The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 217 Nancy Zhou: Artistry Unlocked - Storytelling Through Sound

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

In this episode, violinist Nancy Zhou shares her deep, thoughtful approach to music-making. She explores: How interpretation goes beyond technique to storytelling The importance of score study and stepping into the composer's mind How body awareness and movement shape musical expression What musicians can learn from dancers and storytellers The philosophy behind her upcoming album, Stories (Re)Traced Nancy's insights will challenge the way you think about practice, performance, and artistic growth.   Are you ready to take your playing and career to the next level and create a life that feels purposeful and joyful? Let's connect and explore how personalized coaching can support your journey. Click here to schedule your free consultation, and let's start turning your goals into reality. Book your free consultation with Renée HERE Download the transcript from this episode HERE     MORE ABOUT NANCY ZHOU Website:  https://www.nancyzhouviolin.com    YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvaRXhb0sinvhGN4GzuTetg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nancyzhouviolin   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. Grab my free workshops and PDF downloads by going to www.mindoverfinger.com/resources. 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.

Have you ever wondered how the greatest musicians develop such deep, compelling interpretations? What goes into shaping their artistry beyond just the technical mastery? If you've ever questioned how to bring more depth, intentionality, and connection into your playing, this episode is for you. My guest today is violinist Nancy Tsao. She has spent her career exploring these very questions. her journey is filled with curiosity artistry and lifelong learning and in our conversation she shares insights that is going to challenge and inspire the way you approach your own music

making whether you're refining your technique or searching for a deeper artistic voice this conversation is going to give you new tools to rethink your approach to music making you're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast and this is episode 217. 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. Hi everyone, I hope you're doing wonderfully well as you're tuning into this episode. I am beyond excited to welcome an extraordinary artist today, violinist Nancy Zhao. Known for her probing

musical voice and searing virtuosity, Nancy seeks to invigorate appreciation for the art and science of the violin. Her thoughtful musicianship and robust online presence resonate with a global audience in such a way that brings her on stage with leading orchestras around the world. More than 20 years since her orchestral debut, Nancy has collaborated with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and the San Diego Symphony, among others. She's a passionate soloist who cherishes chamber music collaborations and commits to the responsibility of education. Nancy has performed at festivals including Verbea, Tongyeong, and Marvara Festival. She's a regular

guest educator at various international summer festivals holding not only masterclasses but also workshops on fundamental training and well-being for musicians. Her debut album, Stories Retraced, features four seminal and connected works for solo violin including Bella Bartok's Sonata. The CD releases this season with Orchid Classics. Born in Texas to Chinese immigrant parents, Nancy began the violin under the guidance of her father. She went on to study with Miriam Freed at the New England Conservatory while pursuing her interest in literature at Harvard University. She now is an associated artist of the Queen Elizabeth Chapel and professor of violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In our conversation, Nancy shares how she approaches mindful practice, the role of body mechanics in technical mastery, and the deeper artistry that goes into shaping a truly compelling performance. We discuss the connection between score study and musical storytelling, the role of body mechanics and neuroscience in violin technique, the personal inspiration behind her upcoming album, and a simple but powerful mindset shift that can transform how you approach your instrument every day. Nancy is such an inspiring musician and educator. She has a rare depth of insight and I

know you're going to walk away from this episode with fresh perspectives on both music making and personal artistry. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Nancy Zhao. Let's go to the show. nancy zoe thank you so much for being on the show it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me renee i've been a fan for a long time you have such an amazing presence on instagram i've enjoyed your videos and the playing is exquisite of course but what i really appreciate is the insight that you share, how thoughtful you are, how methodical in a really caring way about creating music. And I'm just so excited about this conversation. So I'm going to start with the question I asked to all of my guests is, please tell us about how your musical journey has

unfolded. It's, you know, it's in some ways oddly kind of unconventional, but conventional. So conventional in the sense that I started with my father, who, you know, trained as a violinist and immigrant from China, came in the 80s, landed a job at the San Antonio Symphony. So that's where my hometown is. And of course, he took it upon himself saying, well, you know, the only thing he could teach me is the violin. So that was the one activity that really defined my childhood since the age of four and of course immediately I hated practicing when I was young um but my dad being a strict disciplinarian he kind of just encouraged me guided me day by day with a few minutes here and there um until I fell in love with the instrument finally at you know the age

