The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 192 Lynn Kuo: Positivity, Resilience, & Musical Mastery

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

In this episode, I bring you a conversation with violinist Lynn Kuo, Assistant Concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and Founder/CEO of Violin with Dr. Lynn.  We covered topics such as: The impact a supportive teacher has on a student Performance psychology Improving our playing through mindfulness and self-awareness Practicing with a scientific approach Cultivating positivity and success through gratitude and resilience How to overcome self-doubt in musicians   Sign up now for the brand-new FREE workshop – Mastering the Stage Download the transcript from this episode HERE     MORE ABOUT LYNN KUO Website: https://lynnkuo.com/   YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT4nzpXM8xYaJsnuzBcHCRg   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/violynnkuo/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/violynnkuo/   Mind Over Finger Click www.mindoverfinger.com/coaching to book your free consultation with me. Visit MindOverFinger.com for my online courses as well as free resources on peak performance. Connect: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOverFinger https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfinger https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme:  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.  

You're listening to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 192. Welcome to The Mind Over Finger Podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. René-Paul Gaultier. Hello there. I hope this is a fantastic day for you so far as you're tuning in. In today's episode, I bring you a great conversation with violinist Lynn Kuo. Lynn is Assistant Concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and is the founder and CEO of Violin with Dr. Lynn, serving as an online educator for violinists motivated to become

stronger, more fearless performers. Having launched her summer violin bootcamp in June of 2020 during the pandemic, Lynn is quickly becoming a respected educator in the online space, appearing on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Lynn performs as a concert violinist and guest concertmaster with several Canadian orchestras, and she's been heard as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and Europe. She's in demand as an interpreter of new music, and she has given numerous world premieres in North America, Europe, and Asia of acoustic and electroacoustic solo and chamber works written by international composers. Her teachers include Lauren Fenavesh, Mayumi Zeiler, Erika Rahm, Barton Kaplan, and Nathan Cole. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts

from the University of Toronto, having dedicated her research to the subject of holistic health and injury prevention in orchestral string musicians. We had a great conversation talking about the impact of a supportive teacher as a student, performance psychology, improving our playing through mindfulness and self-awareness, practicing with a scientific approach, cultivating positivity and success through gratitude and resilience, and how a musician can overcome self-doubt. It was a powerful conversation and I know you're going to walk away feeling inspired by Lynn's approach. And before I turn the mic over to Lynn, I've got something special brewing that I'm thrilled to share with you. I want you to join me for a transformative experience in my

upcoming workshop, Mastering the Stage. Imagine this. You're stepping onto this stage in your optimal performance state. You're filled with confidence and you're ready to rock your performance. You feel free and completely at ease throughout your entire performance. Well, that's not just a dream. It's what we're going to be exploring together as a reality for you in this free three-day training happening from April 4th to 6th, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Central. Go to mindoverfinger.com for all the details and sign up today. During Mastering the stage, we're going to dive into what truly works and what doesn't in performance preparation. We're going to identify how to overcome the roadblocks that sabotage your progress in the

practice room. And we're going to talk about the mindsets that will launch your practice into hyperdrive. So get ready to unlock the secrets that are going to transform not just your playing, but your entire stage experience. You're going to find all the details in the link to sign up for this absolutely free and absolutely transformative workshop at mindoverfinger.com. And don't worry, if you're listening to this episode in the future, by going to that same link, you will find the of this workshop. I cannot wait to share this journey with you. All right, now let's go to the show oh lynn quote i am so happy to have you on the show oh i'm so happy to be here thanks renee it's been a while since we connected i think we saw each other in chicago last year almost i think

it was exactly last last year valentine's day of last or something like this yeah yeah around that time. Yeah. And what's, you know, special about us is we used to go to the same competitions as kids. So we didn't know each other back then, but you and I have been in the presence of each other since, shall we say, you know, the early nineties, late eighties. Are we, are we doing that? We're dating ourselves now for everybody. Okay, fine. It's on the record now. lynn um i would love to hear about your journey so can you please share with us that's the question i ask all of my guests a little bit about that musical journey that you've had how things

unfolded for you okay i i don't want to bore anybody but let me see if i can make this the most interesting story possible i actually was was lynn the pianist first as a as a child and then I added violin two years later at the age of nine so seven and nine and at some point Lynn the pianist who also played the violin suddenly became even so I was both violinist and pianist my teachers wanted me to choose and eventually violin won so I'm gonna make this story really quick so violin became my more predominant identity when I went to National Youth Orchestra in Canada, and I wasn't able to practice the piano. So that's the deciding year that helped me focus on one instrument only. Now, with that said, I do have a piano in my

living room. It was actually shipped. My parents shipped it across the Atlantic Ocean from my hometown in St. John's, Newfoundland, all the way to Toronto. And I remember actually this really cool story where this white shipping delivery truck with this Newfoundland flag on the outside I came through downtown Toronto and parked right in front of my building. I was so excited. This father and son delivered my piano. So I was reconnected with my piano. So it sits in my living room where I can access it when I'm studying scores as a violinist and as a teacher.

So it really does come in handy. I came to Toronto as a music student for Bachelor of Music in Violin. I completed three degrees. So I eventually got my Doctor of Musical Arts at University of Toronto. uh lauren chenubish was my main teacher and i love him dearly still actually his photo is right here may i show it to you yeah the other one out here yes yeah yes i miss him dearly and he sits next to me when i teach to remind me to have integrity when i teach and when i practice um so after completing three degrees uh i had also in the meantime become assistant concert master of the

National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. I've been there for a good number of years, more than 23 years, actually. I got my job when I was in my master's degree. So then fast forward many years later, many, many years later of freelancing, playing in an orchestra, I then became a visiting assistant professor of violin just for a couple of months at Memorial University of Newfoundland, my semester was not finished because the pandemic hit and I didn't get to finish my semester. And I decided to take an entrepreneurial course for musicians. And all of a sudden I became an online entrepreneur and started coaching violinists online.

So now I'm an online coach for a high level of violinists around the world, in addition to returning to my orchestral career. So I do both. I love that path. One thing that really strikes me is what you said about Mr. Fenevesh. I can sense your love for it. I know you shared a beautiful post about him a little bit ago on Instagram, and I'm going to invite all of the listeners to go follow you on Instagram, your violin quo. I'm going to have all these links in the show notes, of course. And I read the portion of your website also where you tell the story so beautifully. So I'm going to invite the listeners to also visit your website.

I'll have all these links as well, where you explain that transition between pianist to violinist a little bit more in details. And that's one question I would love to ask right now. So you teach online. And you have these wonderful programs that you're going to tell all about. You're going to tell us all about it a little bit later. But it is so special to have this kind of relationship with the teacher that we feel this way, that we have a picture of them on our desk. Not everybody gets to experience this.

What do you think this type of instruction has brought to you? And how does that translate now to the way you teach? Mr. Fenimish was the Yoda of violin teachers. All-knowing, wise, classy, caring, like everybody's grandfather. And that's how I felt. I felt like I was part of his family. and for better or for worse you know your family gives you tough love sometimes I want to share this really almost semi-embarrassing story of how I showed up to my first I think it was my first violin lesson with him with black nail polish on he was teaching me I don't know maybe it was a scale I don't know what I was playing and he paused midway from what he was saying and he says I do not like your nails and I just wanted to disappear into a hole right there and then I

wanted to go and scrub those that the black nail polish off my fingers it was so mortifying and then there was another time where i had won the concerto competition and was going to play mozart fourth concerto with the chamber orchestra and i was getting ready for the the concert and mr fanubish was helping me prepare and he saw that i had made my schedule so busy i had accepted a gig to play a wedding you know one week there and i accepted to play a little gig in an orchestra somewhere north, somewhere in the city. And he said, are you making enough time to practice for this concerto? And I think through crossing through his head was, I have a student who just won the concerto competition. Is she going to make a fool out of me? I think that's what

was running through his head. So I have gone up to his home in Toronto, in Forest Hill in Toronto, and he gave marathon lessons he would give 90 minute lessons regularly but when you went to his home they would last for hours it was awesome um and i remember him speaking in hebrew to his wife dear my dear vera finnish and i heard him say lean and he said something in hebrew and he said disappointment i was mortified again so i went and then he said to me you before the concert do not have any time but to practice you don't even have time to go to the bathroom all you have to do now is go practice Mozart Mozart Mozart Mozart he was making it very clear that I was not ready for the concert um other than that though Mr. Fenyus was absolutely wonderful he

cared so much about all of us and I feel like this care from him in infuses the way that I want to work with the people that I coach. I hope that people who work with me can sense the integrity and the passion and the care that comes with guiding people on their best journey, because that's exactly what Mr. Fenyush did with me. So I met him when I was, I think only maybe 12 or 13 at first in Banff. And then I decided to study with him when I was a teenager and I was really young. I think I was 14, 15 at the time when I first started studying with him. And then I decided i'm going to study with him for my my music degrees so having a teacher and that is supportive of you is so important because i have encountered so many violence who actually have told me

i have had terribly mean teachers i've had abusive teachers i've had teachers who didn't guide me and it makes me so sad to hear that because i feel very very lucky i've never had him yell at me i've never had a teacher abuse or god forbid be inappropriate with me i've never had that problem and I've heard a lot of horror stories from other violinists. Yeah, I agree with you. I feel that in my work as a coach, I spend so much time helping people through the trauma that they've experienced from teachers like this. And I'm so glad that the culture is slowly changing. Yeah. But it's not even that long ago where I think that was so frequent. It was just found everywhere where you have these tyrannical teachers i don't even know if that's how you say the word but i think

you know what i mean like yes i do yes yes and i just feel that that is one way to push people to excellence that comes at such a high cost down the road i agree it pushes them to high levels but what what pain does it cause what trauma does it cause what consequences are emotionally going to come out because of that this kind of quasi-verbal abuse this is not necessary to excel at all in fact i would prefer to see people push on the side of encouragement and positivity i mean people may say okay we're in this era now of of um too much encouragement and too much uh padding of people's accomplishments i mean i understand that we don't want to go to the point where we're never giving someone critique yes we do want to give people fair critique um but um i think the

