The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 229 Joy-Driven Practice – Reignite Your Practice with Curiosity, Calm, and Creativity - Your Reset & Rise Series #1

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast. This is Episode 229, the first episode of your special summer series, Reset and Rise. Today, we're kicking things off with joy. This episode is all about reconnecting with presence and inner mastery so you can build your summer practice on a foundation of inspiration and curiosity. 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 you're enjoying an amazing summer.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Whether you're recharging, chasing big dreams, and everything in between, I have something special just for you. This summer, inside the Music Mastery Experience, we're diving into big, bold goals in a really intentional and mindful way. And while MME is closed right now, I didn't want you to feel left out and I wanted to offer something meaningful to support your journey this summer. So for you, I've put together this special summer podcast series, a curated path of 10 episodes that I know can bring real transformation for you. They're listener favorites and they're topics and themes I keep coming back to in my work with clients again and again. I've organized them for you to follow a clear arc, a journey you can walk

Starting point is 00:01:44 through step by step. So here's your Reset and Rise Summer Transformation Series. First, we're going to reignite your spark in episode 229 and 230. We're going to bring back the curiosity and love that make music feel alive again. Then we're going to dive into practice mindsets in episodes 231 to 233, we're going to build alignment, patience, and self-compassion so you can stop spinning your wheels and start feeling clear, focused, and grounded every time you play. We're going to look at what's getting in the way in episodes 234 and 235. We're going to uncover the invisible habits and thought patterns that hold you back. And finally, in episodes 236 to 238, We're going to bring everything together.

Starting point is 00:02:36 You're going to learn a powerful coaching tool I use with my clients that's going to help you really understand what's happening in your mind so you can take action that actually works. It's simple but powerful. And once you get it, it changes everything. By the end of this series, of this arc, I want you to feel refreshed. I want you to feel steady in your practice, clear on your next steps and fully ready to step into the fall with purpose and confidence

Starting point is 00:03:08 and if you're ready to dive deeper if you want a complete blueprint to performance success that's going to have you hit the ground running by September my online course practicing for peak performance is available now so whether you're prepping for an audition starting a new job are just ready to play at a higher level. Everything you need is already inside practicing for peak performance. Step-by-step, laid out for you. And as a part of a little summer celebration,

Starting point is 00:03:42 when you join PPP, you're going to get access to my Performance Anxiety Solution course for free. You can find all the details at mindoverfinger.com and there's a link in the show notes if you want to check it out. All right, ready to reset and rise? Let's dive in. I wanted to share with you something that really helped me reconnect with my love of playing

Starting point is 00:04:14 and brought so much mindfulness in my practice. So I wanted to share with you the Joyful Practice Challenge, which is a challenge that I came up with within the very first few days of the sheltering in place and something that really helped me set the tone for my mindset throughout this crisis. The goal of the challenge was to focus back on what's at the core of music making that we so often forget, right? The fact that we love it. And with everything canceled, what is left but the music itself and why we love it and what it brings to us. and the truth is when we really make joy a part of our practice when we make an effort to figure out ways to stay engaged that's when we truly are interested and that's when progress happen

Starting point is 00:05:06 so focusing on joy in practice can actually be a really powerful tool in becoming more efficient so for 12 days i posted prompts in the tribe my facebook group and we committed to spending 10 minutes focusing on my suggestions or on anything else that made practicing fun, enjoyable, or meaningful. It was a lot of fun and it was so incredible to read everyone's amazing findings and realizations and it was hugely inspiring for me. So you can sit back and relax, listen to those prompts, and keep them in mind as you practice in the next few days. Commit to spend 10 minutes of your practice focusing on one of the prompts, or as I said above, on anything that makes it fun, enjoyable, and or meaningful to you. I think the prompts are a great place to start, but don't feel

Starting point is 00:06:00 in any way limited by them. They're merely suggestions. The important thing is for you to explore what brings joy and meaning in your practice. I strongly recommend that you write down some notes every day and keep track of your experience, the questions that come up, and your findings. And of course, please share your experience with me and keep me posted. I'm mindoverfinger on Instagram, so share those posts and tag me. I would love to share this journey with you. Now that we're all set, here we go. So day one, we're easing into joy. Pick up your instrument and play anything you want. Some long tones, an etude, a piece you like, an exercise you're curious about, or maybe you feel like improvising, anything goes. Pick something

Starting point is 00:06:53 you really want to play, enjoy it, make it feel delicious. And as the 10 minutes comes to a close, start thinking about a specific project you'd like to pick for this challenge. Is there a piece you'd like to learn or a technical skill you'd like to work on? Or you just want to keep this completely open and have a free play every day. Once again, anything goes. Day two. Day two is all about nurturing a childlike curiosity. Usually when you practice, are you scrutinizing everything with a severe ear and a judgmental heart? Is your quest for perfection causing grief and frustration. So the way you approach practicing can really slow down your progress. Let's try a different approach. Nurture a childlike curiosity in your practice today for 10 minutes.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Experience playing with complete open-mindedness. No judgment, only curiosity, exploration, and objective observations. Ask yourself, what am I curious about today? What do I want to play? How do I feel right now? What does it sound like? Am I noticing anything new in the score? What would happen if I tried it like this instead? Ask yourself those questions and notice your thoughts. What other questions popped in your mind?

Starting point is 00:08:23 What did you notice? How did it feel to approach things this way? How did it affect your playing? Day three is all about breathful practice. Before we even begin to practice, our heads are often so full of thoughts, goals, expectations, concerns, and anxiety. The best mood and mindset regulator is actually the easiest thing for us to do, breathing. So try this today. Begin your practice session by closing your eyes and taking several deep breaths or by doing a breath exercise of your choice. Play something slowly for five

Starting point is 00:09:04 minutes and bring extreme awareness to what is happening to your breath. Don't try to control your breathing. Simply notice how you're breathing. What do you notice? How does it feel? What happens to your playing when you focus on your breathing? What happens to your body? Then on day four, pick one teeny tiny thing. Today you bring your focus to one teeny tiny thing you'd like to improve and you explore it. So pick a really small element in something you're playing, transition between two notes, an articulation, one shift, a bow change, the shape of one note. Explore what is happening gently and with patience. Ask questions and consider solutions using positive language.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Don't try to fix it. Just explore different options for fun. And notice what happens to the passage when you're simply exploring without judgment and with pure childlike curiosity. Then on day five, try a body scan. Today, before you launch into serious practicing, use your 10 minutes of joyful practice to do a body scan. So pick an exercise or a piece that you enjoy

Starting point is 00:10:25 and can play rather mindlessly, maybe some long tones or slow scales or a piece you know really well by memory, or you can also improvise. And as you play, bring your awareness to your breath, not controlling it, just noticing it. then move this awareness slowly through all the different parts of your body and notice what happens notice where the tension is pay attention to your feelings as well so maybe

Starting point is 00:10:54 bringing your attention to one specific area will awaken a feeling either good or bad what do you feel why do you think you're getting the specific feeling sensation associated to this body part You can also try that exercise throughout your practice whenever you feel tension or frustration rising, or when you're working on a particularly difficult passage and feel stuck. Try playing the passage while focusing on your breath and moving the awareness slowly throughout the body and observe what happens. For day six, we explore the power of the gaze. In general, our focus is heavily influenced by what we look at. And those of you who practice yoga will know how drishti or the gaze is a big element in improving concentration, bringing precision to the movements and in directing the energy.

Starting point is 00:11:46 So we're going to have some fun with it. In your joyful practice segment today, play letting your eyes go anywhere they want. Notice where they go. Notice what you see and if it influences what you're playing. Then bring your gaze to specific areas of your body. use a mirror if necessary, and notice what happens. For example, what happens if you look intently at your left index finger? What are you thinking? How do you feel? Do you notice an effect on your playing? Then play a short passage with your gaze fixed to the ceiling. What do you notice?

