Silence the Critic Within

The critic I’m talking about today is not the constructive evaluator that assists you in making forward progress in your playing.

No, the critic I’m talking about is the one the sits in judgment, depleting and disabling your passion and confidence. The one that isn’t interested in helping you improve. Only in tearing you down.

I can’t tell you how many times, in my younger days, I allowed that voice to turn a minor error into a major derailment. I’d be playing along in a concert, make a small error, and find myself drowning in a raging sea of self-loathing and inadequacy.

If you have one of those critics inside, you have my permission and whole-hearted encouragement to fire him/her, effective immediately.

For most of us, however, that’s easier said then done. The little bugger was born of some past authority figure, after all.

It doesn’t listen to YOU. You listen to IT. You don’t have the real power, IT does.

So, chances are you will never silence the critic by pushing it out. In fact, the ‘will-power’ approach will often lead to further frustration and greater feelings of powerlessness.

What you must do is suffocate it out of existence. You must focus so powerfully on your playing visualizations that there is literally no air left to sustain a competing voice.

In short, you’re going to grow your way out.

And many a fiddler are doing just this at break-neck speed by using the practice strategies, focus techniques, and detailed playing images found in ”Kreutzer for Violin Mastery”.

If you don’t have it, you may be pushing a locomotive uphill. And unnecessarily at that. After all, this program is the fruit of four decades of my playing experience and includes much wisdom passed to me from one of the greatest ever.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop