When I play flute, my right hand often cramps with superfluous effort. After all, it doesn't take much strength at all to close the holes in the body of the flute with the keys. I've seen Youtubes of a girl of eight doing it fantastically, and I'm sure my hands are stronger than hers. But the application of that strength is entirely unnecessary.
My hand cramps because I'm trying to do a bunch of things all at the same time. I'm holding the flute up, I'm pressing down the D# key with my right pinky both to stabilize the instrument and to improve the sound of the notes from E up. I also have to raise my left index finger for D# and D, but I have to close it when I go up to E, and when I go from D to E, I have to open the D# key again. This is an awkward fingering compared to saxophone or clarinet (which has awkwardnesses of its own), and I'm not used to it. So in my effort to do it right, my hand cramps up, especially when I try to do it fast, which, of course, is when I should be applying the least strength, to obtain agility.
So in my last few days of practicing, I've been concentrating part of the time on relaxing my fingers as I play. The problem is that when you concentrate on a movement, even if your purpose is to relax it, you often make it more effortful. How do you make an effort to relax?
It's the same in pottery (and in typing, for that matter). You have to exert enough strength to control the clay, but not so much that you lose control. At this moment I'm listening to the tenor saxophonist, Houston Person, a perfect example of total relaxation and total control.
Yesterday at my pottery class, one of the other students told me that she could see by the way I was working that I loved the clay, which was true and perceptive of her -- I don't know what she saw. I want to play music in a way that also shows how much I love the sounds I'm making, and to write in a way that shows how much I love the language I'm using. That's not something you can try to do. It's something you have to allow to happen by being relaxed, so that you are free to apply the real effort, not the technical effort but the expressive effort.
My hand cramps because I'm trying to do a bunch of things all at the same time. I'm holding the flute up, I'm pressing down the D# key with my right pinky both to stabilize the instrument and to improve the sound of the notes from E up. I also have to raise my left index finger for D# and D, but I have to close it when I go up to E, and when I go from D to E, I have to open the D# key again. This is an awkward fingering compared to saxophone or clarinet (which has awkwardnesses of its own), and I'm not used to it. So in my effort to do it right, my hand cramps up, especially when I try to do it fast, which, of course, is when I should be applying the least strength, to obtain agility.
So in my last few days of practicing, I've been concentrating part of the time on relaxing my fingers as I play. The problem is that when you concentrate on a movement, even if your purpose is to relax it, you often make it more effortful. How do you make an effort to relax?
It's the same in pottery (and in typing, for that matter). You have to exert enough strength to control the clay, but not so much that you lose control. At this moment I'm listening to the tenor saxophonist, Houston Person, a perfect example of total relaxation and total control.
Yesterday at my pottery class, one of the other students told me that she could see by the way I was working that I loved the clay, which was true and perceptive of her -- I don't know what she saw. I want to play music in a way that also shows how much I love the sounds I'm making, and to write in a way that shows how much I love the language I'm using. That's not something you can try to do. It's something you have to allow to happen by being relaxed, so that you are free to apply the real effort, not the technical effort but the expressive effort.
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