and more difficult thing I could not work on and I think when I came to United States I took another advantage of the of the lack of concert time I actually rebuilt a lot of repertoire um i think the first 10 years of my time in the united states i'm very much focused on repertoire building which these the three things of the earlier right to build technique and the the the joy of making music as well as later um the 10 years investment of really build up my repertoire so I can manage a very intense concert schedule that was a few sort of turning point and key element for me right now to sustain my career I'm still quite disciplined right now I'm still every year adding a new repertoire that I know

i'm interested or curious about a piece i love i'm still putting in solo pieces in my in my pocket because it keeps my chops sharp um with my schedule and renee as you know um with um i also have a daughter so with the demand of the domestic life um that i love my family i like to spend time with them as well as in my life the demand of administrative duty i have to be quite disciplined and quite strategic in all of my practice yeah i get up early in the morning i actually usually get my practice done i rarely take appointments before 12 noon uh so my best time is spending on music, spending on my own happiness, spending on my own thoughts as a musician, and my own artistic development. And by the time I finish that every day,

I'm the happiest person. So I can go to my meetings quite focused and happy. Sometimes the schedule is not possible to do such luxurious schedule like today i just traveled for five hours this morning i had two business meetings which is necessary um so there are days it's impossible and i actually have to really look at my calendar and block off the time for my own music and so I know I have very limited time also in my in my practice so what I don't I really go into my practice room without knowing what I need to accomplish so it's a very sort of planned and strategic life in order for me to keep up all my work in order to deliver a good counselor and deliver all the commitment that I have made to different institutions so

thank you for sharing this I feel like it's so inspiring to hear you use words such as strategic and focused as well as happiness in how you plan for this time where you get to nurture the things that make you happy so that you can then show up as a fulfilled human. I absolutely love that. It's so great as well to hear how disciplined you are today and when you were talking about the how you spent some time building your technique and what we could call I guess delayed gratification right you not having access to the the repertoire you really wanted to until you your teacher felt you were ready and then eventually that investment i love that term that you use of investment of time to build up the repertoire i love hearing about this progression and i think that is going

to be very inspiring for the listeners to hear yeah i think one mistake um in in general a lot of young musicians of course we all love to enjoy playing music that's that the biggest biggest um a fulfillment in life as a musician or as a music lover without skill you cannot deliver and skill can only comes from practice it's like you want to hit the basket that basketball you want to be a greatest basketball player you got to hit the hooks if the ball doesn't go in is miserable you can't score points so you have to build up that skill it's it's an athletic thing also um i found a lot of musicians um or the most successful musician needs to have a constant practice of analytical uh sharpen up your own analytical ability if the passage does not go

well, you have to just stop. It's not going to happen if you just practice over and over the wrong way. You just have to stop and figure out why it doesn't sound good and what's wrong with it. And you have to really look at it so carefully, identify where the knots is or how to fix it. And if you can't fix it, don't keep practicing because it's useless. You're just getting yourself into bad habits. So you had to really stop, look at the problem, try to imagine a solution, try any kind of solution you could find, experiment with it, using your mental capacity to break through. And that's really, really important. And another thing that I learned from very young age because pretty much self-taught or trying to improve myself is you

have to learn your own learning pattern. A lot of time, at least for me, you can keep pushing a wall. Sometimes it's not coming through, which is very natural because your brain needs time to digest digest information and i always find i will hit the wall and i'll hit it as hard as i could many many many many times and suddenly i will just kind of stop and sit back a little bit and i will find myself jump and the wall kind of seeps through and that kind of sensation is incredibly exciting and satisfying but you have to go all the way always try to hit that wall but hit the in many different ways until that wall sort of crumbled in front of you and um it's it's a it's a learning thing um you if you read um a lot of athletic training book they talk about that a lot

as well athletes they are dealing with the same sort of a a breakthrough in your mind but once you acquire this acquire the skill it will stay with you and that's really important Oh, this is such great advice. Wuhan, we know you have so much experience with chamber music, and it's a very popular thing nowadays. A lot of young musicians aspire to a chamber music career, and we know it's not, you know, the easiest thing. what are some things that you would offer as advice to young musicians maybe starting with how how to rehearse what are some advice you have for rehearsals as a chamber musician well i would say that chamber music would teach you um a lot of things um first of all I would say number one criteria is you should be a very you should just be a very nice person because if you are not nobody's going to want to play with you it's as simple as that so it

teaches you to be a very considerate and sensitive person and I think that's really important it's exercise when you're going to a rehearsal to be incredibly sensitive and then the second that's number one second thing is you should always be totally um um how do you say that this non-stubborn is that a good word is there such thing you should be totally flexible if somebody make a suggestion to you it has to be something that someone is not happy with and you should know you should consider you're lucky enough to find something that you could improve and then you should be able to control your instrument to execute it the most important thing is you come you can convince whoever you're rehearsing with that you could do anything anybody

ask as well as to make whatever your interpretation so convincing um that is not a problem so it's attitude adjustment you never you should never be defensive that's really important now the third thing is you should have a great sense of humor a lot of times don't take things so seriously somebody asks for something you should learn a way to defuse the tension or trying to make sure everybody is in the best behavior as well as try to make sure everybody can be either inspired by you or supported by you and so you are always the person that contribute the most positive energy and contribute the most positive suggestion those are skills that you can apply um in your real life also so i always consider going to a chamber music rehearsal as a big exercise in life lesson

the reward is that you will have the best friendship you will never be lonely on tour and you'll have such fun making music together with all your friends which is a very different life than a single-minded practice in somewhere by yourself so you should have that discipline and that opportunity to form your skill as well as you should have the joy of making music with your friends and to play chamber music with your friends it really gives you extra musical ideas and so you're always always stuck in your own way as well it's actually lots of fun so there's a lot of positive thinking exercise to play to do a to have a successful chamber music career this is great i love how um we can almost think about it in terms of how having

all of the skills necessary to express anything we want on our instruments so this um you know artistic flexibility and this whole human flexibility that you talk about that is so important and very often forgotten i feel like yeah well you know your trend to be we are musicians so we want to have very very strong opinions and very strong idea to present that but there's so many ways to make music so once you are opening yourself to all the possibilities you'll be just a happier person so what i mean about not not so stubborn it's a good thing wonderful advice how about logistically so they will wonder young musicians how to go about starting a career as a chamber musician well i think okay i am because the way i was brought up

um taiwan was it's the musical life is limited uh also when i came to united states i really did not know that many people so i also learned to start my own project build up your own weather you know you as a musician you should never sit around and thinking that if you learned your music somebody's gonna line up outside of your door to knock on the door bag you to play it's not i'm gonna happen just tell you that right now so you as a musician if you want to have a fulfilling life if you want to have a career if you want to make a living or make a life i'm not even thinking about making a living making have a life in music just find your passion and start them don't wait if you want to play chamber music call your friend what pieces you want to read

learned it prepare well so you have a good time with your friend if you don't have a place to find you don't have a space to look for you do you you call everybody you know you you have school you have classroom you have whatever you have friends's house made them a dinner exchange for the space i don't know be very creative just be determined amazing so if you want to play chamber music there's no other way find a like-minded person like-minded friends and start festival is a good place to go to i was very lucky ever since i arrived in the united states the first summer i had to stay in practice and learn english i did not have a choice every summer i'm in the festival world i have an opportunity to meet new people to make music

with different people i have opportunity to go to concerts to hear other people play and i learned so much every summer i come home a much better musician and much rich richer in my life experience so i will highly recommend don't sit around in the summertime go to summer festival you will make friends you will learn about you know how the chamber music network works and once you are in there once you invest that time the reward will come back immediately wonderful advice and i really like what you said about making a life this absolute gold advice yeah I think if you only thinking about making a living it's a little too boring if you have a life and if you have a

if you are a fast moving train that you will create so much people around you are amazed they want they all want to be with you to be at that creative a project driven fun creation process then you will be able to make a living if you just sit at home sulking about whatever you don't have a life it's just not going to do any good so it's like everybody want to get on the fast moving trend the successful trend and nobody want to jump on a sinking boat as simple as that so make yourself become the most creative a creative force i think it's a good um uh goal and a good concept and a good idea and you know the worst that can happen is nobody want to be with you but at least you create something it's going to be fun you have

