Idea Flowing After Day of Rest

Awoke refreshed and raring to go this month.  After our morning practice I enjoyed breakfast with my wife.  Moving into the practice room at 9:25 am I warmed up with playing the first piece Iever wrote and then improvised.  After 10 minutes of this I was ready to address a piece.  Deciding quickly to play through Senseless Loss I decided first to warm up a bit more in a way that would address playing this tremolo piece.  Immediately I heard something I liked and followed the path.


Fascinated with what was coming out, I began making some quick notes calling it Tremolo Study in Five.  As the idea progressed a working title of Delirium emerged.  Time will tell if this is the title, even if it is a finished piece.  Grateful for the spark though.  Perhaps I need to take a day like yesterday to rest, recharge, and reflect more often.

Photo by Adreson

Playing the Rest

To everything there is a season - Eccliesiastes

Today I needed to rest. So I did.  Still completed my morning practice and had two hours of Qi Gong with Master Li.  Then lunch, a nap, and an evening practicing meditation with the Washington Mindfulness Community.  Some days I need to let go of my doing energy and just be.  Grateful that I did.

Adding Rests

I'm still struggling with a microbe looking to hijack my biochemistry.  I did rest last night and left work early today for more of the same.  As I was practicing tonight, I reflected on rests and recalled Pedro de Alcantatra's exercise of adding a rest in the first beat of every bar.  He details this in his excellent book Indirect Procedures: A Musician's Guide to the Alexander Technique (Clarendon Paperbacks).  This exercise disrupts habitual playing and allows me to notice where I am adding unnecessary tension to the act of playing.

Tonight I applied this to a tremolo piece - Senseless Loss. I modified the exercise to add a rest after every bass note.   By playing bass note/rest/high note/high note/high note, I was able to keep releasing my right elbow and arm.  At one point while pausing to inhibit via the Alexander Technique I noticed what has become a habit, albiet a good one, but could now be getting in my way. I decided that while it is fine to inhibit and direct before bringing my hands to the guitar, why not inhibit with my hands in playing position?  As I did this and followed the directions of allowing my neck, then spine, back, legs, arms to be free I noticed a slight letting go in an area of my upper arm that tends to get tight from playing.

When this tightness manifest, there is also an area on the right side of my neck that is sore as well as an area around my elbow.  Any healthy way I can lessen this tension can only improve my playing.  Chuckling that just how additional rest is improving my health right now, that adding rests in my playing is improving this also.  C'est la vie, viva la siesta.

Surrender

When I'm tired and begin second guessing work that I have been happy with, I now know it's time to sacrifice myself to the gods of sleep. Or at least to a good novel.  So simple, but so easy to forget.

 

Photo by pasukaru76

Rest

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/suki_fotografiert/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Twenty some years ago I had surgery to remove part of my medial meniscus in my left knee. I damaged this playing basketball. During my rehab the physical therapist constantly reminded me that rest was an important part of exercise. I was eager to get well and ready to play hoops and ride my bike some more. I was also 32 at the time and getting my first hints of the aging process.

The hints continue, often times getting louder. Last night I wrote that my tendon was sore in my left wrist. I woke this morning and felt fine. Off to work and slowly the tendon caught my attention, as did stiffness in my left shoulder. Both of these areas are guitar related issues. One aspect of working in a health care facility is access to moist heating pads. On the shoulder while typing in an order and also around the wrist later brought some relief. The decision to take tonight off from playing to allow these areas to rest was also made and has been followed, even though the "chocolate" piece that began to emerge last night is calling to me. But I need to allow my body to rest. I did not take my normal Monday night off and actually played for hours that night, now the forced night off.

I trust the piece will be there tomorrow. Listened to Evening Star by Fripp & Eno while doing an Alexander Technique lie down to stretch out my back. Also did a stretch suggested by a PT today that brought relief to the shoulder. Catching up on personal matters.  The notes I scored last night to capture the beginning of the new possibility just caught my eye. Perhaps it is time to clean my desk so tomorrow I am ready for what the guitar may present to me.

Resting on my breath as I complete this post. My life is good.