My Musical Meditation

Illustration by Jacob Chalkley

The holidays are a joyous time for me. Yet, with all of the busyness and coordination of family gatherings, gift buying, and the like, I notice I feel extra tense this time of year. It’s times like these that I really look forward to meditating. I use meditation as a way to reduce stress, and improve my focus and concentration. There are many ways to meditate. I do a simple breathing meditation. I sit with my back straight and my eyes closed. Then I focus on my breathing. I repeat to myself, "Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out." Naturally all kinds of thoughts come up, but when they do, I gently acknowledge them and then refocus on my breathing. By nature, I'm a pretty antsy person, so at first this exercise was very difficult. But just like learning a new piece of music, it gets easier with practice.

I believe meditation can be very beneficial to musicians on so many levels. It calms and relaxes the mind. As thoughts are removed, space is created that allows energy to flow more freely. And the residual worry, frustration, and busyness of daily life can diminish greatly when there is more room in the mind!

I've been thinking about how meditation might translate into my viola practice. I have made it my goal to play a little each day. It doesn't matter what I play or how long, but I endeavor to play each day and intently concentrate while doing so. So far I have found that simple improvisation mimics the breathing meditation quite nicely.

Here's the way my meditative improvisation works:
I aim for at least 10 minutes. Anything more than that is too intimidating. For me it's all about small, easily accomplished mini-goals. The beauty is, once I get going, the practice period usually ends up being longer because I'm having so much fun.

I carefully tune my viola. Then I draw long, slow bows across the open strings — C up to A, A down to C — using as many rotations as I feel adequate. This warms up my viola.

Next, I pick a key and time signature, dictated by my mood, and then I very simply and gently play in the key, concentrating on one aspect of my playing at a time. I am never too concerned at first about establishing fancy rhythms or a beautiful melody. My first goal is usually to just play easy melodic patterns within the key with good intonation. Then maybe I’ll focus on obtaining a clear tone. Next I might work on smooth and consistent vibrato. I keep it very simple, focusing on single tasks. This helps my concentration immensely.

Finally, if I'm progressing well, I might work on developing an actual story-line with my playing, where my melodic and rhythmic phrasing becomes more complex. If I become distracted, I stop for the day, and tell myself it's OK— there’s always tomorrow to try again. In addition to being a form of meditation, this improvisation exercise becomes a routine that greatly supports and encourages my daily practice. It ensures that I get a little playing in every day no matter what. It keeps my left hand supple and my bowing arm loose. And most of all, I feel both relaxed and energized by the effort!

I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on improvisation, meditation, and any techniques you find helpful for stress reduction and relaxation.

For further reading on meditation I recommend the book Breath by Breath.

For further reading on practicing, I highly recommend Tom Heimberg’s book Making a Musical Life.

And for improvisation — if you have your January issue of Strings handy — turn to page 29 for a great story about how to begin the process, or read the story online here How to Teach Improvisation to Your String Students.