The Importance of Positivity

This week, I really have been caught up in the concept of positivity, asking "the big questions":

"How important is it?" "What is the power of positive thinking?" "How can I embrace positivity in my life, and how will it positively affect my life?"

I have always been someone who approaches life in a two-fold way. The part that usually comes across is  tentative, exacting, cautious, and "just-so." The other part of me is adventurous, curious, outgoing, a big dreamer. I have often described myself as an "extrovert disguised as an introvert."

Just like my personality types, my thought patterns are often at war with each other. I have experienced some rather loud negative voices, but underneath...

I have a voice that I imagine lies deep within me, somewhere in my lower abdomen. This is the one voice that, while often trumped by negative thoughts, at times comes out. And when it does, something fantastic in my life always happens. This is the voice that represents the best part of me. It feeds my imagination with big dreams, positive visualizations....and it tells me the truth about myself. It gives me images of who I am apart from anyone else's opinion. It shows me my inner artist, happy person, and my inspired, faith-filled side.

I have gone through many bouts of severe negativity in my life. However, that inner positive voice has always has been there telling me that life should be different, that a grand potential lies within each life and I was missing mine somehow.

I believe I am not alone. All of us have voices of negativity and positivity. Humans are naturally wired to look at the negatives, because prior to civilized life, we needed that heightened sense to merely survive. The problem is, we have carried over that "survival instinct" into our modernized lives. This instinct, unless "tamed" and retrained, will consume our potential for progress. 

The music world is full of people who love their art, but also full of negativity. Competition for spots in colleges, performing groups, and other auditions can leave many players feeling anxious. I know I have often felt like I need to "play better" in order to be "good enough." I have felt competitive pressure against others and I have felt others start to push back at me from the same pressure in their own lives.

The negative person starts kicking in the survival instinct and playing for approval rather than for creating a beautiful work of art. This leads to the many negative voices trumping the positive voice with thoughts like: "I'll never play well enough." "I have to be better." "What if I'm never good enough for people to want to hear me?" "What are they thinking about my playing right now?" "There are so many notes on this page, how will I play them correctly?" 

I have gotten to a point in my life in which I am simply tired of suffering on stage. I'm tired of feeling this ball of energy in my abdomen and having it stay stuck there. I'm tired of seeing beautiful videos of my flute potential playing in my imagination and then being drowned in fear on stage.

I no longer want to play to impress others. While I want them to enjoy my music, I want to enjoy it as well. I want to release the ball of energy and share all the pent up musical emotion I carry around with me on a daily basis.  

I decided this week to be positive. 

I started to speak positive words to myself. "I am good enough, just as I am."

I took my iPod to the practice room with me. During every practice break, I turned on a positive Christian song to remind myself what I was doing here in the first place. 

I looked around me and noticed the small blessings in my life, which, cumulatively, added up to very large blessings. 

I channeled my attention to focus on what my body was doing. I discovered what was causing my neck pain, and many of my technical and tone problems (I was tightening at the base of my neck, which channeled tension throughout my body). I found that flute playing should feel easy and free, not difficult and forced.

The more I immersed myself into this positive mindset, the more I enjoyed my practice session. I started enjoying playing my instrument. I became more thankful. And it is beginning to translate into my performances...

Today, I was able to perform without feeling very nervous at all. My music released and sang.

In a fallen world that often seems consumed by the negative, we must choose to take an active role in embracing positivity. Feed it to yourself as much as you can. Don't worry about doing things "right" or to please anyone else as much as to release your gift freely.

"What is the power of positive thinking?" 

It changes everything. 

"I think it's critical that we begin to dismantle the word 'performance,' because somehow it implies perfection or some ideal - or doing something for someone else. When I perform, I don't know how it's going to turn out. And even with a piece of music, I must stay open to the nuances that change it each time and make it present. It's never going to sound like it did yesterday again. Right is - big deal. Beautiful sounds are - big deal. But contact. Real human contact, through music, is rare." 

~ Susan Osborn vocalist

Pacing

I remember my first cross country race. It was the fall of 2008 at the Kearney Country Club. There was a cool breeze on this morning; the weather was perfect for racing. I looked around me as I arrived at the course and saw rolling hills all around me. My teammates were chatting about the course, reminiscing about running here for high school state cross country. I had heard this was a fairly difficult course, but I had never ran it before - not because I wasn't a fast enough runner to be in the high school state meet, but simply: my high school was too small to have a cross country team.