of 13 and again admittedly that was because I entered my first international competition and And I'm I would say it's very hard to say that I'm a competitive spirit, but I just love the thrill of seeing others play who are incredibly hardworking and very inspiring. So it was my first time being exposed to global players who had the same kind of dedication. So there was that resonance in that way. So for me, it was it was that point that really defined my passion for music. and then ever since then it's become sort of my main form of escapism from sometimes reality and my love for music has grown into different directions so yeah so I'm based here in San Francisco now having been here for like five years or so I've traveled quite a lot lived in different places including New York which is kind of the hub for musicians in the U.S. at least

I studied in Belgium as well with one of my absolute favorite violinists, Augustin Dumais. So that was a dream come true. I went to NEC prior to that, New England Conservatory, studied with Miriam Fried, who was also one of the most venerated professors and such a brilliant mind. And I learned so much from her. So it's been kind of a journey that takes just many turns here and there. Yes, as they all do, right? yeah nancy i was really excited to see that you've been recording an album that i think is set to be released very soon in june i think you said yeah june 6th so i thought oh my goodness we

absolutely have to talk about this because that process of preparing for a recording the practicing involve the you know conditioning for performance because a recording requires so much focus a concert you go in and you need you know 90 minutes of focus but recording is hours and hours it requires a different kind of stamina and um i thought it would be so interesting for the listeners first of all to know that there's an album coming so that they can get ready and and acquire it but also to hear about your process preparing for this yeah you know i mean this was really uh nothing short of a miraculous experience in the sense that of course it was my very first time being in the studio for that long. And when I say that long, it was around four to five days

in total. I recorded my album at the Skywalker Ranch up in Northern California, just right across the Golden Gate Bridge. So first of all, the environment was nothing short of just being absolutely perfect and kind of a paradise. So immediately when you go in, you already feel like you're in a focused headspace so that really helped the environment um the recording process itself was i actually have to admit that i found it incredibly fun um quite nervous going in before just because of the unfamiliarity of it um but you know the first hour in and i was like oh actually this is just really not very different from heightened mindful practice in the sense it is kind of a experimentation in the sense that of course you have to walk in very prepared um you

know prepared in the sense that you are performance ready for all the pieces that you're recording but it's it's a very different process in the sense that you know you you what what i did was i ran through a particular movement i would go into the playback room and then the first moment where i heard myself in the best represented way possible because that's what a recording does ideally um it was it was an odd mix of oh this is what i sound like okay so this is what i um this is my strength this is my weakness because i'm so used to um you know practicing and recording practice clips on on an iphone which is nowhere near a professional recording studio but i think because i had that practice of recording myself practicing um i was kind of

primed for the experience. So it was not, it didn't take much longer for me to just be completely comfortable with the idea. So anyway, I would go into the playback room and then I would hear myself and then my analytical mode, uh, mindset would, would kick in. And I would, I would just say, okay, this is cause I I'm very clear intention with what I want to sound like for particular piece um that i would just make those adjustments um come the next time i go into the studio after hearing myself in playback so simply put it it's just kind of a fun process of practicing in a pressured environment because you know you have to deliver results right after you hear yourself um so you have no time to kind of experiment you know as you would when you're

practicing regularly um but then again as i said you walk in already prepared so that work itself is is already done um so what comes next in the studio room is just to really have fun and test out all the options that you have in your mind um and create so it's a space to create basically and i mean ironically they say it's a space to recreate what what you have prepared you know um so so vigorously but I think you have to have that spontaneity and that resilience so I learned an incredible amount of just balancing that yeah I love hearing about that on your website we can see that you're also a very busy teacher and we can see the amount of to use the word you just use your self-mindfulness you bring in your own practice

