The Inner Game of Music Read online

  THE

  INNER

  GAME

  OF

  MUSIC

  Overcome obstacles, improve concentration

  and reduce nervousness to reach a new level

  of musical performance

  BARRY GREEN with

  W. TIMOTHY GALLWEY

  PAN BOOKS

  Contents

  Introduction: W. Timothy Gallwey

  1. The Mozart in us

  2. The Inner Game

  3. The Inner Games skills

  4. The power of awareness

  5. The power of will

  6. The power of trust

  7. Letting go

  8. Coping with obstacles

  9. Improving the quality of musical experience

  10. Teaching and learning

  11. The Inner Game listener

  12. Parent and coach

  13. Integration and balance

  14. Ensemble playing

  15. Improvisation, composition and creativity

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  The Inner Game of Music

  This is the first book written about the Inner Game principles of ‘natural learning’ that applies this methodology to a subject matter outside the area of sports. I am pleased that this should be the case for several reasons, since sports and music share similarities that are relevant within a learning context.

  People ‘play’ sports and ‘play’ music, yet both involve hard work and discipline. Both are forms of self-expression which require a balance of spontaneity and structure, technique and inspiration. Both demand a degree of mastery over the human body, and yield immediately apparent results which can give timely feedback to the performer. Since both sports and music are commonly performed in front of an audience, they also provide an opportunity for sharing the enjoyment of excellence, as well as the experience of pressures, fears and the excitement of ego involvement.

  The primary discovery of the Inner Game is that, especially in our culture of achievement-oriented activities, human beings significantly get in their own way. The point of the Inner Game of sports or music is always the same – to reduce mental interferences that inhibit the full expression of human potential. What this book offers is a way to acknowledge and overcome these obstacles in order to bring a new quality to the experience and learning of music.

  I found that much of the self-interference in the practice of sports originated in the way they were taught. The Inner Game sports books presented a radically different approach to learning. Techniques for heightened performance were successfully conveyed, without the normal frustrations and self-judgements that tend to take the joy out of learning and playing the game. In The Inner Game of Music Barry Green has translated these methods in a way that promises to bring new life and learning possibilities to this field of endeavour.

  Since the success of The Inner Game of Tennis in the mid-seventies, many people have approached me to co-author Inner Game books on a variety of subjects. Barry was excited by the results he had achieved with Inner Skiing, and wanted to write a book applying the methodology to music. ‘You know, Tim,’ he exclaimed to me, ‘I could write a book on the Inner Game of music, almost by just changing a few key words in any of your other books. It’s all the same magic; it will work anywhere!’

  I’d often thought about the possibility of cranking out simple ‘translations’ of the Inner Game into different fields. But I felt it was important for Inner Game methods to be re-created to reflect the unique and special aspects of a particular subject. I asked, ‘Barry, how would you like to take two or three years and explore the possibilities that the Inner Game might bring to the field of music? Explore them in your playing with the symphony, and with your students, develop methods and new techniques, and then refine them when you have some experience in using them. Then, when there is sufficient evidence that the technology is feasible and workable, we might think about doing a book to share what we have learned with others.’

  What distinguished Barry Green is that he accepted this challenge, and didn’t speak to me about writing a book for nearly three years. During this time he did literally thousands of hours of research and experimentation with his own performances and in his teaching. Barry’s commitment to making a difference in the way music is learned takes this book out of the realm of clever theory. It is a book that succeeds as a practical guide for improving the quality of music experience.

  Barry wrote the text and developed the specific techniques that are presented. I consulted closely with Barry on the content of each chapter, and take responsibility for the integrity of the expression of Inner Game principles. Ours has been a close and yet informal collaboration. As Barry began developing applications to music, I became more and more intrigued with music myself. Not only did Barry and I lead Inner Game of Music seminars with groups such as the Music Educators National Conference, but I found time in my already overloaded work schedule to take up the alto recorder so that I might have my own Inner Game of music ‘learning laboratory’.

  What impressed me most about Barry was his ability to shift his sights from his initial interest in writing a book, to making the Inner Game of Music a breakthrough experience both for himself and his students. From this background of experience comes an unquenchable enthusiasm for what the Inner Game can bring to the music world. My strong recommendation to the reader is to experience this book in much the same way. This is not a book of ‘right answers’. Rather, it is an exploration of new possibilities and a guide to be used in your own style of learning. It is an invitation to let go of some old ‘rules’, and to trust increasingly in your innate powers of learning. It is not a rejection of technique, but an approach to the learning of technique which does not inhibit musical expression.

  My own brief experience with teaching these methods to music students suggests that they are remarkably successful. Musicians at all levels of experience demonstrated dramatic shifts in the quality of their music performance, even with brief instruction. I was used to seeing these kinds of transformations taking place on the tennis court, and got a special sort of pleasure in seeing such immediate results in music as well.

  The same mechanism for heightened performance is at work in both sports and music, where overteaching or overcontrol can lead to fear and self-doubt. It is impossible really to concentrate on a tennis ball when your head is filled with scores of instructions. It is next to impossible to enjoy the game or play it very well when the emotions are involved in the fear of failure or not looking good before one’s instructor. Fear and overcontrol do not produce the best tennis players; they are also likely to inhibit the production of good music.

  It seems to me that the very essence of music is the expression of the self. It needs a milieu that is conducive to reaching into one’s source of creativity and that allows for freedom of expression. Just as the end product of the study of music is enjoyment, virtuosity and inspiration, the actual process of learning and teaching can yield the same quality of experience. It is my hope that readers of The Inner Game of Music will use this wealth of material to help them experience the joy of music to the fullest.

  W. Timothy Gallwey

  1

  The Mozart in us

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of course, was a prodigy. How else can you explain someone who started to compose at the age of five; learned to play the harpsichord, violin and organ; toured Europe as a concert musician; and by the age of thirteen had written sonatas, symphonies, concertos and operettas?

  But our ‘serious’ picture of the young genius may not help us to glimpse the very real child he also was. While touring England as a concert musician with Johann Christian Bach, he used to v
isit the taverns. Little Wolfgang and Johann Christian took a gleeful delight in playing with the brass spittoons, and while Johann Christian was content merely to score an accurate ‘hit’ in the centre of the spittoon, Wolfgang Amadeus would aim his spittle at the rim and send the spittoon spinning, until the reflected golden light of the many candles spun around and around the room, and everyone in the tavern began to dance.

  Not too many people know that Mozart was also one of the finer billiards players in Europe, or that he gained inspiration for his music from listening to the click of the balls and the soft thud as they bounced off the green baize of the billiard table.

  Was Mozart, as we so easily suppose, an extraordinary and special case? Or was he to some extent simply a child, with a child’s natural enthusiasm, and a father who happened to encourage him in the pursuit of music?

  Today we marvel at how effortlessly young children learn. Children who are brought up in other countries frequently absorb three or four languages, without confusing them. Children who use the Suzuki approach learn to play music with enjoyment, competence and fearlessness.

  Even if we view Mozart as an extraordinary exception, it is clear that all children have an incredible capacity to learn. As adults we may tend to play down their accomplishments by saying, ‘Well, of course they can do it – they’re kids! They don’t know what they’re doing.’ But wouldn’t it be marvelous if we could combine our knowledge and maturity with that childlike transparency and endless curiosity – so that we could learn, perform and listen to music with the openness of children?

  Can you remember what you felt like when you were three or four years old? You may not recall the details of what you did, but your picture of your childhood will likely contain some memory of youthful enthusiasm, innocence or playfulness.

  There was a time when nobody told us that playing was difficult, and we played music without feeling self-conscious about it. There were those moments when we marvelled at the excitement, the love and the sadness that live musicians could coax from their instruments. And there was a time when we first performed as members of a band, orchestra or chorus, and were overwhelmed by the massiveness of the sound, and our wonder at being part of fifty or a hundred voices all building to the same musical goal.

  Even today, as listeners, performers and teachers, we still catch glimpses of that youthful potential within us. There are moments when we somehow play a phrase so well that we ‘wonder where it came from’. Sometimes we feel as if we have learned a passage almost without trying; it seems to emerge magically from our fingertips. There are times during music lessons when we become utterly absorbed in discovering what makes a difficult passage work. And sometimes, at the concert, for no reason whatsoever, everything is somehow just right – the programme and the performance – and we feel caught up in the joy of a composer who lived and died a century or more before our time.

  But why are these precious moments so few and far between? If we have the ability to listen, learn and play in this fuller, richer way, why do we do it so infrequently? Is it possible for us to recapture our ‘youthful’ ability to see, hear, feel and understand?

  Playing the Inner Game

  For years I heard musicians talking about Timothy Gallwey’s Inner Game methods of teaching tennis, skiing and other sports. When his first book, The Inner Game of Tennis, came out, musicians were among the first to recognize that his techniques for overcoming self-consciousness and recapturing that youthful potential to learn could be applied in many areas – the playing of music among them.

  But although I heard my friends discussing Gallwey’s methods with the kind of enthusiasm they usually reserved for great composers and perhaps the occasional baseball star, the thought of using the Inner Game in my own life as a classical symphony double bass player and teacher never really clicked for me until I was introduced to Tim’s methods on the ski slopes.

  When I learn something new, I like to take lessons from an expert instructor who will tell me exactly what to do. I want to know what’s best, and to perform correctly. But my brother approaches learning in quite a different style. He likes to teach himself. Jerry and I began an undeclared race to see which of us could learn to ski best and fastest.

  Jerry was born with cerebral palsy and doesn’t have complete control of the left side of his body. He never outclassed me in swimming – only in tennis, golf, academics and socially. He was an honour student and excelled at everything; I was a B student and played in the band.