So what was I doing here anyway? How could my first cross country race be with a college team?

I went to a very small high school, the smallest classification of high school even for the agricultural state of Nebraska. We barely had enough girls go out for the track team to make a team. Somehow, we made it work.

And somehow, I had ran a fast enough 800 and 1,600 meter that here I was. Recruited to run middle distance? Cross country came with the package.

How fast was I supposed to run a 6K (3.75 mile) race over grassy hills? I had not a clue. So I did what came naturally to me - I ran fast. I came through the first mile in a little over six minutes, and I was running with our team leader. Something was wrong here.

Cue in THE HILL.

I was about 1.5 miles in when I reached the base of the notorious hill on the course. It was quite steep. I remember making it to the top of the hill and realizing my race was over. About a mile or so later, I was running through the trees, utterly alone. A spectator pointed at me and said, "That girl was at the front at the beginning!" This was one of the most embarrassing moments I would ever experience while racing.

I crossed the line in a fairly slow time. It was then that I realized I couldn't race a 3.75 mile, hilly cross country race the same way I ran guts-out around a track.

When track rolled around, I continued to struggle with the same concept. I always had been able to do well if I tried really hard and ran as fast as I could. Eventually, my coach began to talk to me about a concept called "pacing." He told me I needed to leave a little "in the tank." We began doing paced workouts, in which my coach banned me from going faster than a certain time per repetition.

It took until my sophomore year track season, in February of 2010, to really be able to pull off the "pacing" thing. What happened when I figured it out? I lowered my mile personal best time by 20 seconds.

Recently, I have been doing some thinking about this story and how it applies to me now. I tend to approach all of life in this gutsy, hurried, "go-all-out-all-the-time" way. It worked up to a point. However, expending a lot of energy all at once will eventually lead to fatigue.

I am at the mid-term of my first semester in graduate school, and I have noticed the mental and physical fatigue begin approaching me once again. Yet, this time, I stopped to evaluate. I caught the correlation between my 23-year-old flute playing self and my 16-year-old track runner. Here I am, continuing to push really hard without taking the time to see the value in calm pacing. My body has gotten sick twice this semester already, forcing me to rest, when I would have been better off taking things slowly, one day at a time.

The correlation extends beyond general life. This semester, I have been experiencing some pain and tightness in my neck and right arm. I have been getting chiropractic and massage treatment for it, but couldn't quite figure out the source. This week, I believe I found the culprit. My teacher pointed out that when I take a breath, I dip my flute down and move my head, destabilizing the flute for the next pitch. In the practice room, I discovered this is not an isolated experience, but something I do almost every time I take a breath. My neck pulled in the exact place I have been experiencing pain. All this happened because I was thinking too fast and going ahead mentally to the next phrase before I arrived.

My other discovery reminded me even more of my hurried runner self. I hadn't practiced my concerto with a metronome in awhile, and I turned it on to the given tempo. The tempo felt ridiculously slow under my fingers...yet, it was the exact tempo marked. I remember that same tempo feeling fast and frenzied this summer. I have learned the notes to the point that the marked tempo felt easy, yet I have been continuing to push myself to faster and faster tempos that feel uncomfortable without even realizing it.

I reflect back to the repeated workouts my coach put me through. Time after time after time, perhaps hundreds of times, we practiced pacing. As much as I wanted to "take it to the well," as coach would call it, he pulled me back and reminded me to pace. Once I learned this skill, what happened?

I became faster. My big improvement jump came when I learned how to conserve my energy so my body felt better for longer.

Here I am, my sixth year into training with a professional flutist, and I now am learning how to pace myself with my flute. I now know that the speed my fingers are comfortable pressing the keys is exactly the pace I need to be at during that time. Speed will increase with training, all without going "to the well" and tightening up faster.

I wish I had learned this sooner. It would have saved me a lot of energy, stress, tears, friendships (I'm not exaggerating on any of those).

How many years was it from my freshman year in high school to when I made my running jump?

SIX.

It's going to be a great year.

Running high school track "guts out," on the way to a 1,600 meter gold.

