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Fear-Based Playing: the Mind and the Ego

Although music is commonly regarded as a gift… many suffer great pain and fear in attempting to play it. Some of play as if there were a gun being held to our head, and there usually is — because we’re holding it!

What? It’s true!

Oh, you know what I’m talking about. The awkward — and sometime painful — posture, wrinkled-up foreheads, reddened, suffocating faces. I — I’m sure you have, too — see it all the time. And to be completely honest here, I’ve gone through it all, to the extent that I was physically hurting myself.

I’m a saxophone player. In my case, it was the tense, awkwardly painful posture that hurt my wrist and fingers, the fear embedded deep within that wrinkled up my forehead, and the fear — of course, we can’t take any credits away from the ego — that really, really messed me up as a musician.

In “Effortless Mastery”, Kenny Werner puts it this way:

Why is this so? As stated before, many of us have formed an unhealthy linkage between who we are and how we play. We fear being inadequate and that leads to ineffective playing, practising, and listening. Fear closes all doors to the true self, that brilliant center where the ecstasy lies.

I know, there’s a little bit of cheese in that passage. But if we’ll really open our eyes and look at it, fear does close all doors. Werner describes the musical experience as “feeling more exquisite than the sweetest nectar the world has to offer”. However, fear allows no of that to happen.

Recognizing the Fear

Apart from what’s mentioned above, how else do we recognize fear when we play? Simply put it this way: anything one does that isn’t completely organic and natural (we’ll talk about this part later when we get to the meditative aspect of thing — yup, believe me, it gets crazy!) comes from fear.

Ah ha! That’s why the first thing we talked about, in our previous post, was about giving up the need to sound good. What’s there to fear if every note we play is the most beautiful note we have ever heard?

Where Does Fear Originate?

Where does fear originate? From the mind? Yes, but not the “universal mind,” or the “over mind,” or the “collective unconscious.” Rather, fear originates in our “little mind.” One may call that little mind the ego.

Whoohoo! Here we go. The ego. The “I” mentality. It is the:

lens through which we perceive our separateness from each other. Separateness invites comparison and competition. This is where problems originate: he’s younger than I, more talented, and so forth.

Ego kills! Ego draws in negativity to music. Fear comes from the ego. Afraid of sounding bad? Ego. Afraid the player beside you plays better? Ego. Get my point?

For now, the first step we should take is to loose the ego. Do not be afraid to sound bad. Who’s got to say that’s “good”, “bad”, “ugly”, or “pure”? Loose the ego and let yourself come through. The player beside you who plays better is sharing his/her music. Great! Enjoy it! Appreciate it! Be a part of it. Loose the separateness and gain a sense of unity.

Tyrannized by our egos, we live in a state the Hindus call maya, or delusion. Engrossed in maya, we can’t see the magnificence of who we really are. We think we need so much. Desires multiply, and we know nothing of real inner happiness. Fear sabotages us at every turn.

Fear-Based Playing

Fears causes us to loose touch with ourselves and “ignore the ideas that want to come naturally.” Werner says that fear of sounding bad — what we discussed in the previous post — “robs the music of all its strength”.

In fear, we expect; with love, we accept.

That’s it for today. Next time: Fear-based pratising!