days of harsh teaching are gone yeah i think they are yeah i call it a character attack because it goes deeper than just the things that you're doing it's sometimes it really reaches your core It reaches your inner fiber. And when a teacher impacts you this deeply, negatively, that seeps out into everything else in your life. So I think that it's a big responsibility on all of us to figure out how to get that excellence out of our students or clients in the way that is loving. I love these words that you're using with integrity, the way you talk about the way you felt supported and cared for, that it shows that it's possible. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely possible. Lynn, I was talking to some clients about the fact that I was speaking with you and they were very curious about what life is like as a ballet musician. Do you want to talk to us a bit about that? sure well the there's a very big divide between the musicians and the dancers people always ask

that oh do you get to hang out with them and unfortunately not really uh in the previous work bill a building that we were in we could see them in the green room and and on the main floor in fact i think there were poker games between the conductor and the musicians and the dancers at one point. Now that we're actually in a much different building than before, we're in the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto. So as soon as you get to the stage door, you might see a couple of dancers enter in and they're unmistakable, their posture, the way that their gait, their hairstyle, their fashion. And then you see us schlepping our instruments in. As soon as you walk through the backstage entrance, we go our separate ways. The dancers go up an elevator

we go down a level so we go right down to the pit level therefore physically we are a distance we don't even see each other until we get maybe to the performance um and speaking of which the dancers are training for months they're rehearsing for months they're learning the choreography they're rehearsing predominantly with a pianist and the orchestra conductor then the orchestra conductor meets us musicians for just what two rehearsals and a dress maybe if it's a new work three rehearsals then a dress rehearsal at the theater so the dress rehearsal which is what the day before opening night is the first time we will see the dancers and we'll peek up from the pit if you're lucky to be forward enough in the pit to have a view a partial view of the stage

but most of the musicians are hanging underneath the stage so they see nothing so the most contact we will ever have is on at the dress rehearsal or if we want we could opt to take our afternoon off and watch maybe the piano dress and even then we're watching bits and pieces of them going through the motions of their of their um of the of the show um very rarely do we actually hang out at one point when i was closer in age to many of the dancers we did but now that the orchestra when obviously the orchestra members age and they continue their careers and the dancers they they end their careers a lot sooner so now many of my friends are retired dancers so i still hang out with them, but they're all at the stage of coaching the next generation of dancers. So

if that answers the question, there's a lot of divide between the ballet musicians and the ballet dancers. That's very interesting. And I can say that it's kind of a similar experience here with the Joffreys in Chicago. It's very interesting and it could be so much fun to get to create opportunities for the two groups to interact a little bit more. I think that would make the performance is even more special. Yeah, I think when it does happen, and it does, I mean, I played Bach Sonata No. 1 in G minor, the Adagio, with a principal dancer on stage, and that was really cool. And it does happen. We had a ballet with a string quartet on stage. There's going to be Britain string quartet on stage. When it does happen, it's very cool. And it becomes more

collaborative and more, it just, it becomes more communicative between the musicians and the dancers. And then ideally when the right choreographer comes along and they have a musicality sense of great musicality, then you can see if things really come alive. That's when the magic happens. Yeah. Yep. I agree. Yes. I want to talk all things violin quote now. So I love your online content so much. You talked about how you took this entrepreneurship class, which got you on your way to sharing your voice, sharing your ideas and this mission that you have. But I'd like to know what prompted you to start all of the teaching that you're doing

right now. OK, that's a great question. I think I always had a knack for teaching. I was teaching when I was a teenager, actually, teaching piano lessons, teaching violin lessons. I made a little bit of money on the side as a university student teaching. But once I started playing as an orchestral violinist, I somehow discontinued. So when I started, when I applied for that university position at Memorial University, that was just supposed to be four months.

I became that overnight professor really quickly after just being concealed in an orchestra pit for so long. So that was quite a stressful journey, actually, to become a professor overnight. And somehow that baptism by fire paved the way for me to become an online entrepreneur and online educator, because somehow I started recording a lesson. we had a big big massive snowstorm in Newfoundland so the students couldn't come in and the students had to get take their class so I decided to film the contents of the class and little did I know that was the beginning of me filming content and they actually gave me feedback and said you know what we actually prefer the video because then we can actually slow it down rewind it play it again I said oh it's really interesting it's actually beneficial to have asynchronous content so little did I know this was the infancy of creating content as educational material for violinists around the world. So when I started becoming an entrepreneur, I then had to do this another

baptism by fire. How do I create content? How do I work this cell phone? How do I turn? How do I point the camera? How do I talk to the camera? How do I launch a YouTube channel? All the things. How do I speak to the camera? All the tiny little things that were never really needed in my career as an orchestral violinist suddenly had to be learned very quickly. Just a lot of digital skills as I'm sure you're very, very well versed in. Yes. Yes. And your content is so great. You have so many wonderful tips, a really robust YouTube channel that I'll invite people to visit. Isn't that funny how we start to follow these breadcrumbs and that leads us to something wonderful like in your case to creating all of this content online tell us sorry tell us a little

bit more about the the type of programs that you offer yeah so I predominantly have a large coaching program it's it's a very intensive program called VIP coaching program and I help high-level violinists who want to master their instrument and become more confident on stage. And that came about because I was taking auditions and I decided to invest in some performance coaching. So I actually trained with Dr. Don Green, whom I know you've interviewed before and talked about many times. It changed my life. Working with a performance psychologist for that many hours, that intensely, really started to change my mindset, the way I approached fear, the way I approached discomfort, the way I approached performing, even though I wasn't