Running a cross country race in 2011, after learning what it meant to "pace."

Stage Presence/Personality Presence

I recently got back to Stillwater after a 4-day excursion to Southwest Nebraska for a friend's wedding. I drove between 3-7 hours each day to make it happen. That's friendship dedication!

I woke up this lovely Tuesday morning with a headache, stuffy sinuses, a general feeling of tiredness. (It also feels VERY warm in my apartment...usually my apartment feels cold in the morning so I think I have at least heated up some.) Apparently, my body had just enough "oomph" to make it there, look pretty for my friend, and come back. Since my body is very slow moving and not-so-good feeling this morning, I decided to take a little extra time sipping my coffee and waiting for my cold medicine to kick in before going to campus. Meaning - time for a new blog post!

I performed in studio for the first time last week. It was nice to perform a solo piece again. With student teaching last semester, my performance opportunities were very limited, and they continued to be limited over the summer.  I played Robert Dick's Lookout for solo flute. The piece was written for high school students as an introductory piece of extended techniques. I enjoy it, because I haven't played multiphonics (2 or more pitches sounding at the same time) before, so this piece has been a great learning tool for me.

In studio here, everyone writes comments to each other about what they liked about the performance and also what aspects could be improved. I really enjoy this open forum and exchange of ideas! The studio here definitely is open to making each other better musicians, which I appreciate.

A recurring theme on my comment cards I received this week was stage presence. One comment really caught my attention. It said, "I'm not sure if it is because you have student taught, or because you are a graduate assistant, but your stage presence is nice to watch."

As an inquisitive person who likes to think about the "whys" of everything, I put some thought into this comment. Why do I have the stage presence I do?

I started by thinking about student teaching and being a teaching assistant here. I realized that, yes, having that experience speaking in front of people definitely helped, but it wasn't the sole reason for my stage presence.

I enjoy researching random topics that come to mind. Lately, I really have been doing some digging into what makes me "tick" as a person and why I am the way I am. I have noticed that I don't process information in quite the same way as most people, even among musicians. It has been my personal quest to figure out why.

I was watching some YouTube videos last summer that were created by Tim VanOrden, a professional masters distance runner. I think I stumbled upon his channel because I was looking for videos on healthy eating and some of his videos popped up. He posted a series of videos labeled "Getting Started" that talked about the day-to-day struggles in training for a race. In one of his videos, he talked about a character trait called "Highly Sensitive Person." I remember being interested at the time, but didn't research further.

As I have noticed continual differences between me and many other people, the HSP term returned to mind. I researched it, and was surprised to find something that explained everything about my personality. This character trait has been shown in research studies to be found in 15-20% of the population, and is characterized by a tendency to process information deeply, feel emotions deeply, have high empathy for others (caring), and increased sensitivity to their environment in comparison to those without the trait. I found a video by the leading psychologist on this subject, Elaine Aron, and she even mentioned giving recitals. People with this character trait often practice a lot but are more easily overwhelmed on stage due to high sensitivity to lights, crowds, etc.

Back to stage presence: I have found that I relate music to emotions, pictures, etc., easier than many that I have met. I have often been confused that connecting emotion and musical performance is something many have to work at, when to me, it is like breathing - involuntary and natural. Sometimes, I can't describe the emotion in words, but it is strong and fills my body with expression.

After my performance on Thursday, I confirmed how I can overcome my stage fright! I have discovered, that if I take my concentration and channel it completely into the musical feeling I want to project, the nerves can't get in as easily. And when I say completely, I mean completely. As soon as I think about which notes come next, or the dynamics on the page, or the people looking at me, or anything else, that is when the mistakes come.

I had a lot of time to think about the topic of stage presence on my drive back from Nebraska yesterday. What creates a strong, convincing performance? I believe good stage presence is one that shows the audience the performer's personality. It could be called "personality presence," in a sense. It comes from reaching deep into ourselves and opening up the depth of our personalities and experiences.

I have often heard other music majors say that they need to practice more and more and more. I believe this is true to an extent, but gathering life experience is also important to a convincing performance. By opening up perception to a variety of experiences and human emotions, the performer can store those emotions and call upon them for future musical expression.

