what is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of bringing awareness to your thoughts, feelings and emotions that are arising in the present moment, with kindness and acceptance. It is noticing what is happening within you and outside of you without judgement.

What are the benefits?

Playing mindfully can benefit relieving stress and anxiety, improve focus and concentration, helps you to self-regulate (the ability to calm yourself down; collect yourself), helps you to feel good about yourself and develop a positive sense of self, builds confidence, helps you to solve problems and boosts your immune system. Mindfulness helps you to listen to yourself and to hear what your mind and body are telling you.

The practice of MIndfulness and music

Mindfulness helps to create a deeper relationship to playing music. By being aware of your body, senses, feelings, emotions, surrounding environment and thoughts, you can form a positive connection to practicing and performing. Full embodiment playing is the practice of being aware of the body, such as breath, relaxing areas of tension, and bringing your full attention to the music in the present moment.

Below is an example of choosing a positive mindset while playing the piano composition, Rustles of Spring. Notice the reminders to take deep breaths, relax and enjoy yourself. These reminders help the student to be aware of tension in the body while working on a challenging section, to bring relaxation into awareness through the breath and to choose a kind or beneficial thought to help them create an enjoyable experience while playing.

Mindfully practicing can also help to reduce performance anxiety (also known as stage fright). Practicing mindfully improves focus, concentration, memory, enhances confidence and brings awareness by observing your thoughts and feelings while playing music. The process centers around visualizing the music as an anchor (0r focal point), and noticing. Noticing if your mind wanders, noticing negative self-talk, noticing distractions, noticing your breath, noticing sensations in your body, etc., while gently returning to the music over and over again. In essence, this is a conscious way of training your attention and training your mind to accept whatever is happening in the moment. When practicing with curiosity, kindness and self-approval, we are able to create a friendly and beneficial experience. This approach applies to performance as well.

Mindfully improvising (doodling)* is a wonderful way to practice non-judgement and self-acceptance. Improvising or doodling can open up a deeper awareness within you and to the music by simply noticing wandering thoughts, body sensations, emotions and distractions while preparing to play. Visualization, while improvising, is a powerful and effective technique to help stay in the present moment and to possibly recognize habitual thoughts (such as working through your inner critic). Doodling with eyes closed is another exploratory approach to trusting your intuitive guidance and breaking out of analytical and conditioned thinking.

* I changed “improvising ” to doodling when I noticed that the thought of improvising made me feel pressured to play “perfectly.” “Doodling”, however, made me feel more relaxed, carefree and at ease.

I teach Mindfulness on Zoom too! Contact me at danettewhelanmusic@gmail.com for more info.

I am a certified MNDFL instructor.