feeling the most confident, having someone push you to really train, to train you so that you get, let's say tougher under pressure, but also learning how to manage your nerves so that whatever symptoms you have, you develop, you cultivate and train more skills, like control the level of nerves that you experience, as well as from the other angle, training how strong you feel despite how nervous you may feel. So doing this kind of, let's say, call this toughness training was really life-changing because when I walked out of auditions previously, I would feel deflated, disappointed, emotionally devastated, all of the things. And after I trained with Dr. Green. I walked out of a Los Angeles Philharmonic audition, actually. I was elated. I have never

walked out of an audition feeling so happy. What changed? Me working on myself. So if I knew that this journey for so many violinists taking auditions, and you and I both know that taking auditions is a punishing road. It is so emotionally draining. You're spending money, you're spending time. You're investing all of your energy into one job opportunity after another, after another, and you may be disappointed and defeated and eliminated over and over and over again. And that can get really, really, it can suck your energy. And how can we manage to keep the sense of courage and resilience up? This is something that I think is possible to train, but with the right guidance. Because if we don't have the, let's say, the right mindset to overcome these

continual disappointments, then it's really going to be a lot harder to get that dream job. So when I came out of that Los Angeles Philharmonic audition, so happy, I knew something had changed in me. And because of that, when I started, let's say, putting online content out and helping students get better on the instrument, I knew that I wanted people to feel better about playing about sharing about performing about training for auditions part of the the inspiration for me was also working on a doctoral thesis that incorporated holistic health and specifically stress emotional stress mental stress how does that play in a violinist's life for me in my doctoral dissertation it was predominantly about injury prevention but it's also about performance

confidence. And it's also about conquering fears and showing up and being your happiest performing self. And I know that you're such a great inspiration about that because I've seen your content, which is also really, really inspiring. And I love the fact that you have so much material that encourages a violinist to find the joy in practicing. I find a lot of inspiration from your content in that regard. And so I like to take that and put that back into what we pursue as a as a violinist who continually improves on our skills I mean what we're doing is basically black belt level violin and at this level we're finally playing with all of the psychology and the musicality and the artistry and it's so easy to be sucked down

by let's say the the emotional hardships of let's say the audition process so I and I also see that that teachers leave a big hole there's a big gap when when violinists start training for competitions auditions juries they train them for the repertoire yes that's absolutely necessary they train them for the process of learning the notes and the and the um the the style and the tempi and all the technique but what the big gap is left is that the student or the violinist is left not knowing how to cope with the stress, the performance nerves. And they come to me saying, I get so nervous. My bow is shaking. I've practiced so many times that I, and then I want to get to the stage. I blank out. I start shaking. I lose my memory. I freeze. I feel like a deer in headlights.

These are actual things that people have said to me. So this to me sounds like there's something missing. There's a whole lot missing. And I thought, you know what, this is a gap that I can help people with. Because I've done some training with a peak performance psychologist. I've conquered some of my own personal insecurities, fears, anxieties, nervousness. These are important skills for a performer. This is not just sports psychology. It's performance psychology for the performing musician. And if we leave all these aspects out for a violinist, sure, you can play a C major scale, but can you play the C major scale under pressure and feel happy about it? that's, that's what I'm hoping to help people with. Yes. You know, I'm agreeing with every word

you just said. Absolutely. And you have a great approach to teaching too. Can you share a little bit more about that? I know you have these different aspects of the musician, these different roles that the violinists play. Okay. Yeah. So maybe you're referring to the way I think of practicing the different roles that we need to take when you are in a practice room. So I have a practice framework, which I call the detective, the scientist, and the athlete. Yeah, I love that. I think it's great. So the thing is, when we practice, and I love the fact that you had written this too, I love you had, you had expressed it so well. People are practicing putting the bow to the string or their lips to the embouchure. I think you wrote that I thought

it was so, so great. And they're not knowing what they're doing. So it turns out to be mindless, a mindless exercise. So with my framework of becoming a detective scientist and an athlete, I try to prevent that from happening, the mindlessness, because you and I both know that when we practice mindlessly, the results are not going to be the best. So when we step into the role of a detective, I'm encouraging people to really start paying attention with their senses. So a detective will look carefully with their eyes for clues. And in our role, we would use predominantly our ears. And surprisingly, when we're busy putting the bow to the string, we don't have time

to use the ears because we're so busy executing. It's so difficult to execute at the same time as listen objectively. Well, this is where a recording device would come in so handy. But it is a good skill to be able to play and simultaneously listen with the utmost attention. and it's it is interesting to me that when we listen to our students we can detect all of the details but is it possible for us to get that gap between when we play and when we listen can we get that gap even tighter or shorter or non-existent it may not be possible to get non-existence

because we're still busy playing but i think it is possible to develop this this in audit this continually observant auditor role, being a true detective, like this Sherlock Holmes when you're playing, hearing every note that's out of tune. And surprisingly, when I'm busy learning, let's say, a new orchestral score for the next concert, I'm too busy trying to figure out where are my fingers moving? What's the bow? Is it up bow? Is it down bow? Is it picado? I'm busy processing this information. Meanwhile, the ears, both ears are shut off. This is what I mean by not playing the detective to your full potential. If I took a second to really, really, really play Sherlock Holmes, I would catch all the things that were dirty, not clean, not coordinated, not in tune,