I realized Thursday, after testing the theory of completely focusing on the one message I wanted to project, I felt more in control and confident in my performance. I recognized this feeling as the same one I used to get while competing in high school speech. I used to think I was putting on a confident persona and assuming an acting role. However, after discovering that my best musical performances feel similar, I no longer believe the outspoken role is a "persona." I believe this confident person is my uninhibited self I occasionally set free from my socially acceptable, quieter part of me. Now that I know that the confident person is my true self, I can layer X expressive emotion over that and create a strong message.

My high sensory perception has been mislabeled as many things over the years due to misunderstanding - even my own misunderstanding of myself. Now, I realize I have been given a gift and am accepting the increased sensitivity to emotions and pictures as the greatest expressive tool I have. I will never struggle to find the musical message I want because of this trait. The key is in becoming so mentally enmeshed in that message that my high sensory awareness forgets the eyes watching me or the worry about the notes. I have found if I can dwell and breathe and completely live in my musical feeling and message, all my hard technical work from the practice room comes out easier.

To enhance your stage presence, think of it as personality presence and let the best you shine!

Patience

I'm typing this post from my iPhone. I've never written a post from a cell phone before, so if you're reading this, I guess I made it work ok.

Why am I typing this with my thumbs instead of with all of my fingers on a keyboard? Well, my MacBook died. I guess I did something to it (who knows what) that corrupted part of the hard drive. Oh joy. Thankfully, it is fixable and will come back soon.

...Which brings me to my topic. I think I have discovered my biggest weakness, and it isn't hand-eye coordination (of which I don't have much, but that's a different story).

Patience.

Another blog post confession: I am really terrible at being patient. I always want things to work out just so, in the perfect-picture-I-imagine-in-my-head way. Anything less leaves me very frustrated.

Mistakes? Curve balls? The unexpected? They don't belong in the picture!

I have had many people say to me over the years, "Brooke, you're such a great student!" I assume this is because I do my work well and get it done on time.

Wait. I don't get my work done on time. I get my work done WAY ahead of time. Why? I have no patience for deadlines. I have no patience to let life come in its own timeline. Nope, it all needs to get done ASAP!!

I have this annoying voice in my head. This voice is very, very impatient (and often, quite rude). I explain it to people this way. Think of a voice in your mind. It is told you have a job to do by such-and-such a date. But, instead of hearing the deadline as the amount of time you have to get something done, it starts ticking an inner voice time bomb alarm. From day 1, the brain starts stirring with thoughts. By a month out from the project/event, the voice starts pushing alarm buttons ("You really should start working on that; it will be here before you know it!!")

By 2 weeks away, the voice is starting to slam a few guilt trip/panic buttons ("What are you doing?!?! You should be done by now!!").

By 1 week away, the voice starts screaming: "OH MY GOSH, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE LAST WEEK!!!"

If you had an inner mind gremlin doing this to you, wouldn't you want to get your stuff done early, too? Thought so.

I am taking a graduate research class this semester, and our big project is to research a topic in our field, write a prospectus (basically, a dissertation proposal) with a 30 source annotated bibliography, and give a 15 minute oral presentation from a separate typed script. My teacher has scheduled various deadlines to get all the students in the class done by the end of the semester. The first deadline was to choose a topic. I got that done and now am on phase 2: completing a proposal for the prospectus (2-3 typed pages, and a 20 source bibliography.

Two weeks out, my inner voice started yelling at me, so I went to the library to nail down some sources. I had a good list of 17 sources typed into a Word document. I found a treatise written by my main "character," Theobald Boehm, and read some of Nancy Toff's "The Flute Book." Within these two sources, I found enough information for a basic premise to prove my point.

I worked ahead on my homework so that, starting this past Wednesday, one week away from the deadline (inner voice says, "AAAHHHHHHH!!"), I could check out my sources and get my bibliography converted to Chicago style format. I turned my computer on, and the screen started getting all jumpy. After a couple manual restarts, I realized it wasn't coming back to life very easily. After 3 hours of TLC, all my boyfriend could get it to do was show a screen saying it couldn't connect to its hard drive.

Inner voice hit all panic buttons.

:&;&3&;@;;!2!!!!!!!!!

I took the computer to the shop, and just found out today it is fixable! And, I will get it back in time to work on my paper over the weekend. Phew! 