  My brother read Tim Gallwey’s book Inner Skiing, and I took extensive (and expensive) ‘how to’ lessons from a ski school. A year later we met at a California ski resort. I was confident that I knew the correct positions for my body, my legs, the poles and my head. I had learned all the proper techniques for manoeuvring my skis. And yet I was amazed and frustrated to see Jerry skiing more naturally, faster, and with what seemed like an effortless command of technique.

  I was scared to death. Here I was, right at the top of Squaw Valley. I was facing the same slope I had visited as a child, when I watched the giant slalom event there during the 1960 Winter Olympics. But this time I was on skis – and it was my first time away from the nursery slopes.

  An endless stream of instructions ran through my head as we took off down the hill: ‘Keep your weight forward . . . feel the inside edge of the ski . . . keep your shoulders forward . . . relax . . . don’t fall . . . don’t worry . . . don’t stiffen up . . .’ This constant stream of excellent advice did very little to help me get down the hill – and it certainly prevented me from taking any pleasure in skiing.

  Jerry, on the other hand, had put it all together. He was relaxed, confident, his shoulders were forward, and he leaned easily into his turns, putting his weight on the inside edge of his ski as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I was still sceptical, of course, but it did seem that he had found a better way to learn. I asked him how he did it. ‘Barry, it’s easy,’ he said. My brother knows just how to get to me. ‘Just forget your instructions, feel the mountain with your skis, pay attention to what works – and read the Inner Game!’

  I couldn’t put off reading Gallwey’s book any longer. I went out and bought a copy of Inner Skiing, and read it with a double purpose: to help my skiing, and to see how I could apply Inner Game techniques to the field of music.

  It quickly became obvious that Tim Gallwey’s Inner Game techniques could be applied across the board, in any area of human activity. The fundamental skills of awareness, trust and will provide ways to increase our concentration; to overcome nervousness, doubt and fear; and to help us come closer to our potential in almost any field. I saw very clearly how these skills could improve both the learning and the performance of music.

  I began to experience with my bass students.

  Early successes

  The first signal that my attempts to translate the Inner Game really worked came when I used them to teach a bass player to relax his forearm. I applied one of the simple techniques that Tim teaches in Inner Skiing and asked Randy to pay attention to his forearm as he played, and monitor the tension on a scale from one to ten, with one representing a very relaxed state and ten representing a great deal of tension. We agreed to call his present level of tension a five, and I asked him deliberately to increase it to a seven and then relax back to a five.

  Almost as if by accident, Randy found himself relaxing so much that he rated the tension a three. By noticing the difference in the way his muscles felt at seven and at three, he was able to recognize for the first time which muscles were getting in his way. He was then able to relax them consciously.

  It seemed only a little short of miraculous. I had worked with Randy for months, trying to decrease the tension in his bowing arm without much success – and now he had managed to solve the entire problem without my telling him what to do! Better than that, the tone of his playing was now richer and more assured than before.

  I began to understand how my brother had b
een able to learn to ski by himself. I saw the enormous power and effectiveness of Gallwey’s simple techniques for entering a state where we learn, perform and enjoy ourselves to the fullest. I must have been pretty excited when I telephoned Tim that day back in 1980 and began a dialogue and a friendship that has continued ever since.

  I wanted to explore and apply the Inner Game to music. Tim told me he was as enthusiastic as I was about the possibility. As we began to work together, we agreed on two conditions.

  The first was that I should use only exercises and techniques that I had tried and tested in my own experience of music: if I wanted to use a technique that I found in The Inner Game of Tennis, such as telling people to ‘watch the seams of the ball’, I was to modify or adapt it until it worked in a musical context, perhaps telling my students to ‘notice the circular bow pattern during the fast even notes’.

  The second condition was that I should maintain the simplicity and quality of the Inner Game approach. I was eager to set about translating the Inner Game into musical applications the next week, but I began to realize it is far from easy to create something simple. Five years later I am still refining, simplifying and discovering new techniques that utilize the three basic Inner Game skills of awareness, trust and will.

  My work with Tim Gallwey took me from my home in Cincinnati to California, for tennis lessons and coaching in the Inner Game. It may sound strange that I learned more about music on the court from a tennis pro than in years of playing and teaching music, but in a sense it’s no less than the truth.

  Gallwey taught me that in everything we do, there are two games being played: the outer game, where we overcome obstacles outside ourselves to reach an outer goal – winning at tennis, playing well, or succeeding at whatever we are interested in – and an inner game, in which we overcome internal obstacles such as self-doubt and fear. These internal obstacles are the ones that interfere most with our performance, in music as much as on the tennis court, and keep us from experiencing our full potential. Players of the Inner Game find that when they focus on eliminating mental interference, their outer game performance automatically comes closer to their potential.