The practice of self-compassion: radical growth for musicians

'…Both in meditation and in daily life, moments of pure being are rare. Yet if we were at the end of our life looking back, the experiences that would matter - such as feeling at home with ourselves, connected to others and fully alive - arise from this open presence.' (Tara Brach, 'Radical Compassion')

It’s a Friday morning halfway through our second UK lockdown. My mind and body are numb with tiredness after months of online teaching, writing copy for a funding application and trying to support my frustrated and demotivated teenagers. I empathise with them. We are all missing live connection with others and realising how vital human interaction is for our minds and bodies to function well.

I wearily log into another Zoom meeting, a new half hour session run by Amanda and Angela, who will lead us through some ways into clowning. I expect to enjoy it as, a week previously, I was enchanted by a performance they offered online. I am however completely taken aback to discover at the end of the session that I feel totally re-energised, eyes shining, body refreshed and emotions uplifted by the laughter, tenderness and expressivity I have just witnessed in myself and others.

What just happened?

The quality of my attention has just shifted radically. No longer held captive by a mind caught in the tunnel vision of analytical self-consciousness, my attention has shifted into a state of alert soft focus. This allows me to listen to and follow impulses that begin first in my body, not my head. Spontaneous expression of unexpected voices I didn’t know I carried within have emerged effortlessly. The body ‘knows’. By the body I also mean my voice and my emotions.

'Enabling ourselves to find our own unique playfulness is nothing less than an expression of radical self-love. It takes us out of conformity, agendas, known outcomes, standards and into the tenderness of the unknown. Here lies freedom and possibility. Play prepares us for an ever-changing reality. It opens us up to novelty, innovation, wonderment and awe.' (Red Herrings – clowns, 2021)

What I have learned through practices such as yoga and meditation or musical improvisation and clowning is how to trust myself. When my mind is no longer held in the grip of old negative conditioning, new paths can open up. I am free to explore creative impulses with curiosity because the inner chatter that tells me 'I can’t do this' has faded into the background. I also become more attentive and responsive to the voices of others. Curiosity replaces judgement and self-consciousness.

One such path has been to start to compose and make arrangements of original songs by folk and world musicians for my string trio, Mythos, to join with them. Our collaboration with Northumbrian singers, Brothers Gillespie, and Provencal vocal polyphonic trio, Tant Que Li Siam, has consolidated under the name Hirondelle and ideas for future projects include the creation of new music-theatre work together dealing with themes of displacement and belonging.

Musicians are trained to listen deeply, yet often not encouraged to pay close attention to their own inner voices and feelings. This can lead to fear of failing and a deep sense of unworthiness. In conventional music training, the focus is all too often on meeting others’ expectations instead of being helped to trust our creativity and the natural expressivity of our body through allowing it to play.

Until relatively recently I only ever created anything from my imagination as a spontaneous act of self-healing after a difficult life event, or when I occasionally took ‘time off’ and let go into being rather than doing.

Nowadays, the practice of easing into spontaneous expression through allowing my mind to go into ‘soft focus’ is becoming the bedrock of my practice instead of something I only occasionally permit myself to do.

I have begun to wake up more fully to the realisation that we go through life in a trance unless we learn how to practice staying awake and in the present. The pandemic brought us all to a halt, and has given me the gift of more time to explore new ways to practice being in the moment and attentive.

The impact of this on my musical life has been not only to become more creative but also to help me bring a quality of ease and presence to performing. Just as importantly, a more spacious mind allows me to pay more attention to the world around me.

'When our attention is intact we can find the serenity of mind to look around and see those who are in need of genuine solidarity…'  (Ece Temelkuran in 'Together', 2021)

Just as it isn’t possible to bring playfulness to a creative task when we are inhibited by self-limiting thought, we tend to remain blind to the situations of others while we remain caught in conditioned fear and judgement. This has been highlighted over and over in the last year by the myriad of voices speaking up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Many highlight the radical shifts needed in education and in how we focus our collective attention on matters of racial prejudice and power imbalance.

I would suggest that, while we are caught up in judgements and opinions about what has gone wrong over generations and how to ‘fix it’, we are not doing the deeper work of listening either to the guidance of our own humanity, or with open compassion to the felt experience of others.

For musicians, it has become vital to develop resilience to meet the changes facing both society as a whole and the music industry in particular. Perhaps there is a calling for some to dream of new ways to contribute. Classically trained musicians are fortunate to learn from a long and fine tradition but equally suffer from habits of thinking that have become outdated. Relying on conventions of the past and expecting work to continue to come from the same sources as 50 years ago no longer seems realistic or even desirable.

'The public convention (the public concert) established in the late 18th century by the newly consolidated bourgeois class established much of the core repertory of the modern Canon, in the process giving itself cultural roots, ‘inventing’ tradition and creating a fetishism of the great work which is still with us today.’ (Jim Samson, 'Canon', 2001)

Even before Covid-19, we have been witnessing a rapidly shifting landscape through the development of technology, politically-driven cuts to arts funding and the presence of an ever-growing pool of talented musicians competing for paid opportunities to perform and create, from institutions, organisations and funding bodies. This is likely to be far more widely felt post-Covid and as we integrate new practices in response to Black Lives Matter.

Classical musicians need to actively reimagine what inclusive performance spaces might be like and how they can engage with more diverse audiences. Participation in classical music starts with education and radically new ways of learning and teaching are needed which will appeal to new generations of aspiring musicians. Young people of today have been exposed to global cultural influences via the internet and many have highly developed musical and creative skills through their use of digital technology.

Many musicians are looking at how to upskill and develop new tools so that we can respond to new opportunities for connecting with people through music, be it in our own communities, or through collaboration with other artists. These include getting to grips with digital technology and exploring our own musical creativity.

While there will always be a place for inspirational performances of great classical music, many trained musicians are also seeking to create their own new music, seeking fresh collaborative partners with whom to create work that has an immediate resonance for people alive today.

We all face the challenge of learning to cope with the rapid speed of change in contemporary life. Practices that support my ability to bring my attention into the present moment have become important to my own ability to cope, even to thrive. There is huge potential for personal and collective reinvention of what it means to be a musician today and how to ensure sustainability of the art of music making. In order to succeed we will need more than ever to bring compassion and clear attention to the task.

Sophie Renshaw is currently a visiting tutor of viola and chamber music at Royal Conservatoire Scotland, as well as an arranger and composer. She is one of the team at InsideOut Musicians (IOM), a creative community of musicians. For more information on the work of IOM click here.