Imagine, Experience, Think

This morning, as we do every morning, ‘Star’ the dog and I went for out for a little walk/run about. In the course of it we did 4 hill sprints; about 600’ of vertical climb.

It was enough to trigger an endorphin rush in me. Star just wanted to eat.

So then I pick up my violin. Now, you might think you can imagine what I experienced when I lifted it to my shoulder.

I don’t think so.

My fingers felt so stiff and slow I thought I thought of calling 911. Fortunately, things got better. And fast. Over the course of an hour-twenty I went from playing ultra-slow scales, with measured wide vibrato in triplets, to whizzing around Sarasate’s ‘Zapateado’ like a liquored up Marti-Gras celebrant.

And this is how I did it.

I imagined. I experienced. And I thought.

And then I did it again. And sometimes, again.

You know, it’s a good policy to give yourself a maximum of 3 tries to execute what you have in mind before making a conscious decision to change the picture.

That really ties in to the ‘thought’ side of the process.

Now with a completely new skill the ‘imagine’ part will be pretty sketchy; unless, that is, you’ve really done your homework and reviewed my DVD instructions on the matter.

Yet nonetheless, once you have an working image of your goal you must ‘put one down’. You must ‘experience’ it. And what I mean by this is to execute the skill based on your image of it, while really paying attention to the actual physical feelings generated by the doing.

Stage three is merely to reflect on the difference, should there be one. If there is you go back, refine the image, and experience again.

As I say, sometimes the brain doesn’t grab anything ‘new’ from an experience, even though the result is clearly not up to snuff.

In such cases I give myself one additional try. If, after 3 tries I’m not making progress, either I change the context of the image – i.e. go slower – or I move on to something else, temporarily.

Now I recognize that this is very likely ‘old hat’ to you. Yet when a skill we are seeking feels ‘out of our depth’, it is tempting to abandon imagination and thought altogether. And ‘practice’ quickly becomes one empty repetition after another.

The good news is this needn’t happen. Yet if it is, and you feel the time has come to ‘jump start’ the creative process of violin learning, I highly recommend that you join me and a bunch of other passionate individuals for a special weekend this June.

It is where ‘perfect practice’ will acquire a whole new meaning.

All the best, Clayton Haslop