Paint Me a Musical Canvas

I had the most amazing practice room experience I have ever had in my life on Wednesday. I have told a few people about what happened, and whenever I talk about it, my little voice of reason says maybe it didn't happen quite like I experienced. Whatever did happen, I know it felt extremely powerful and left an imprint on me that will last a long time:

In my lesson on Monday, my teacher was trying to get me to shape phrases more by dynamic contrast, vibrato changes, tempo fluctuations, and shading the tone color. I have had troubles figuring out how to make the subtle changes in my tone that I have heard in many performers, so I thought...what better time to start than now!

I started my practice on Wednesday by asking myself, "How can I achieve the tone colors I am looking for?" In this question, the word "color" stuck out to me. I decided to play my long tones softly and crescendo through them. The color that came to mind for soft playing was the blue-green of ocean waves. As I grew in sound, I thought of yellow sunlight hitting those waves. Finally, I allowed the vision of yellow to grow into an orange color. I found that the color orange really seemed to help my tone, as well as various shades of green, ranging from a light yellow-green, to the blue-green ocean color, all the way to the green color of bright grass.  When I really tried pushing air through the flute, I imagined a bright red fire with sparks coming out of it. This seemed to give my tone a darker, richer quality.

I took a break and came back later to play scales. The color metaphors had been so enjoyable to experiment with in my previous practice session that I decided to try applying them to my scale exercises. For as long as I can remember, I have had difficulties playing scales, as I tend to tighten up and become less fluent in the upper register. My hands usually hurt after playing full range scales because of this. I decided to think of a color that could help me lighten up my fingers. The color light blue came to mind. To me, it is the color of the sky, of air, and I felt a light sensation pulling my head and fingers up "to the sky." I became so focused on this light blue color that my mind didn't have time to think about how "difficult" the range from G#3-D4 is. The scales felt far less difficult than they ever have before!

Now, I was really excited about this color thing. I thought, "Maybe light blue is the color of fast playing." I started playing the Mendelssohn "Scherzo from a Midsummer Night's Dream" excerpt while thinking about light blue.

Sometimes, when I practice, I like to shut the lights off and play from memory. I have heard that the visual sense can cut off access to the other senses by as much as 80%, and playing in the dark helps me tune into how my hands and air feel, and engages me mentally into the music.

I played the Mendelssohn excerpt in the dark practice room and continued to think about the blue color. I had my eyes open, focused on a spot in front of me, when suddenly, something amazing happened. I began to actually see a light blue, hazy, cloud-like circle in front of me. The closest thing I can compare it to is what occurs when you look at the sun, then look away, and see hazy spots in front of you. It was like that, only a wispy cloud texture and a light blue color. The interesting thing about it was it didn't match the original light blue I was imagining. It was a bit darker, closer to the image below than light blue:

Now, I was really living in this color idea. I moved onto the Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals" excerpt. I figured that blue was the color of fast playing and began to play while focusing on that color. Then, something even more amazing happened. The spot changed to a bright orange color! The picture below is the closest shade I can find to the color I saw:

At this point, I felt like I was in a perfect music world. None of my seemingly-constant performance anxiety could touch me at all. I have been having a hard time playing the "Carnival" excerpt any faster than dotted quarter = 63, but while in this state, I played it at mm. 72 for the first time - and it felt effortless! I felt protected by the color and nothing else existed but me, the color, my music, and a deep spiritual connection.

I switched to Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," which, in my head is a blue-green. However, the visual effect went away and I could only see the color inside my imagination again.

For the next 30 minutes or so, I felt extremely relaxed, as if I had come out of some sort of hypnosis. I even walked out of my practice room and forgot which room I was in because I was so wrapped up in the feeling I had just experienced.

Later that day, I tried to see the colors again. I couldn't. However, I have noticed I now can place colors with pieces much easier in my practice. The Introduction to Schubert's "Variations on Trockne Blumen" is a dark purple to me. Since visualizing this color, I find that I have begun to live in the music more.

Lately, I have been trucking along mentally, and have felt like I am overflowing with creativity.
This week, I started out very engaged in life and my music. As the week progressed, things fell off, but I truly believe that was more a lack of sleep thing than anything else. I started out being exceptionally creative in my practicing habits, but by Thursday-Friday, I was back to my old [bad] practice habits - oops. This reminds me that staying rested is just as important as practicing in my musical development.

As time has gone on since my color experience, I have tried to figure out what happened. I am not sure if I experienced a brief moment of synesthesia or something else. My theory now is that my imagination became so strong that I projected a bit of it onto my visual sense for a brief time. Whatever it was, it was very powerful.

A part of me has wondered if I truly am a musician, or just a creative person who enjoys music. This experience gave me a brief glimpse of affirmation at my inner musician. She is powerful, strong, and has a strong connection to the sounds of the flute.

I asked my teacher about what I can do to not get as nervous playing in front of people. She said, "The key is to keep your mind so full of positive thoughts that it doesn't have time to worry." I now have experienced this by myself in the practice room. As I continue to find creative ways to engage my consciousness fully into my flute, I believe the deep music I feel inside will gradually follow me outside of the practice room door and into the ears of my listeners.