So I think the listeners would probably like to hear more about, you know, you said that the heightened mindful practice. What does that look like for you, that process of taking a piece from maybe laying eyes on it for the first time to bring it to performance ready? What is mindful practice? What does that look like for you in the practice room? um you know when when you think about it maybe from from what you read from my website and also the all the practice postings that i do i'm incredibly organized but i'm actually not very organized i have a i do have a certain formula that i like to follow which is basically if i start a piece anew um i i always look at the full score i mean other than you know in the cases of solo works but if i'm practicing a concerto or especially a chamber work it's just so important to look at the bigger picture or we call it the aerial view um to understand what first of all what the instrumentation is because when you know exactly what the instrumentation is and what each

instrument plays um you you get a sense of the sound world and the texture of the work and you also then are able to make more informed decisions about what mode of playing you're experimenting with because there are different modes right and of course not get getting into the technical terms of like dynamics or even sound color but what we're talking about is just simply put are you primary are you secondary are you texture are you providing rhythm are you providing ornamentation Are you melody? You know, just certain things like that really help shape the palette of sound colors that you want to use. So I think it's important to look at the full score, understand the form, the structure of a work, how it's written, because usually form discloses a lot about how a story is being delivered. um once you understand the form then you understand the content that you know lies

within the the outline of the form which is the story itself um so so for me it's all about seeing uh myself as in a performer being a storyteller um and then thinking even about the most i mean sometimes it's it almost feels like we take these things for granted but i mean how you present yourself on stage. And I don't mean it in a theatrical way, but kind of seeing the way you deliver a piece and your body language and how that figures into how a listener would perceive and hear a body of work. So, and I think all of those answers really lie in the score and your knowledge of the composer's life. Why did he write the piece? And once you understand that you take the framework of the basic elements of music which is rhythm melody harmony um you

know stuff like that and and try to to to form the most compelling way to tell a story um so i mean it's it's kind of a loaded answer but i would say you know really scores knowing how to score study which is something that i learned only when i um when you know during my first year of college really because back then was with my father he was much more about kind of building up the technical foundation um and exploring colors of sound so i had all of this potpourri of tools but i didn't really know how to apply things until i really um you know i entered the new england conservatory and mary and freed was all about this you know analysis of the score and and beyond that so yeah so i think score studying is good i am not against recordings

Listening to recordings, I think it's a great resource, and I do think it expands one's horizons as a listener. But what I do discourage is not to focus on just one recording. And usually we are quite fortunate in this day and age where the discography or the anthology of available recordings for basically all the standard concertos is just numerous. right so you can listen to not only your favorite artists but also maybe artists you're not very familiar with and um and kind of just sense you know what what is available that out there where the you know how are they interpreting it but and why are they interpreting it this way and it all points back to the score because everyone ideally you know looks at a piece of music from and it's the same score that we're usually consulting right um so yeah i would say

listening to recordings just um if only for the reason of uh understanding how things come together orally and not trying to listen to the soloist's interpretation um and much more so just you know the actual work and what it sounds like attending live performances are great um and just generally being a well-rounded musician and and being an artist and you know reading books on the composers and all of that so it's kind of a lifelong journey there's no one whole formula yeah i love that another thing i love about you is your ability to deconstruct the the processes of executing movements on the violin technical elements and you have uh i think and correct me if i'm wrong You have a love for do-ness in all of these exercises.

So what would you recommend for the people listening that, how can they approach technical difficulties and how can they go about improving that aspect of their playing? That's a very, very good question. And unfortunately, there's no easy answer to this. You know, I think the baseline comparison that I think might help is to really see musicians as, um, athletes, right? So we, we are athletes. I mean, because obviously we are also very different from athletes because we're exercising our creative and

artistic faculties, but even you can argue that athletes are creative in a way with, with their body. Um, so at the end of the day, you're, um, working on an instrument in a sense where the instrument and this is a very cliche statement but it's an extension of your body what what i found has been incredibly helpful for me is to think of how as opposed to thinking of how your body can conform to the instrument um actually thinking of it in the reverse way how an instrument can conform to your body so understanding how one's body works um which is essentially a system of you know mobile joints and it's a system of springs and we are not born tense if you think about a child who's brought into this world um usually a child is very when

when they are walking age you know let's say a toddler or so um that they they have this natural ease with their body and it's only when we start entering adulthood that we encounter people who suffer from tension or you know rigidness and and so i strongly believe that when we're young we we have this intuitive sense um and it's also extends into the mental when you say oh you have to bring bring out your inner child right so it's it's just going into adulthood and then experiencing the stress of life in general that we we start losing that um that control and i even think that the way we think about control nowadays is to micromanage everything micromanage every muscle and thinking that we have we have to work hard in order to produce results and that's not