Starting point is 00:12:24 Then try playing with your eyes closed. What do you experience? There are many other things you can try. For example, what happens if you play a passage and look intently and with hyper focus at the music as if you're trying to imprint it forever in your mind? If you play the same passage again with your eyes closed, can you see the music? Keep experimenting and trying new things and have some fun with it. On day seven, ask how creative can you get? Do you get stuck in the rut whenever you work on a hard passage and always resorting to the same way of working on the same stuff. So today I challenge you to come up with at least five new fun ways to work on a passage. Pick a passage that presents a challenge at the moment. Think of at least five ways to work on it

Starting point is 00:13:18 that are completely different than what you've done for this type of difficulty in the past. get really creative here are some possibilities so how about playing it slower than you've ever played it analyzing every movement every detail or you could do fast practice with note grouping playing it in a different key or a different string backwards with a different style or you can even arrange an etude to fit the passage anything is possible go wild do anything you'd like. We're not so much focused on the results as to experimenting with new possibilities and seeing what could help. On day eight, we get a little bit more serious and we observe fear. What would a challenge be without a little bit of fear, right? In exploring fear, we get familiar

Starting point is 00:14:12 with it and we diffuse some of its power. Think of a passage that's giving you grief. Now let's pause for a moment. Are you struggling with this passage solely because you lack the skill? Or is there something more at play here? Might there be some fear getting in your way? Let's explore that. Play the passage a few times and examine your feelings as you're playing it. List all the negative feelings that come to you when you play this passage. Then keep playing and examine further. Do you have strong emotions about the whole passage? Or is it just a few specific notes in particular? Or one particular element about the passage?

Starting point is 00:14:55 Why do you think you feel this way? To what degree? How strong are the emotions? Without judging it and without trying to change anything, play it a few more times and keep observing your feelings and thoughts. And keep this in mind. This is just exploration. We're not fixing anything.

Starting point is 00:15:16 We're just getting acquainted with fear. And the rest is for tomorrow. Then, on day nine, we work on taming fear. Now that we've allowed fear to be in the practice room and we've explored it, let's see if we can get comfortable with it. Pick a scary passage, same or different from yesterday, and play it a few times, investigating your feelings similarly to what you did yesterday.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Once you've identified your feelings and their possible origin, play the passage several times and try different approaches to tame your fear. Here are some suggestions. Take a deep breath and play the passage while accepting fear fully. Identify where fear shows itself in your body. Where does it cause tension? Just notice where it is. then bring your full awareness to the tension and let it diffuse feel your breath dissolving the

Starting point is 00:16:17 tension engage your courage muscles and jump in what i mean by that is as the scariest part approaches focus your awareness more and more on something really tangible for example flowing bow arm, relaxed shoulder blades, etc. So what Dr. Don Green would call a process cue. Then as you're thinking about that, play through the passage and notice what happens. Something else you can try is bring a hand to your heart, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and mentally play the passage, infusing it with joy and physical comfort. It sounds tacky, I know, but it can be really powerful. Then ask yourself, what else can you try to tame fear? Let that fear, the type of fear, the degree at which you experience it, where and how it manifests

Starting point is 00:17:17 itself in you, inspire what you try. What else did you try? How did it feel? What happened to the passage as you experienced taming fear? And before we go today, then just a few words about that. The reason why it's important to figure out the origin of fear is because sometimes there are some really concrete measures you can take to tame it. If it's coming from really not feeling comfortable with a specific skill, then you can plan on working on that skill. Make the decision to get information on the technique, work on it, accept that it might take some time and some patience and embrace the process. Another reason may be simply because you don't practice playing at a tempo so you don't have the acquired skill and the courage to play at a full tempo. Kind of

Starting point is 00:18:07 like learning to ride the bike. The balance point comes only at a certain speed so if you don't grab your courage and go for it you never get the momentum to ride the bike. And if it's deeper than that there might be a need for a greater personal reflection incorporating some meditation in your life or exploring other modalities to get a better understanding of yourself and of where the fear lives and how to get comfortable with it. Now, day 10, it's time for a treat. You've worked pretty hard for the past few days and you've focused on pretty serious stuff for the past two.