Do I like the fact that I have 5 days to finish my project? Not at all. But now, I can just wait for my computer to come back.

...which leads to my point about patience. This roadblock seems like God's way of showing me that I can accept a deadline, meet it ON TIME (not in advance), and be perfectly fine.

I noticed this patience theme again while practicing with my pianist. I was playing a page of black 32nd and 64th notes. I realized the piano part made it easier, that brilliant Franz Schubert built in some give and take between the flute part and the piano part that gave me room to breathe and relax. The impatient panic voice tried coming back, telling me that surely, I needed to work harder! "You need to get done faster!" 

I didn't listen, and guess what? I enjoyed my music far more.

I went back to the practice room, and my impatient inner voice started yelling at me about how my concerto isn't sticking in my memory. I ended up getting mentally overwhelmed and went home.

Apart from the practice room, and multiple thumbs-deep into typing this blog post, I realize that all of these perceived problems stem from my lack of patience. I am running through the field of roses pretty fast, but I haven't stopped to enjoy the smell of any of them. After briefly feeling what music should feel like when playing it, I want to smell them. 

Shut up, inner impatient voice.

Keep on Pushing Back the Dark

Yesterday, I had a case of the "blahs." I dragged my feet a little in the morning, did my warm-ups, and went to orchestra rehearsal. Around 4 p.m., I realized I still had these "blahs" in my system. I knew I needed to "de-tox" my mind, so I went home.

And I ran. Never mind that it was 97 degrees out. I needed to inspire myself, to show myself I could break out of this ho-hum feeling. After 10 minutes of direct Oklahoma sunlight, I was starting to overheat. Thankfully, the lake by my house has strategic water fountains placed around it. I took a break and kept jogging.

There is a stretch around the lake that goes straight for a good half mile or so. It is right by the road, and no shade is available whatsoever. I managed to make it through the straightaway and around the corner before stopping for shade. I then made it to another water fountain. By this point, I was sweating profusely and starting to feel very dehydrated and dizzy. However, I managed to make it home!

The run definitely helped shake the "blah" feeling, and around 7 p.m., I headed back over to the music building to get some practicing in.

As I was driving across town, a song came on the radio. It was amazing, because it addressed every doubt in my head, every worry. The link to Josh Wilson's "Pushing Back the Dark" can be found here.
The song speaks about how we often doubt ourselves, or feel like we aren't qualified to be doing what we are doing. It then goes on to say, "Don't underestimate the God you follow," that we are attacked by these dark thoughts, but we need to keep pushing forward, because "Someone needs the light you have."

God was wrapping me up in His arms in that moment. He was saying, "Chin up, Buttercup! Now go to that campus, and you do what I brought you here for!"

Confession Interlude: I have performance anxiety. Over the years, it grew to the point in which I even got nervous to practice with people outside the room. Anytime I play my metal stick for anyone but myself, I get that dark feeling.

Practice actually has been going better lately. I have been working with a performance anxiety therapist, and she has been helping me transform those many negative thoughts into a couple positive ones.

She warned me that things would get worse before they get better. During practice, the negative voices have finally begun to shut up, which is incredible. However, I did a fake performance for my video camera, and the thoughts definitely were worse. Every tiny dark thing that has ever tried to stop me came back.

Normally, an experience like this would absolutely shred me. I would get discouraged, and it would ruin my day, my week. This time, I used my new tools. I repeated my positivity statement on the way to my car, and played my newfound song three times on the way home. My performance anxiety coach said to be persistent, and eventually the thoughts will diminish.

This morning, I looked up the "Pushing Back the Dark" song online, and I found the story behind it on Josh Wilson's website. I am going to copy/paste it here, because it is so phenomenal:

"I was in seventh grade.  It was five minutes until our Wednesday night youth service, and I was hiding, sitting on the cold tile of a bathroom in a dark corner of our church.  They were about to start the worship music, and I was supposed to be playing guitar.  I told them I was sick and couldn't go.

 I wasn't sick.  I was scared.

I was scared of what everyone else might think of me.  What if I messed up?  What if I failed miserably?  God had given me a talent and passion for music, but I was afraid to use it.  To this day, the darkness of doubt pushes me to avoid my calling.  

Last year, as I was working on this album, that darkness became tangible as I began to struggle with anxiety and panic attacks.  At one point, I thought I might have to quit music altogether.  But God promises to never leave or forsake us, and He kept that promise.  As he carried me through the rest of the record, I realized that there will always be darkness pushing me to hide.  At some point, though, every Christ-follower has to realize that we carry a sacred, burning light that is infinitely more powerful than the lies of the enemy.  Your light might seem small, but even the smallest act of love can illuminate the shadows.

 To every single mother, every missionary, every doctor and poet, every seventh grader who is scared to sing in youth group, every truck driver, politician, and school teacher, anyone who is rich, poor, young or old: someone else desperately needs the light you carry.  I think it's time that we each take that light and start pushing back the dark."

It is so encouraging to know that this man struggled with some of the same things as me, and God led him to a future in music anyway. I can feel deep within me that what I am doing right now is leading me toward something great. I know someone out there needs my "light," so I keep fighting for my freedom.

Push back the lies and darkness in your life until you are filled with light.

"Let your lights all shine when you feel like you're too small to do any good at all. Let your lights all shine like a sunrise through the window, like a symphony crescendo." 

Negative Thought Notebook

I kicked myself out of the practice room this morning.

To understand why, we need to back up.

This week, someone gave me the advice to start a negative thought notebook. Every time I notice a negative thought, I am supposed to write it down in a notebook. I have been doing this all week, and the most interesting thing I notice is that most of my negative thoughts really get rolling when I pick up my instrument.

At first, this surprised me, but it certainly explains a lot. Technical imperfection. Muscle tension. Lack of focus. I think my negative thoughts attack me while playing my instrument because that is where my mind is vulnerable. Every time I play my flute, I have to open up a part of myself that is sensitive and real. A piece of my soul. And that is when darkness can attack!!

The good thing about this notebook is that, as I write the thoughts down, I notice how extreme and ridiculous they are. Yesterday, I was able to put the negative thoughts to rest, and even found myself replacing them with positive affirmations!

This morning was different. Maybe it was not enough sleep, or too much coffee, or just an off day, but as soon as I started scales, the negative thoughts went on a rampage! I wrote down almost 40 negative thoughts within 30 minutes! I tried putting them to sleep, but for some reason, they didn't want to rest today. My thoughts began with generic things like, "I can't move my fingers evenly!" The more frustrated I became, and the longer the mind spiraled, the thoughts grew into extreme life statements, such as the following:

"I'm not good enough."
"I'm weird and abnormal."
and even
"I'm an embarrassment to flute playing!!!"

Ridiculous, right? Reading those now, they sound very ridiculous. When my thoughts started switching from being frustrated with a few mistakes to life statement attacks, I knew it was time...

A couple weeks ago, I talked about being my own best teacher. If I were to walk into a good teacher's office and said 40 negative statements about myself, how would that teacher react? They would probably tell me to adjust my attitude and kick me out!  So, that's what I did to myself this morning.

When I was an undergraduate, I used to leave the practice room frustrated a lot. I would like to make the distinction that kicking myself out of my practice room this morning was different than leaving in a frustrated huff. In the past, the negative voice was the champion, causing me to feel so terrible about myself that I would leave.

 Now, I have the ability to look at the situation objectively, from the view of a teacher.  If you have ever dealt with children, you know that sometimes, they throw tantrums to get what they want. If you give into the tantrum, they're going to learn that is OK to do and keep doing it in the future. I refuse to let my brain's negativity tantrums rule my practice sessions. Playing flute is a privilege, and I will not allow poor thought tangents to become ingrained into my head anymore.

My flute is a special gift, and playing it is meant to be a place of individual growth and spiritual fulfillment. I will find a way for it to be that way, or I won't play at all.

Later today, I will go back, and try again. :)

AHH, SPIDERS!!

"MMMMMMOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!"

My childhood self stood frozen, wide-eyed, and pointing my finger at the intruder while waiting for my mom to come rescue me. A "giant" black spider was crawling across the white ceiling, only two feet above my top-bunk bedspread. Mom would come in and "save" me from the scary arachnid, my heart rate would return to normal, and I would go back to my day.