slowing down in tempo. So it really takes that dedication to becoming the best detective that you can possibly be. So to become a detective, I invite people to have a couple of questions. what is the first question what are you hearing and people when i asked them they actually don't know they were too busy executing they're too busy playing they're too busy bowing too busy putting down their fingers they're too busy to listen and so they can't answer the question what did you hear they go they just blank out and i said well guess what you're gonna have to play it again and listen so they play it again and then they hear it so now they're able to answer the question what went wrong and if it goes wrong then they often barrel through again and again and

again and i will invite them you know do you know why you're playing it again and again and that's the next question why yes why did it go wrong do you actually know and they'll stop again they don't know how to answer the question why did it go wrong so that's that's where i could come in and help them and say you know what it's my job to ask you why did it go wrong can you figure it out. I would love to become a person that helps the violinist teach themselves. If they can become their best coach, then I'm doing my job. So let me guide you. Why did it go? Why did it fall apart? If they can't answer the question, then I'll say, okay, I think it's because of this. Maybe your bow wasn't touching the D string at the right time. Maybe your left

hand was a little bit late to your bow, or maybe you had tension in the back of your body where, because therefore the spiccato failed, or maybe your hand, your left arm was tight before your shift. These are things that I will help. I will be the surrogate detective in the room. So I will be your Sherlock and help you figure out why. Then the next question is how. So this is where we go into the scientist phase. So now that you've identified where you'd like to improve and why it didn't work, then we can start asking the question of how do we make it better? So now we're going to move into this role and you say, well, now what are we going to do here? Do we do we need to put on a metronome? Do we need to put on a drone to fix intonation? Do we need to

do a couple of practice drills, put it through a couple of different rhythms? Do we need to play it in chunks and then add a bar before it, add a bar after? These are all what I call scientific experiments. So that's why I call it being a scientist. Come up with the experiments and the drills that you can put your passage through in order to improve it. And then you're going to move to the third phase. Then when you decided, I'm going to try these four exercises, this metronome, tempo, et cetera, then you're going to become the athlete and then do the drills. You're going to practice them, rehearse them, go through the paces, put in your time and woodshed. So now you've moved from detective to scientist to athlete. Now, when you're in athlete mode,

you're going to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Now, if it doesn't work, you go back a step and go back to the scientist mode, or you repeat the detective mode. You keep listening and you cycle through all these three modes now these three people can merge into one right you can you can seamlessly shift through all these three different people but for me it helps to distinguish the three roles so that we're not putting the bow to the string or mindlessly playing and not knowing what role we're doing at any point in time because usually people will start playing and they're just being the play the player role yeah but they're not listening they're not diagnosing they're not problem solving. They're not rehearsing. Now, rehearsing is so important for the athlete role

because the point is to rehearse to the point where when you get to the performance, you feel solid. Many people will start practicing, but they haven't practiced to solidify. So solidifying for me is the part of the athlete. You're being an athlete to solidify. So let's say you're a basketball player and there's people, you have to do a three-pointer shot and there's people waving their their their flags and just trying to distract you can you do that under pressure people forget to train for that portion of the the training so that's that's how the way i think of practicing and um getting the most out of practice session yeah once again i mean i think the two of us are two peas in the pod yeah we are yes we are yes i i agree with that last i mean i

agree with everything but that last portion it's the part that i call finger over mind because i'm such a huge advocate of you know mind over finger of course because I see so many people jumping on the instrument without that little pause without that that yes detective portion of you know the problem solving the understanding what we're doing yeah but then you gotta get to the finger over mind part where you train like the athlete until you could um you know like some of my colleagues i know can play a whole concerto while watching a baseball game oh my goodness that's incredible so uh not that you want to do that while you're performing necessarily but but the fact that you could play it with that level of disruption means that you're really in the state

of mastery and then you have freedom yes yes yeah and that takes training that definitely takes conscious training and um it's a hard a lot of hard work it's a lot of hard work yes i totally agree speaking speaking of work is there a favorite tool that you have in the practice room oh i like to use tonal energy app it's a metronome and a tuner and it's kind of like this intimidating spaceship because because i still don't know how to use half of the functions all I know how to do. It's very scary. I agree. I know how to turn on the metronome. I know how to change the tempo. I know how to turn on a drone so I can practice my pitch. I can turn on the different intonation systems. So I set it to Pythagorean just, Pi just in the left-hand

corner. I know how to record myself. And of course, there's so many other functions that I still have people showing me how to use. I like to use that. That's my default metronome and tuner app i think it was through your podcast i discovered uh time guru metronome app um it's it randomly deletes beats so that really is a great tool to test your inner pulse and i am huge on inner pulse and rhythm and i've been sitting on at least two audition committees recently with the national ballet and i i get disappointed when people have let's say they may have really great pulse. I've heard some really great pulse lately, but rhythm is what I call personalized. You have, they have their own personal version of a dotted rhythm. And I, you know, we need to get

accurate for auditions. So I get a little bit disturbed and we need to actually get those triplet versus a 16th note versus a quintuplet or, or even just feeling the inner subdivisions of a beat. Here's an example, Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky Nutcracker, the infamous overture, the first violin part is so scary. So we had 25 candidates. Okay. We had 25 candidates, only one person, one person out of 25 people actually demonstrated that they could hear the inner eighth, the offbeat eighth. Only one person demonstrated that. That's what I'm talking about. And I mean, that's an easy exercise to do with a metronome. You put the metronome on that offbeat.

You just practice with a metronome on the offbeat, or you just subdivide it yourself. It's so important to do that. And I think people, as violinists, we're so predominantly focused on tone and pitch, and rightly so. We don't have automatic tune pitch like a piano. We do have to work on pitch, but let's not do that at the expense of having great rhythm. and having a solid pulse which are two distinct things as you and i both know so we can have great pulse but the rhythm may be uneven you may have great evenly distributed rhythm

right and this pulse may be i mean this is a good rhythm but it's getting faster and faster and faster so having the ability to control rhythm and maintain pulse are two different skills to develop. So I actually did teach a class called Rock Solid Rhythm and Pulse. And so we did a whole bunch of exercises like that. Yeah. Really, really cool. That sounds amazing. Yes. Yeah. I use Tunable app and it's very, what's the word? Disruptive. When I record, let's say a scale and with Tunable, I know if you use tunable, but you, disruptive is not the word I'm looking for, but it will come to me. Disturbing. That's the word I'm looking for. Okay. This, this is the side, the French side

that just showed up right there. Um, you know, you're practicing a scale and you can record it and then play it back and it will assess it for you. And it will give you a grade of your intonation. And then you can play it back at half the tempo or quarter the tempo. And then you get to see that when you're actually playing the scale, let's say 120 equals quarter and it's slurred by 24, but you play it at half the tempo to realize how uneven it is. And we're going very fast so we don't quite hear it how uneven it is but when you play it at half tempo you realize how the rhythm is displaced and this is sometimes why we have intonation issues in scales let's say going down is we're rushing certain notes yeah and it's so disturbing okay i i'm definitely

going to get this app and become disturbed with you then but but also enlightening and it's a huge time saver because then you don't have to play through the scale 18 times and every time thinking it's not great it's not great but i don't know what it is then you just record it and then you know right away that oh okay well i am rushing that shift which is why it's not uh-huh into okay I'm going to do this now. That's my newest, uh, uh, hack from you. Thank you. I keep talking about that. If a tunable had some sort of program where I could make money every time I recommend it, that would, yes, I wouldn't make, I wouldn't make a racket. I have some rapid fire questions for you. Okay. What is a habit that you have that you think

contributed to your success? Never give up resilience, emotional resilience. And that comes that, that I had to work for. It wasn't natural. Okay. So let's, let's, let's frame this here. Lynn was not naturally, um, positive thinker and, uh, uh, work hard winner. Okay. So people may think oh you know lynn may have had it easier when she was younger and this and that that's not necessarily the case i i will tell you a true story i have a friend in city of birmingham symphony orchestra principal viola actually so yeah he and i studied with mr fenyavish together and we were in schleswig-holstein festival one summer in germany and i was that summer or the maybe previous to that because we studied together in toronto for a couple years with mr fenyavish and he said

to me, Lynn, you're really negative. And the thing is, I've changed. I had a student, actually, when I was a prof at Memorial University, she said, have you always been this positive? And I said, whoa, that's a big cry. That's a far cry from that previous comment. So I definitely had to work on this. I think the answer to this question, what's a driving force behind anyone's success is to actively choose positivity. And that's a job. It's actually a work. It's not natural for most people and neither was it for me. But once you start forcing yourself to see the positive nature in people, things, situations, places, events, disappointments, finding that proverbial silver lining, that's a cliche, but it is true. What happens after an

audition you don't get past the first round okay so you have a choice here you have a choice to go home with your tail wagging between your legs and cry into a cup of whatever you want to drink however you can actually make a choice to acknowledge your feelings of disappointment I'm not saying you're not allowed to feel disappointed or sad absolutely acknowledge those feelings however how fast how efficiently can you turn that around to your benefit for your positive future for you to manifest the future of your dreams when a door closes a window will open some people don't look for that window so it's it's our job to look for those windows and this is what i mean by cultivating an attitude of positivity never give up looking for all the

the greatness that comes in exchanges even as something as small here here's a maybe an interesting tip to share. One of the things that has contributed to that is this attitude of gratitude. It's a cliche, but how I practice that is that my sister and I, we exchange a daily gratitude list by text every single day. And we have done that from 2015, I believe. it's many years later and can you imagine how many years of daily gratitude a great daily gratitude practice where i'm forced my sister's actually better than i am she's very regular i might miss a few days but she's always regular and she sends me these every single day it reminds me that i have to come up with 10 different things what are these 10 different things in my life

