Why You Can’t Play Angry

Here it is a beautiful Saturday morning. Sun’s out, sky’s blue, and I’m here writing to you. Must be something on my mind.

I’ll get right to it.

This morning I started my day with a practice session. Well, actually I made a quick foray to Starbucks first. But never mind that.

I got into the practice right away. Yet when I had exercised myself for some hour and a half – my mind, emotions, AND hands – I ran into a snag with something I was doing.

Now, I’d run into a few other snags in the course of things, but for some reason I let this one get to me, and for a couple of moments I was angry.

In recent days I’ve been watching myself much more closely than usual. So when the emotion of anger then reared up suddenly I observed the result with detachment.

It was immediately clear that the feeling was the result of a judgment made against myself – anger always is, in spite of what we think may be the case.

But boy did it drain the life force from me. It was like being in a car traveling at 70 miles an hour, and suddenly someone turns the engine off.

All creativity and productivity came to a screeching halt.

Now as I said, I’ve been watching myself closely of late. So I caught this lapse into insanity quickly.

First I looked to my breath, and took a nice deep one – you know the kind I’m talking about. Then I willed my mind to think through, in great detail, the passage I had just misplayed. Once I found the soft spots in my mental images I added more detail to them, and I ran them back and forth in my head a few times.

Then I put the fiddle under my chin and led my hands through the passage with the absolute minimum of vertical energy on the strings.

Mind you, I DID play the notes, and accurately, I just did them as a ghost would glide over good old terra firma.

Finally, I summoned up my full passion and hit the thing head on. I gave it both barrels. But anger was not invited to the party.

The result? Well, I wish you’d been here to hear it.

All the best,

Clayton Haslop

P.S. Remember, ‘there is no try, only do.’ So if you’re having trouble ‘doing’, ramp up the will, and squeeze out the self-censure. Oh, and perhaps my ’best seller’ would be a little helpful to you as well.