or something to show. So that's, I think that's really important. That's wonderful advice. Again, you talk about starting your own project. This is a great segue into something I wanted to discuss with you. You mentioned being a fast moving train and being a creative force, which I feel like these could be words that describe you. Can you tell us a little bit about how things at chamber music society of lincoln center and you talked about music at menlo and i know that you also are involved with wolf straps as you said i feel that those organizations are so innovative and there are so many wonderful initiatives and we're in 2022 and there's all these new technologies so the the future of of music making is you know sky is sky is the limit

so tell us a little bit about your perspective on this well if i'm going to talk about all the new initiative will need another hour so i'm gonna skip um i think there's a couple principles i'm trying to get to the most basic idea i think as a human being or as a musician you should be always curious so um i'm i love gadgets since i was a kid um so i learned how to make the recordings i love internet so i learned how to do all the search um i don't spend that much time on social media because i need to focus my other energy um i do uh i'm very curious about our industry the music so i read a lot i analyze a lot of data i go to every concert series the first thing i do is study all of their offerings

um i'm very curious and borderline nosy i like to just i just like to learn ask a lot of questions and so i i have a lot of information that i can digest and i can try to learn from other people's mistakes on my own analysis or i can look at the success uh uh story and i can try to analyze what made it what made them successful and from those activities as well as doing a lot of listening i never sit still when i'm on concert tour i'm always going out to with the board members with the audience member with my musician friends and learn about all of your perspective and those information when i collect them i then put them into something i think it can be useful for the industry or for the art form

or for the young musicians. So the project is created like that. For instance, Chamber Music Bowers program, I heard a lot from everybody we need to invest into the new generation. No question about it. I believe in that so strongly.

Then the idea is actually learning from the young musicians what they need. I did a huge amount of listening before I accept the job for like six months talk to a lot of young musicians what do you think you will need in your life performance opportunity financial support prestigious endorsement blah blah blah blah and you put it all together and you design the program that can serve all of the criteria so that's in the education components I learned a lot from Isaac Stern's chamber music encounter so mr stern billy chamber music is the greatest education tool

so you know i learned from marlboro music festival to put younger generation and the older generation together is a very beneficial combination in chamber music so the things that you live through life anyone that want to have a life in music go out get new experience once Once you gather all the new experience, it will somehow come out just as a person. When I was given the opportunity, I realized my summer festival experience taught me so, so much. So when I was designing the new summer festival, I knew exactly what I wanted to. I knew exactly what I don't want to do also from my other summer festival experience. so you know i would say i will highly recommend everybody gain as much experience in the musical

life as possible through all the opportunities that you can find don't ever hesitate to go out and gain new experience because what you learn and what i'm saying getting new experience is not just going to enjoy it going and really learn learn it really study it really analyze it why is is good what did i gain from it how much did i improve can i improve from this environment why and then bring those data home and you can choose through the data and say yeah if i ever have opportunity here's what i would like to do i do that kind of exercise all day long every single date pretty much all my life so it's a it's a fun sort of activities and it's very beneficial for yourself and as well as beneficial for the society as a whole what inspiring words

thank you for that i really appreciate it i know you have a very busy schedule how about a round of rapid fire question before i let you go go for it so you've already covered some of it but what is a habit that you think has contributed to your success you've mentioned many strategic living choose the things you really want to do and passionate about and don't waste other energy absolutely wise what skills do you think young musicians studying today should acquire in addition to learning to play their instruments wow what skill they should require um i think

uh i think one thing will be very very useful for them is to learn to communicate communication to the audience which is so needed these days polish up your public speaking skill and learn to communicate well to your colleague so you can do a positive um rehearsal uh learn to write well it's also polish up your writing skill is super important those will be the things that it will sustain you or help you if you want to branch out or you if you want to be successful and have a good musical life i love that how about a favorite tool in the practice room you said you love gadgets oh it's easy metronome metronome and the recording machine your iphone is your best friend i have my metronome set up all the time and my recording

