Good teachers know a lot.  At mine’s suggestion, during my practice session yesterday I tried to play with abandon, just like we talked about in our Tuesday lesson.  Play joyfully!  Don’t worry about the notes!  Get my heart into it! Just let go!  We were talking about a concerto, after all, not an etude.  The music is certainly worthy!

So I did it – in my final run-through yesterday I really put it all out there.   I was shocked to find that the music poured out of me and I felt a real breakthrough.  It was exhilarating and powerful – prior to yesterday, I had never accessed that feeling in any pursuit other than on the karate training floor when I knock out a kata, and even there, after twelve years of practice, I can’t tap into that every day.  While I don’t think I’ll be able to replicate this on the violin anywhere nearly as often as I can in my physical art, it was an inspiring moment.

I was pleased to notice that as I played my heart out I really played mostly correctly, too.  This Seitz concerto is quite tough for me, and while it’s coming along I still have a long way to go on the technical components.  Teacher was right – it was time to let go.

I guess I needed permission to play like that.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan