APRIL 2022
Deep breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation
A common suggestion to ease anxiety is some form of deep breathing and/or progressive relaxation of muscle activity. Such techniques may be combined with prayer to form the basis for stress response and concentration exercises. Many resources describe bringing awareness to tense muscles, or purposely tensing them to make it easier to relax. In Notes from the Green Room: Coping with Stress and Anxiety in Musical Performance, Paul Salmon and Robert Meyer give detailed instructions on relaxation techniques and offer the following concise summary:
1. Take a deep breath. 2. Close your eyes. 3. Let go of muscle tension. 4. Form a pleasant, relaxing image.4
Negative self-talk and fear
Te performance of many musicians, composers, public speakers, and writers is often hindered by judgmental self-commentary. Instead of being totally absorbed in producing the music, music ministers often distract themselves—worrying whether the listeners like their voice, obsessing about wrong notes just played or sung, wondering whether the choir is really ready to sing the piece, even having negative thoughts about their own looks or comparing their skills to others’ while playing or singing. Awareness of this type of damaging internal conversation can be enlightening. Journaling immediately after a liturgy may help. Ten, to rid oneself of this habit, create a “process cue” or a positive statement to replace each negative thought. Pretending you are a musician whose ministry abilities you admire greatly might be a positive first step. Sing or play while pretending that you are that person, and copy how they sing or play. With practice, the tide of negativity will lessen. Improving one’s ability to focus completely on the spirituality and music of the prayer also helps reduce both internal and external distractions.
Focus
Lack of focus, or mind-wandering, is another common problem. One begins to play or sing on auto-pilot, thinking about other things, until a musical mistake is made. It is possible to relax so completely that the wrong hymn is played, or the organist forgets how many times the Lamb of God litany has been repeated. Musicians need the perfect amount of adrenaline to maintain concentration. Don Greene calls this level “optimal energy”—somewhere between high stress leading to panic and low stress leading to carelessness.
Each musician can become aware of their “sweet spot” by learning to be more aware of this aspect. Here’s a technique you can try: While relaxed, focus on an image, concrete or imaginary, such as a statue, sacred picture, candle, or flower. Every time your focus wanders, bring your attention back to the image. When this can be done for a minute or more (time yourself), combine the exercise with a short prayer—even just one word, “Jesus.” When attention from Jesus wanders, bring the focus back. Next, begin to practice your music in a spirit of prayer, concentrating as completely as possible on one of the following aspects at a time: the text, the melody, the phrasing, the steady beat, the feel of your hands, or breath support. As soon as the mind wanders away from the chosen element, stop, bring your mind back, and either begin again or resume. Practice extending this focus through an entire piece.
Practice
Just as musicians need to practice in order to build technical skill in music-making, so must they regularly engage in prayer, deep breathing, relaxation, and concentration exercises. Te tips in this article will be of limited help if not practiced. Once the musician has learned how to relax and focus, then taking a couple of deep breaths, saying a single phrase, or recalling an image can immediately calm.
29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