exactly the case um according to my experiences um so i think being in tune with your body focusing on um training for you know refining that flexibility whether it's through exercising physical exercise I find is incredibly important and it can be in the form of yoga or pilates or anything but just that physical well-being you have to work with a good foundation before you actually start working on the instrument so and the reason why I adore Dunas is because you know he was he's very well versed in neuroscience and he talks a lot about kind of the mental backing behind all the physical motions that are required for violent plane um and it's like the theme of your podcast right mind over finger um and understanding that nothing

not all motions are equally active um equally effortful and that with every active motion that you put in it's a bit like breathing there's always a rebound passive motion right and that's the same with violin playing and beyond that music making right because we don't want to hear music that is stifled and monotonous and when we're talking about things like that like all the negative adjectives that we associate with bad so-called violin playing or music making you you start to understand that it just means that you have to breathe when you make music and when listen to really great music making its dynamic in the figurative sense there are a lot of colors and it sounds like not only a human voice I mean that's you know many people say okay

the violin was created to mimic the human voice and there's some truth behind that but there's also the speaking quality the articulation so speech and singing thinking much more deeply into that um has uh really helped me understand that you know you have to free up the body you have to see it as a balanced state um in order to achieve what you want you know here and also really investing that time i think no matter at what stage we are in in our lives as musicians and not only limited to, you know, younger days of your life focused on fundamental training, that there is that maintenance issue that we deserve and we ought to, we are responsible to maintain

a certain shape and to not overlook that, the kind of what we call mechanical, which I also find kind of misleading. um if you put your mind to exercises you know a really monotonous mechanical exercise can actually be quite fun it's just really dependent attitude um so i think just really um preserving that plasticity in your mind um helps in the long run because this is a continuum of of learning it's not it shouldn't be results driven i mean results come in the way but that those are things that should help bolster and further develop your learning curve yeah like so a lot of um exploration inner exploration and reflection and uh when you were speaking i was thinking of

finding the ease in the movement yeah yeah that's that's incredibly important that um i guess if if there's a blurb that i would offer to listeners it would be that musical tension doesn't mean physical tension you know and that that's that's something that we it takes a bit of time to actually realize um and uh and then there is a distinction between effort and tension um and this is really thanks to uh jennifer johnson whose book he has she wrote a book which has kind of a wordy title but it's uh basically what every violinist needs to know about the body that's like the title it's very verbose but she has an interview here on the podcast so amazing yeah i admire her so much i i don't personally know her but i just read that

book and it's been quite life-changing alongside my readings of dunas's essays also just exploring his um big collection of exercises yeah yeah she's she came and worked with my clients inside of the music mastery experience a few times and she is really wonderful so I like you I highly recommend the book and I forget what episode she's in but I'll put maybe I'll put that in the show notes yeah yeah so how would you say let's say you're guiding a student through a technical difficulty they're experiencing some struggles with learning a passage what would that look like if you're guiding them through a process of understanding what's happening and eventually towards the mastery of this passage? Yeah, that's a very good question. Usually, you know, I get

very hyper-analytical. So when I see a student, for example, in a lesson and they encounter this technical hurdle, immediately what I observe is their response, you know, their initial gut response. And usually what I see is, you know, there's a bit of a grimace in their face and there's like this bracing of the body. So you can already see that there's tension and usually that's the culprit, right? And then what you try to do is ask them, you know, how are they actually feeling during the moment of making that blunder? And then you ask them, do you have an idea of what the problem is and most of the time to my own amusement they would say no you know it's kind of a it's it's it's a negative feedback loop of uh you know I have to fix this I don't know

how to fix it but I'm just going to tense my body so in the hopes that you know it will be fixed right so so that's that's one thing I've noticed and to try to just start from the baseline of being completely relaxed because what happens is that it also encourages the mind to think a little bit more dispassionately because usually it's the emotions that are kicking in and the drive for perfection that obstructs a student from thinking very objectively and then trying to if if they don't understand what the problem is then it's my job to kind of diagnose that and try to pinpoint that source um and oddly enough sometimes the problem is um obscured by other like you know because there is the issue of independence between left and right hands and

left left and right sides of the body sometimes what we think would be a left-hand issue is maybe not so much the source of the problem but rather the right hand aggravating something and triggering a response from the left hand and you know one of the most popular common problems is if we speed up the bow for something the vibrato spazzes out you know so that that basically just underscores what i was just saying that there's no independence yet between between the two hands um so it's it's just really playing the doctor um you know playing the therapist and the doctor in a certain way and And I mean, I love both roles because it's just maybe, I don't know, it has something to do with my odd fascination with like sci-fi, psychological thriller movies since when I was young. And just understanding, you know, how the human mind works, because we are all, we share the same minds at the end of the day, biologically speaking.

so um you know so that's kind of a rough idea how I would approach it I love this I want to be mindful of your time and I want to hear more about that CD though and so you talked about going in the studio and you're you know you're creating but there's also the whole creation of of the concept in the selection of repertoire and I know that there's a special story around your choice of repertoire for this cd i'd love to hear about that part of the creation process um it's it's the story is comprised of many threads the first thread of which is that um well first of all just as background i i've always been a little bit um shall i say disinclined towards recording because it's it's just out of insecurity

purposes and also being overly critical but it kind of happened when I was thinking about my mother being a folk minority dancer that's the you know that's that's what she did before she gave birth to me and and kind of there was this big inflection point in my life where I was trying to make sense of you know what do I have to offer as a musician because you know the the industry is oversaturated with so many violinists and musicians and whatnot all trying to make a stance for themselves right and tell their stories and so I was just thinking deeply and it was um and I started realizing that even if it was a subconscious thing that my musicianship is really informed by my fascination with dance um you know that probably has a lot to do with my

mother even during my childhood who would um I've actually never seen her dance um only you know video footages and photographs um because this is many decades ago but um just having that fascination and understanding just you know what we were talking about mindfulness and choreographed movement that all actually comes together beautifully um so and then I was like okay well I want to definitely record an album that pays tribute to that um and then I was racking my brain so it's like okay maybe I you know I was thinking about some of the pieces that have really accompanied me um throughout the last decades or so and that the four pieces that are on the album are basically those pieces right so there's the Bartok solo sonata which I

had an obsession with already since a decade ago but just never really plopped up the courage to study because it has a bit of a reputation of being you know incredibly difficult which it is and it's Bartok's music but I'm also of a personality where I feel like the harder something is the more I'm attracted to it if it's for for certain reasons that particularly resonate with me and Bartok is one of my absolute favorite composers because I mean obviously you probably know a little bit of background and he was a synthesizer of the east and west you know western art techniques, art music techniques and with the eastern kind of the musical language of pockets of people that you would normally not really be exposed to at least city dwellers

like us right um and that that particularly resonated with me because probably my mother was also from from that minority um group in china called the boy people so i had a fascination with um you know the unfamiliar and um bartok was also the composer who really taught me how to articulate um you know i thought a lot about how to sing because i i love listening to opera singers my favorite is obviously Maria Callas and Mirella Freni but and in Pavarotti so so just kind of understanding you know the other side of music making which is speech related um so that's that's really the Bartók solo sonata is one of the cornerstones of the album and then the three other pieces basically it's just the medley of things that I really love right so there's Izaís

fourth sonata which I've um explored so many for so many years already and um because it was dedicated to chrysler who is also one of my absolute favorite violinists um i i just felt like it had to be there on the album and then i also have chrysler's recitative and scherzo caprice which was um just about a couple of years back he dedicated that piece to izai right so there's that nice tribute to musical friendship between the two pieces and then uh last but not least There's the Bach first partita. And I chose the first partita because of it's it's the most what I would say variation is at the foreground. Right. So this this idea of variation, not only in music, but also in life, how we can be so different to get the from the same fabric, you know, as humans. So it just felt inevitable that had to be in there as well.

so I mean you know the the general statement mission statement for me is um for this album is that it's a response to the question of what it means to be human our fascination with variety with variation our fascination with storytelling because you know that's what really drives humankind forward um we always tell stories right and then my fascination with folk music as well um and folk music is very special in the sense that it's it's delivered orally right in this if you know we talk about the field studies that Bartok did not only in eastern Europe in his native country of Hungary but also even in Africa for example in Egypt right he he studied the musical language of the Arabs right so it's just it's very fascinating for me to um to kind of

just grace the that territory a little bit more and understand that classical music it was born from folk music i mean bob had a fascination with folk music and the traditional dance forms of you know the sarban initially came from spain and it's not and then it was later co-opted by the french and and made into this more high art high-end courtly dance but all music at the end points towards that really deep set origin of music music making within the peasants and you know so it's just very very fascinating thank you for sharing i really love how um there's this very personal fiber of yours that's being woven in all of these selection Oh, thank you. Yeah, I really can't wait. So I think the way I see it is that, you know, fittingly, the title of the album is Stories Retraced. So I basically am seeing myself as, you know, there's a special term that my cover art photographer used, which I absolutely was like, actually, this is very perfect, the way he describes it.

So he describes me as a raconteuse, a storyteller. And I'm basically telling the stories of these four different composers who are in some ways so inextricably linked together in the Western music canon, of course. But also the beautiful byproduct is, you know, that maybe listeners will be able to get a glimpse of, you know, what my voice is as well. But that's just the byproduct.

So the main mission is really to tell as compelling of a story as possible for these pieces that are so popular amongst the Western canon repertoire. I love hearing this background information because it's going to make me listen to the CD completely differently now that, you know, I understand. And, you know, you talked about the importance of understanding the composer's intention. But I find it so fascinating to hear also the musician's intention and personal story with pieces. And it makes us listen to their performance differently because now we feel like we have this connection with them. So this is great. that's really the most important thing um as an artist to i mean to foster connections and and to nurture because of connections right i mean music is about connection and it can be

you know from from past deceased composers but also even contemporary composers um and just seeing yourself as a mere dot of that continuum of art making is yeah for me incredibly beautiful oh I love this Nancy we're going to cover all of the information of where people can find this at the end and before that can I maybe take you through a little rapid fire round of questions so before the interview I talked to you about one of my favorite questions that I don't get to ask a lot on the podcast so I will ask you if there is a thought or a belief that has changed your life or maybe a thought or belief that supports you yeah for sure I think I kind of already hinted at it but um who was it I believe uh Louis Armstrong who um talked about how all

music is folk music so that's that's that's basically the most pithy statement that has um changed my life you know yeah I think people would be upset if I don't ask you if you have a favorite tool in the practice room oh um the score i mean i i don't really um yeah i i don't i mean usually probably the standard answer is like a metronome or a pencil or i don't know what what it could be but yeah my favorite tool is definitely having the full score to any work other than solo works but then in the case of solo works especially with box and try to get a a manuscript copy. Yeah. Oh, I love this answer. Another question I love is what makes practicing most enjoyable for you? Because I'm always, I strongly believe that practicing, of course,

we want to be present. We want to solve problems. And we have very specific goals that we're trying to accomplish, but I feel like when we can find ways to make that meaningful, enjoyable, personal, then the results start happening faster. So I love asking this question. Is there something that makes practicing more enjoyable for you? Yes. Seeing practice as a big question mark and that is defined by asking why. So always ask why, whether it's when you encounter a problem, you ask why why is this happening and why am i standing there right in front of you know here now and looking at the score um you know it's just this is kind of being as present as possible um and being as mindful as possible because it i mean yes of course sometimes it might send you

down rabbit holes but i i do think that a little dose of obsession is always really good yeah i love that yes a little dose of obsession and the listeners can't see and i'll show you later though i have i have the word why in the little frame up here oh and then last question before the actionable tip what is a habit that you have that you think is contributing to your success? Oh, that's very difficult. First of all, I mean, I mean this pretty, um, genuinely, I'm not sure if I am successful. I mean, I, I feel like it's just kind of a ongoing journey, um, which I find is maybe the most successful thing. I, I, I think,

um my love for music is at this point quite insatiable um so maybe that's the that's the habit um to to foster it's a muscle um you know there are there's this one particular speaker from the UN actually I'm not going to get into politics obviously you know she she talks about I'm not going to name her either um she talks about how hope is a muscle that needs to be exercised um and i i think that is entirely true for passion as well um you know as cliche as it sounds like the habit of supporting and fostering that passion daily because passion can just like a flame just you know fade away um you know if you if you encounter some external factors that life presents you and you feel like oh your career is not going that well well your career is not

going to go anywhere if you don't have love um genuinely speaking for music so i think um keeping up the hope and passion and thinking of them as muscles that need to be trained by the day is uh yeah it's probably the i would just it's probably i don't know if that's a good response oh no are you kidding i think that's one of my favorite responses to that question ever i absolutely love that thank you and i think it makes it hard to move to the actionable tip because it's just Like you took us somewhere so profound and important that now we were falling back to more, you know, down to earth things. But but and I don't want to lead you, but maybe that could be the actionable tip. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a good place to keep it because it's.

Yeah. I mean, everything is action, you know, and even mindset is as well. Yes. And I think that taking the time to just think about that, how we can foster more passion in our life, how we can strengthen that bond, that love for music that we have. mm-hmm and i i mean if anything i would elaborate on that um a little bit where i feel like you know because this industry especially amongst violinists i just noticed that there's so so much competitiveness and um at the verge of being a little bit hostile and kind of you know there's a bit of protectionism around itself because of just being human and insecure about certain things that I think it's important to just like hope being a muscle passion being a muscle is to to to go out there even if you don't feel comfortable support your colleagues go to their

concerts that's something that I've I've been quite fortunate to start learning how to do more over across the years and that that is because it's just the love for music is so again unquenchable that you start realizing that we are all part of music making and it's not that we're trying to fight for tiny breadcrumbs to make a name for ourselves because that's just about yourself you know and you're just using music as a vehicle for success rather than actually really finding meaning in music and understanding that there's just so much beauty available so I think taking that extra investment of time and energy I've had those moments where I feel like I don't really have time to go to this concert or not but actually when you do make

that effort you do feel like for the most part you know even if it's a bad concert I feel like people try to give their best and that's that's something that is incredibly meaningful um so having that level of empathy i think is important can pay so so many dividends in the long term that's so beautifully said you know speaking of another sentence that changed my life is by shakti gawain i love her book creative visualization and with that comes is i used to listen to it on the cd of affirmations and on it there's a sentence this is an abundant universe and there's plenty for all of us. And this was back when I was like very early on after finishing school and turning professional. And there was for sure, yes, that sense of scarcity where there's

only so many jobs and so many of us. And I feel that hearing the sentence and I listened to that CD a lot, but even I'll remember that listening to it for the first time. And I feel like it, it like broke my heart open and it made me feel so safe and it made me feel like there's a different way to see this whole thing and um so for me that sentence this is an abundant universe and there's plenty for all of us um has been really I would say pivotal and important and everything that's happened since then and and I feel like um in the spirit of what you shared if all of us had a little bit more of this as a mentality really amazing things could happen that's very beautiful yeah thank you for sharing that then see thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me

today where can the listeners find everything about you well i mean first and foremost probably my website which is by the way being revamped so i'll have a new uh newly refurbished website by april but you know so so far what i have now which is basically a cheap wix website that i made myself um you can find all the postings about you know upcoming performances and i've been not doing a great job on keeping up to date my blog postings but instagram is is kind of a good social media handle that i i regularly post on and share my thoughts um yeah and then just be on the lookout for the album i can't wait to share it with everyone sounds great nancy thank you so much again i've loved our conversation and the the insight that you share and um i think

everyone can sense your love of music and i know everyone's going to walk away very inspired oh thank you so much it means a lot thank you renee and there you have it thank you so much for spending this time with me today if you enjoyed this episode i'd love it if you'd share with your friends and colleagues take a screenshot post it on social media and tag me i'm mind over finger everywhere i always love hearing your favorite takeaways. And if you're ready to take your playing career to the next level, I'd love to invite you to join the Music Mastery Experience. This is my signature group coaching program where we're going to dive deep into building your confidence and mastery

and set you up for success and fulfillment in your life and career. You can find all the details at mindoverfinger.com. While you're there, check out the free downloads and online courses available to support your journey even further. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you never miss an update or a tool to help you thrive. Again, thank you for being here. Until next time, much love and à bientôt! Thank you.