One of my biggest fears as a kid was spiders. I HATED almost all bugs (ladybugs and butterflies were the only exceptions), and the eight-legged variety were the scariest. The strange thing about this fear was that I had a large stuffed spider that I considered to be my friend. I wasn't scared of "Spider," as he was so creatively named, at all. I gave him hugs. I put him on my head - as I weirdly did with many of my stuffed animals. He even got to stay on my bed with me, an honor bestowed to only my favorite stuffed animals.

I owned several strange breeds of stuffed animals, types that would terrify me in real life - an orange crab, a red lobster, and even a purple scorpion. Why were these plush toys considered safe to me, while the real ones were things to fear?

_______________________________________________________

Recently during my flute practice sessions, I have been searching for a way to solve a long-standing problem. Whenever I play fast, my fingers tighten up and the notes don't speak quite as clearly as they could. This happens despite repeated practice at various tempi. The reason why has remained a mystery for quite some time. 

After my recent color experience, in which I was able to play scales quickly and (for the most part) cleanly at rapid tempi by associating them with the color light blue, I was convinced my problem with technique wasn't to be solved with "more practice" at all. I have the ability to play fast! The real obstacle? FEAR. At some point, a long time ago, I convinced myself that scales (and fast playing in general) were difficult. The thought embedded in my mind so deeply that almost all the time that I play fast now, my hands tighten up. They prepare for difficulty. 

I looked at my Schubert Variations the other day. Variations I and V contain some rapid passages. However, I look at the notes, and I know I can play all of it. The notes aren't difficult. They are scalar, things I have played for years. Yet, when I attempt to build them up to tempo, my hands tighten as always. I found myself asking - Why? Why do these notes appear easy when I mentally break them down, but they feel so difficult when I speed them up? 

Franz Schubert, Variations on Trockne Blumen, Var. 5

I admitted to myself that I needed to re-train my brain. I needed to find a way to convince myself that rapid notes in succession weren't scary. So, I slowed down my thoughts. I really looked at the first variation and thought, "What is causing me anxiety in this passage, and what can I do to alleviate that anxiety?" I found a few sections in which more fluid playing was as simple as not pressing down my right hand pinky key.

Today, I repeated the process of training my brain so it could know that the rapid passages weren't difficult. I memorized the first half of Variation 1 and slowed it down. To half speed. Now, I really don't like playing things ridiculously slow. My brain hears the finished product, and slow playing seems to remove the magic of the music for my ears. However, I realized, in order to get to the finished product I desired, I needed to show my fingers that these notes weren't difficult. I repeated the passage several times from memory, gradually building up to 3/4 speed. And then I stopped and put it away. Going any faster would have allowed the fear to come back

Now, I am confident at 3/4 speed. If I can get to 90% tomorrow, that will be excellent progress. What I am seeking to do is to alleviate the irrational fear into which my mind trained itself. Exposure therapy. If I show myself the notes aren't difficult at half speed, or 3/4 speed, or 90% speed, well, my chances increase that it won't be so bad at 100% speed either.

I share an office with other graduate assistants, and while I was practicing the Schubert slowly, one of my fellow graduate students knocked on the door. I explained to him what I was doing in this way: "Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that playing fast was scary. So now, I am slowing it way down and proving to myself that it isn't. It's exposure therapy, like you would do with someone who is afraid of spiders. You show the person a picture of a spider, then give him a stuffed spider, then a spider in a cage. Eventually, you get to the point in which the person can touch a tarantula. Well, that is what I'm doing here. I'm showing myself gradually that I can touch the tarantula, and it will be OK."

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That is when I thought of my good friend Spider. So why was my big Spider safe and cuddly to me, while tiny spiders were the most frightening thing in the world? 

All stuffed animals were safe to me. My brain was convinced, until the end of the world, that any type of stuffed animal, even a spider, was OK. Contrarily, my mind had learned that tiny, REAL spiders were unsafe. These both were learned, conditioned responses. I had received exposure to the point that my beloved stuffed Spider was safe, but not enough that the real thing was.

Eventually, I got to the point in which I could take care of the real spiders myself. I didn't have to stand, point, and scream for help whenever I saw one. I now know that, while spiders still give me the heebie-jeebies sometimes, they aren't scary to the point of petrifying me. The same will happen with my music as I teach myself the skill of safety.