machine set up all the time one question i really love because you mentioned that you have a really big curiosity and that you love to read books i'd love to know is there one book in particular that you could recommend well i have so many books i can recommend but one books i think for general public and as well as for young musicians that i love i still go back the book is so old it's all ripped, falling apart, is Harold Schoenberg's The Life of Great Composers. I read a lot of biographies. I love biographies. So The Life of Great Composers is really informative and has lots of stories. Get to know a composer is a good thing. You will know them better. You will play your music better. Great suggestions. I love that. I asked my listeners to send me some questions

and there was one in particular that I thought was really interesting. Sandrine was wondering, how do you handle so much repertoire? You've already shared a little bit at the beginning in regards to being disciplined, but you are so active, so many performances. How does that look like for you to handle so much repertoire? That's a great question. I would say you should start up your repertoire as soon as possible. The requirement from conservatory of one recital program for four years to graduate, you would not be able to have a life in music. So start it up as soon as possible. I was fortunate to have that push when I was young and I never stopped. so i would say chew up it's like depositing into a library you want your library to be

full you want your library to burst with activities so by the time now like this this two months of this six weeks i have six different programs so that's 18 pieces that i have to practice there's no way i can practice them all so if it's already in your repertoire you know where are the difficult passages so you take care of them first um my practicing it's always i don't spend that much time on the simple passages that i know i can manage difficult passage go first and prepare early that's another secret i'm already chewing up all of my concert pieces in November and October. This is August.

So I start quite early. Sometime I even start some of the more difficult piece, I even start four to six months earlier. So by the time you get to concert or the week before you're not complete, have to do an all-nighters and cramming exam kind of situation, we try to avoid that at all costs.

So strategic planning on your practice repertoire is the key. Wonderful. Thank you for that. Finally, how about a quick actionable tip that the listeners could implement today in their musical lives? oh wow how many well the first thing is um do a lot of listening i think you should do great musical listening every single day david and i we set up in our house we can always search out a great performance We love Horowitz, we love Heifetz, we love Oskar Chomsky, we love Rostropovich, we love Martha Argerich, we love so many great artists, or Rubinstein. You can just name the people who you admire.

The best musician, listen to their playing every single day. It's like taking vitamins, it's really good for you. That's an actionable item, everything. if it's a if you have the time go to concerts don't sit at home it's really not healthy go to concerts it's a great way of learning how to be a musician on stage and I would say another nice action list is do something nice to your friend every day think of something nice to do for somebody it's a fun thing to do write a thank you note send somebody a flower check in with an old friend that you have not seen seen for a long time think of something that you could do to gain

a life experience it's also a good one take the extra trip don't sit around and don't waste your time for negative thinking my life is so busy i really don't spend any time i hate people that complain if anybody complain around me i just close my ear walk away because i don't have time i want to live my life the fullest the happiest i have only time for positive thinking and positive actions thank you so much for this i really appreciate it thank you renee for inviting me yeah thank you for this gift of your time i have been a long time admirer of you as an artist and a musician but in speaking with you today i really get this new sense of what a truly wonderful generous and beautiful human you are so it's i feel like it's a real gift i had to sit with you

today you're very kind renee and i admire what you're doing especially you know making these podcasts available for the young musicians what a wonderful thing you're doing so congratulations to you. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Mind Over Finger podcast. If this content was helpful for you, please share with everyone you think could benefit from it. Take a screenshot, share on social media and tag me. I'm Mind Over Finger everywhere. So reach out, send me a DM, and let me know how this content helped you. Let's keep the conversation going. As always, I have all the information related to this episode in the show notes. You can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com, where you can also

find more free resources on efficient practice and performance preparation, links to sign up to my free workshops and information on how to work with me. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to receive your free guide to a productive mindful practice, transcripts from the Mind Over Finger podcast episodes delivered to your inbox every week, and more. Also, join the Mind Over Finger Facebook community, my private group, for access to my live videos and to exchange with a community of like-minded musicians. So, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, and if you have specific questions for me or my guests

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