It’s bare awareness week here at Fearless Fiddler – no, scratch that, it’s always bare awareness time! Because bare awareness – call it beginner’s mind, or mindfulness, or what-have-you — is the foundation of performance psychology. It’s the way of mindful practice, and the way of mindful, fearless performance.
How to define it? It’s just what it sounds like — being in the present moment, aware of what your senses are telling you, both internally and externally. For musicians, that translates to:
- listening carefully to yourself and hearing the sounds you are ACTUALLY producing, not what your mind’s ear thinks it hears or wants to hear
- listening closely to your colleagues, if you are in a group setting
- being with the physical sensations of playing your instrument
- feeling the state of your body (pain, tension, relaxation, fatigue, energy, etc.)
- watching: your bow, your colleagues, your conductor, etc.
The key to getting into this state more often is to practice it! Take a few deep breaths before your practice session or rehearsal, and remind yourself to cultivate a state of bare awareness. If you feel yourself slipping into old mental habits, simply take a few more breaths and gently pull yourself back to the present.
An active meditation practice is helpful to achieving this state. There are so many good resources that I hardly know where to begin, but one piece of recommended reading is Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (no relation to the violin guru!)
So, what are the benefits? Here are a few:
- Increased ability to immediately adapt to unforeseen circumstances or mistakes
- Decreased stress
- Increased enjoyment of music-making
- Heightened self-confidence
- Heightened self-awareness
- Ability to quickly notice physical tendencies that could lead to injury, and address them before they pose a bigger problem
Try it and let me know, in the comments, what you notice!
