Observe Yourself Playing – Your Effortless Mastery Reminders #017

The five finger exercise that Joao Assis Brasil gave me seemed simple enough.

I only had to practice for five minutes.

As a dysfunctional learner and undisciplined person,
that sounded great.

But the assignment at first terrified me.

He wanted me to practice nothing but
the five-finger exercise for two weeks!

I was to do absolutely no other playing.
I could observe the panic in my mind
and the illusions it was creating.

I thought that in two weeks, I would forget how to play.
Even more absurd was the notion that . . .

I would lose so much valuable practice time.

What practice time?  That was my problem
to begin with:  I never practiced!

With great trepidation, I began the exercise.
Day after day, I noticed some good things.
It occurred to me that, for the first time
in my musical life,

I was actually doing the work assigned to me
by a piano teacher!

It was so simple that I never felt overwhelmed.

Five minutes seemed to be the right amount of time.

One of the reasons I never practiced was the belief
that I had to sit there for five hours for it
to mean anything.  Since I never had five hours free
in any given day (too busy watching television, I guess)
I never got around to practicing.

Another reason I was now practicing was that the material
was so simple:  the effortless release of each finger
to the key.  Thumb to fifth finger and back; then
the other hand; and then . . . finished!
Just walk away!  It had a very calming effect,
cleansing me with a feeling of a new beginning.
I felt really good.

I floated serenely through the days, just sitting down
for a few minutes in the morning, afternoon, and night,
feeling good about myself.

I wish I could say that I made it through the whole two weeks
without playing anything else, but after about six days,
I played hooky.

A beautiful Brazilian woman called one day
to invite me and Victor Assis Brasil to a party.
She wanted us to play a duo.  I told her that I was
on a special program and not playing right now.
But she asked me in that special way,
and I acquiesced!

When we arrived at the party, people asked us to play.
I apologized for what was about to happen.  I explained
that Victor’s crazy brother had me touching the piano
for only five minutes a day.  I was out of shape
and had no idea what would come out.

What followed was something I will never forget.

We played Autumn Leaves.
I put my hands on the piano
and
they played!

I mean that they actually played by themselves
while I watched!

And what they played was blowing my mind
and everybody else’s.  Not only was it good,
but it was so much better than I usually played!

The change was astounding.

In just six days of meditating, more or less,
at the piano, I was totally different!

My touch, usually hard an strained, sounded
balanced and beautiful, like Bill Evans.

I had discovered the secret of his sound.

Also, at this stage of my development,
I usually needed about thirteen notes
to find eight good ones.  There was no great
rhythm or symmetry to my lines.

But this night, I was playing perfect, symmetrical
lines in beautiful swinging time.  And again,
I must stress the point
that
I was only observing, not doing!

This powerful demonstration made a believer of me
for life.  I realized that the goal is letting go
of my ego and being kind to myself, playing only
what wants to come out effortlessly.

I now knew that I could observe myself play and embrace
the spiritual ideas of service and surrender.

The pursuit of these ideals would stretch me
further than my limited consciousness could ever do
and make me a better player! This blew my mind.

I have since found confirmation of this process
in many ancient spiritual traditions.  Our society
is very much in the dark as to what its spiritual
purpose is,and our musicians no less so.

In the course of working with music students of all
ages, from the amateur to the professional,
I have found many sincere but ego-ridden musicians.

As I was, they are defeated by self-centeredness,
and lack vision and purpose.  And, most important,
they don’t know what music is, who they are,
and what they are really doing here.

• What about you?
• Do you know why you play music?
  
• Are you able to detach your ego-mind
  and observe yourself playing?
  
• How can you apply this example
  in your own pursuit of Effortless Mastery?
  

Please leave a comment!

Thank you for being part of our Effortless Mastery community.

Kenny Werner
and
Dr. Andrew Colyer

KennyWernerLive.com
and
ConsciousWorldMedia.com

Technorati Tags:
Kenny Werner, Joao Assis Brasil, Victor Assis Brasil, Autumn Leaves, Dr. Andrew Colyer, Effortless Mastery, Effortless Mastery Practice, Effortless Mastery Reminders, Rio de Janiero, ConsciousWorldMedia.com

Tagged as: Autumn Leaves, ConsciousWorldMedia.com, Dr. Andrew Colyer, Effortless Mastery, Effortless Mastery Practice, Effortless Mastery Reminders, Joao Assis Brasil, Kenny Werner, KennyWernerLive.com, Rio de Janeiro, Victor Assis Brasil