Mindfulness I

As musicians, we want to be mindful, because to be our best during practice or performance, we must be aware, intentional and purposeful in everything we do. In this and the following blog I will discuss mindfulness as a musical performance-enhancement strategy. While the practice of meditation is ancient, research into its applications for musical performance is in its infancy. Modern writing on the subject tends towards personal theories generalised, as in Kenny Werner’s fascinating but deeply shallow Effortless Mastery.  

Mindfulness models of performance enhancement look to change our relationship with internal experiences rather than change the frequency, intensity, or form of the experience itself. This is in stark contrast to more traditional psychological skills training (PST) interventions that seek to create the ideal emotions, sensations, thinking, and self-talk for peak practice and performance.

The core belief of a mindful approach to music is that a person performs best when staying with a nonjudgmental, moment-to-moment awareness and acceptance of their internal state, with his or her attention focused on what is essential for getting through the song or exercise. This leads to consistent, intentional behavioural effort and actions that support what he or she values most about their music.

This is different from traditional psychological skills approaches. The traditional approach has been to try to reduce or eliminate negative experiences (stage fright for example) first and then intentionally shift to more positive thoughts and feelings to perform better. Mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches, on the other hand, stress the absence of intentional effort. Through daily mindfulness in the practice room, improved attention becomes automatic, requiring fewer cognitive resources to achieve the desired focus state when it really counts; on stage, auditioning or recording.

But there is more to mindfulness in music than just simply reducing anxiety and narrowing one’s focus of attention. Read more about that in my blog ‘Mindfulness II.