that i'm grateful for or are positive this has really changed my brain and it's all about neuroplasticity. So when something fires together, it wires together. And when you're looking for things to be grateful for, to see the positive lining, to see things that are beautiful and things that are dark, your brain starts to change. There's no doubt about it. Neuroplasticity has already proven that to us. So if this is one thing that I might recommend to people, how do you build your own success? Start with your mind. Start with an attitude of gratitude. Oh, that's so beautifully said. And I think it's really important for people to hear, truly hear what you said, which is it was something that you cultivated and nurtured in yourself that we don't have to be limited by these labels that maybe we've put on ourselves or other people have put on us. the conditioning of our upbringing sometimes, or the people we hang out with, or sometimes it's

the education we receive, the environment we're in. We can move past those habits, those labels, and truly shape who we are through intention. Yes. I mean, we see that all the time. And with people who start from very difficult circumstances, life circumstances, or difficult situations, family situations, political situations, war-torn countries, and yet they still show this unbelievable strength and resilience. Why? It's because of the decisions they make. Yeah. Yeah. Not because someone handed them their life on a platter. They built that platter. And you can build it by one word and one thought at a time. Yeah. I'm going to allow myself to insert a little story there because I completely agree.

I had some periods in my life that were, you know, more difficult than others. And gratitude was such a huge one. And what I started doing is I got myself some mala beads and I have them everywhere. Them right here. This was made for me by a dear friend in Toronto. Oh, they're beautiful. I have them in the car. I have them by my bed.

I have them in my violin case. So I have mala beads and I would drive somewhere. If I got there maybe five minutes earlier, then I would have to walk to whatever rehearsal. I would get them out and I would try to say 108 things I was grateful for. Wow. Amazing. And that I agree in the power of looking for things to be grateful for and how it shapes who we become. Yep, 100%. There's always a mention of coffee. There's always a beat for coffee in there.

Oh, for me? Me, it's my bed. I love my bed. I'm always grateful for my bed. I'd love to hear about the, maybe the doubts or resistance that you had to face on your journey. Oh, for sure.

Doubts, yes. resistance okay so biggest doubt was insecurity people think oh you're so confident i'm not uh i was not always confident and insecurity has been something that i had to work on um low self-esteem part of it low self-confidence that was also part of it so that had to be worked on as well and imposter syndrome i think many people will have some form of imposter syndrome some people more than others but I've definitely gone through imposter syndrome when I first started producing content when I first started teaching I when I first became a professor I thought how am I going to become a professor I've not taught at this level and I stepped in and said am I

actually doing this do I even know what I'm talking about can I even demonstrate this concerto do I even know how to properly demonstrate the difference between this technique and that technique. But the thing is when you're faced with fear from the training that I got from Dr. Green is that you feel the fear and do it anyway. And that is an actual book from Dr. Susan Jeffers. And I love that title because if anything from that book, I retained the title, the spirit of that title. So what? I didn't know what I was doing when I first stepped into my first master class teaching my class, but I did it anyway. And the next day I did it again. The next week I did it again. And I kept doing it until, this is what I say about preparing my income tax. Every year,

I prepare my income tax less and less badly than the previous year. So every time I do something that I'm afraid of, I know that the next time I'll do it, it'll be less bad the next time. It's always an attitude that I will be better the next time. Every time you step into a situation of fear, yes, it may feel uncomfortable. Yes, you may not necessarily feel like you're the the expert there. But you know what? If you don't try, you don't grow. So this attitude of kind of biting it, take it in the chin and say, you know what? I won't grow unless I do this. I love how Brene Brown says, you step into the arena, get your foot into the arena. That's how you can build courage. Absolutely. I love that. What a beautiful answer. Once again,

how about the skills that you think young musicians studying should acquire in addition to play their instrument? Oh, so this is, oh, it's a couple. My gosh. Well, mental and emotional resilience, as I mentioned, that's one. Thinking positively, that's another. Another one that I like to incorporate. I've been teaching this a lot in my classes lately. I incorporate a lot of breath work, mindful breath, and body awareness. I think a lot of violinists, including myself, have struggled with a difficult technique and injury and tension and also nerves. So the two, as I mentioned, my dissertation was on holistic health. And so these two things are, are inseparable. They're linked together. Like I say to people who are, um, violence who come to work

with me, the link between your mind and your body is the breath link between your body and your mind would be through the breath. So when we do breath work in my classes, every single class, I lead some form of guided meditation, breath centering, focusing, body relaxation, any combination of those skills. And that's inspired by my martial arts training. So for the past couple of years, as a mature adult, I started karate. Not in my wildest dreams would I ever consider myself a martial artist because I'm a violinist needing to protect my fingers. And yet, I found myself in a karate dojo. The biggest thing that I took away from studying a martial art is the focus training and the discipline and the perseverance. And I don't see those things as being detrimental

to a violence at all. In fact, they are wonderful things. So to answer your question, what is one thing that a musician can incorporate? Well, we can incorporate the practice of mindfulness, the practice of breath work, conscious breathing. I mean, this is a multi-purpose, let's call this magic bullet solution to many things. Performance anxiety, body awareness, better focus when you're practicing, better control of your body under pressure, lower blood pressure, reduced heart rate. If you have sweaty palms, we can get rid of that too. Your brain is going to give you something to focus on so that your brain doesn't race in a mile a second a second with overthinking and and catastrophic thinking when you're nervous the breath is and practicing breath can make you

