Evan Bortnick http://musa-vocalis.de/
Gesangsunterricht Wiesbaden
Two quite intense weeks of courses in U. Weimar are over and done. First week was “Performance Training” and the second “Mental Training”.
A young accordionist gave me yet another opportunity to be astounded. I’m not really all that familiar with the accordion. My associations with that instrument have little to do with the concert hall or even a classical mind-set, more like German parties with beer and laughter. Those more familiar with the incredible tone palette of this instrument know how expressive it can be in the hands of a technically masterful, musically sensitive virtuoso. I actually had one of these in the class.
In “Mental Training” the focus is on how an instrumentalist prepares his/her ‘inner game’ and on optimizing the submodalities and inner representations which support the “Flow” state during performance. When I asked this talented accordionist what his inner preparatory checklist was, he answered; “I go to a different Cosmos!” No one in this course knew that I’d been teaching classical and psychological Astrology for around 15 years and I had to really bite my tongue not to begin a mini-lecture on “The Music of the Spheres” and its long tradition in our art. Still, I couldn’t just leave such a juicy inner world unexplored, ESPECIALLY since this young artist played with such lyricism, style and abandon. When I asked what exactly it was like in this different cosmos, he looked a bit askew, checking that I wasn’t making fun of him. When he got clear that I really meant the question and that making this cosmos more familiar would enhance his playing, he began to describe it…..”it’s a place of great peace, of stillness, where the audience all listen with an open heart and where HARMONY is the highest of values!” When I asked if it was his intention through his playing of bringing us, his listeners, closer to this world, he answered yes. I found the entire exchange not only quite impressive for one so young, but also deeply moving. I noticed that what he was describing was a place I knew quite well.
When I told my wife the story yesterday morning over breakfast, she commented as well how moved she was (and she didn’t even hear the playing!!!) and that she too was quite familiar with this cosmos. It was also clear that she always returned back here with slight disappointment in this realm. I’d be willing to bet that not a few of you readers are also quite familiar with such a cosmos. Which evolutionary laws bring us into contact with such ‘places’? What rules of creation dictate or suggest the existence of such realms? One answer is quite simple; we don’t REALLY come from here! Sounds ridiculous, I know!
One thing’s for sure; MUSIC, as an expression of The Muse, well played and well received, brings us intimately close to such a place!
Evan Bortnick http://musa-vocalis.de/
Gesangsunterricht Wiesbaden