Starting point is 00:18:43 So let's ease back into something more soothing. Let's sing. Pick your absolute favorite passage in a piece, whether a piece you have to work on or any piece you'd like to play. and focus on phrasing, singing, letting the music flow through the passage. Explore and have fun with different ways to phrase. And here are some more things to experiment with. Sing through the passage a few times.

Starting point is 00:19:11 What do you feel instinctually drawn to, phrasing-wise, when you sing? Think, how would it sound on a different instrument? Then try to emulate that. Is there a specific emotion you're trying to convey in this passage? Do you have a narrative, a story to tell in this passage? What is going on in the accompaniment? How can you use that even more? Let yourself be free and allow yourself to enjoy expressing yourself through music in this passage.

Starting point is 00:19:42 Then day 11, record yourself joyfully. Yes, that's possible. I know that the idea of recording yourself might sound as remote as possible to any feeling of joy. We can feel so exposed and it can trigger so many feelings of frustration, but recording ourselves can be one of the absolute best ways to progress faster, and that's a great source of joy. There are ways to get more comfortable with it, so let's see.

Starting point is 00:20:12 Pick one phrase you'd like to work on. Take a deep breath and set your mind to having an objective view of the experience and a non-judgmental approach of assessing your playing. Record the passage, audio or video. Listen to it one or more times, as many as you'd like, and 1. List three things you like about your performance. And then 2. Identify one thing you'd like to play differently on your next take. then record another take trying to execute the element you thought of above right away without

Starting point is 00:20:48 practicing repeat this process a few times keep in mind and this is a very important thing music mastery is a path you will hear things you don't like when you record yourself and beating yourself up about it is not gonna help it's not helpful so appreciate the process the fact that you're here holding the instrument curious ready to improve that's a big deal that's an awesome thing so appreciate your dedication and your discipline to sit here on the quest to better skills and greater musical expression you should be proud of yourself you want to listen to your playing with critical but non-judgmental ears identifying aspects that can be improved without attaching a judgment to who you are as a person. If you feel frustration mounting, stop and move on to something

Starting point is 00:21:46 else or maybe try again tomorrow. Finally, on day 12, we have no shoulds, no shame, just relentless tenderness. That's it. We made it. Last day. We've done many things in this challenge. We've played things we wanted to play, brought curiosity into the mix, gave attention to our breathing, used hyper-focus, did body scans, gazed intently, practiced creatively, faced our fears, sang our phrases, and approached recording ourselves from a joyful perspective. So that's a good list. So today, go back to where you started and just play with no should, No shame. Just relentless tenderness. And just be there. Experience it with no expectations and no judgments. Let go. There will be plenty of hours of hard, dedicated work ahead in the days and

Starting point is 00:22:50 months to come. So take that 10 minutes and make it deliciously yours. Listen with tenderness. Feel your body with tenderness. And reconnect to what it is you enjoy about music making. Let your thoughts and your feelings rise. Let them come and go and simply notice. Notice how you feel and what's enjoyable right now. And when you're done, see if you can carry that peacefulness in the rest of your practice that day. And remember this, when you let the pressure and the need to and the have to get in the way, you close your mind. I think that if you bring more of this relentless tenderness in your daily practice, I think you'll find that you're much more engaged and interested and as a result, way more open to problem-solving solutions and

Starting point is 00:23:48 much more efficient. So this is it for the joyful practice challenge. As I said earlier, it brought me so much inspiration, hope, and joy. And it was so special to share it with a really awesome community. I hope you try it out and I'd love to hear back from you. What you did, what you observed, how you felt, what kind of results you got, or any thought that crosses your mind about the experience. So please get in touch with me and share your experience. So that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Stay in touch and à bientôt. 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

Starting point is 00:24:46 everywhere. I always love hearing your favorite takeaways. And if you're ready to take your playing and 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!

Starting point is 00:25:43 Thank you.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 229 Joy-Driven Practice – Reignite Your Practice with Curiosity, Calm, and Creativity - Your Reset & Rise Series #1

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