sleep better too yeah so the breath is fantastic if if there's one thing that we can incorporate is just sneaking in breath throughout the day and not just you know i'm just i'm already breathing lynn i'm already breathing no when i'm sitting on the subway tonight to go to work you know i say invites to myself, this is my time. I'm going to take a breath. Let's count. I actually can feel my heart rate. I ask the people that I coach, you know, put your thumb and your index finger together. Can you feel your heart rate? And people will start scrunching their eyes and they say, I can't. And I've done it so many times that I don't have to touch my fingers anymore. I can just sit on the subway and I feel my heart rate and I can count. I use my own heart rate as in

my own metronome for my breath conscious breath work so tonight when i go to work i'll be sitting on the subway and i will tune in get quiet and just listen for my heart rate use that as my metronome and i will count how many heart rates it will take for my inhale the more you practice this the more you can control your breath and your heart rate and your body as a result and i can go as long i don't know how long it depends on how how many heart rates how many how fast your heart rate is, I guess, but at least four inhale, at least four, if not six on an exhale. And if I only have time for one breath, one breath before the, say the phone rings or before I have to pay someone at the cash or the grocery checkout, then that's, that's a great thing to add. And it's just,

it's almost as easy to add as when I ask people, do you practice breathwork? They said, no. Well, do you brush your teeth? I said, yes. Do you think that you could add one breath after you brush your teeth and said, yeah, I guess I could do that. Well, there, you just slipped it in. It's really easy. I mean, I slip it in when I'm sitting on the subway, but once I start biking with my knee getting better and stuff, actually, I am already biking now. Then I won't have so many subway moments to breathe, but it's easy to sneak in a breath here and there. When you take that, seize the moment, any quiet moment, you say, you know what? This is self-care as well. This is my moment. I'm going to take at least just one breath. One breath

will do it. And that's easy to slip into anyone's day. I love that. I don't want to hijack your actionable tip, but I feel like that's an amazing actionable tip to implement. Yeah, that is my actionable tip. In fact, what I do before my practice sessions and the classes that I teach and the group practice sessions that I lead, I lead group practice sessions for my VIP students. I call them ninja sessions, practicing like a ninja. And I lead all those sessions with guided breath or a visualization of some sort. So the actionable tip that I would share with people is that when I get ready to practice, I know that meditating and fitting in meditation and fitting in breathing is hard for everybody,

including me. I find it hard to fit in too. So the easiest thing to do is to habit stack, meaning that you're going to stack one habit with something you already do. So something that I already do is open up the violin case and start practicing. I literally scratch into my practice journal one minute and I put that down as the first thing.

I'll do one minute. I turn on my timer on my smartphone and 60 seconds will go just like that. Boom, done. Oh, that was fast. I just did one minute, 60 seconds of breathing. I'm done. Check that off.

And I love the checking off in my practice journal because I give myself a pat on the back. I give myself a little proverbial sticker for good work. So I love checking that off. It makes me feel like I accomplished something good for myself, good for my brain. And it helps me get more focused for the practice session. And when I do it longer, when I breathe for longer, boy, do I ever get a lot out of my practice session.

I am more focused than ever before. So if I were to recommend something for effective practicing, try some focused breathing before you start working and see what it does for your brain and your focus and your concentration. I love this so much. Lynn it's just so wonderful to speak with you I love your content so much I think every listener should hop on YouTube catch every video that you share out there violinist not violinist doesn't matter because you teach wonderful principles and you have such a wonderful presence we can really feel that love and care that you were talking about when you were referring to your teacher

and it's just so full of great advice and you explain it so well and you have all of these wonderful programs. Before we say goodbye, can you tell us a little bit about where everyone can find you? What offerings do you have out there? If you have any fun workshop coming up very soon,

tell us everything and I'll make sure to have all of these links in the show notes. Sure. Yeah. So you can find me online at lynnwo.com, L-Y-N-N-K-U-O.com. And find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. My handle is at Violin Quo, V-I-O-L-Y-N-N-K-U-O. And upcoming, I have a very exciting

revamp of my Orchestra Audition Mastery Bootcamp. I did it before. It was a three-day bootcamp online. It was a huge success. People want to do it again. In fact, some people actually want to take it for the second time. So I will be doing that between April 8th and April 12th, 2024. So if you want to get more information, you can go to my website and let's see, somehow you can find one of my free resources. For example, I got a lot of free resources. There's a menu on the top. This is teaching. And then you go to free resources. If you sign up for any of my free resources that will get you started. Wonderful. Lynn, thank you so much for coming and speaking with me today. Thanks for asking me, Renee. It was great to talk to you.

Well, there you have it. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with violinist Lynn Kuo. You can find more information about Lynn by going to lynnkuo.com. And of course, I'm going to have all of the links to Lynn's website and social media handles in the show notes for you. If you found our discussion valuable,

please share this episode with friends and fellow musicians. Grab a screenshot of the episode, share on social media, and with anyone you think might benefit from this conversation. Also, I'd be truly grateful if you could take a moment to leave a review on iTunes.

Your feedback truly means the world to me and it helps the podcast reach more listeners. Finally, don't forget to sign up at mindoverfinger.com to join me inside Mastering the Stage, where we're going to look at performance preparation through a completely new lens and ignite a powerful transformation for you. All right, that's what I have for you this week.

Until next time, much love going your way, and à bientôt!