Practising physical and mental relaxation 

RESTING POISE

Method

Just rest your bow on any string at any point along the bow. Do this as if you were about to play. Be as still as you like. Wait. Stay like that for 30-60 seconds. If you start to feel any discomfort try to release it, either by relaxing more, or by subtly adjusting your way of holding this pose so that it is more comfortable. Find your greater comfort with interest in whether it improves or damages your readiness to draw the bow beautifully. ‘Success’ is achieved when this studied readiness to move is done so well that you lose all feelings of holding and lifting. But this is not numbness!   

Comment

All of this is not the opposite of playing. It is the relaxation within playing.

The same is done with our left hands by just barely touching a string somewhere and waiting before pulling the string down.

THINKING NOTHING

Method

Just ignore your thoughts until they hardly bother to come into your mind. Don’t be afraid of the open attentiveness and thoughtlessness that result. You still are ‘there’, aren’t you?

Then listen to sounds, or music, or make music, without the cognitive distractions.  

Comment

If you think you are bad at thinking nothing, especially when you think you are making music, it should do no harm to practice un-thinking. An empty mind is perfect for filling with sound.  It is likely that lots of beautiful playing comes via vacant minds that are free fully to attend to sounds. When thoughts appear at a time when they are not wanted you need to leave them alone. They are benign (no matter how unattractive), and without your attention and encouragement they will disappear. So what to do is not hard to understand. Rather, it is the actual doing of the concept that is challenging in that it calls for patience and calm persistence – qualities not normally in abundant oversupply. Allow your skill to increase over some weeks and months. If through this ‘musical’ practice you become a less anxious person who sleeps better then you may consider yourself even more fortunate.