I like big books, and I cannot lie.

Well, at least, that’s the inscription on a tote bag I pinned to a “cool stuff” Pinterest board my freshman year of high school. But, I’m not lying when I say that books (short and long) have been a big part of my life.

The daughter of a librarian and three generations of english teachers, I seldom spent long without a book in my hand. Our car rides, time in the waiting room, lazy afternoons, and moments before sleep were accompanied by — if not featured — a good book.

And most of my fundamental understanding of the world and the way it does or can work has come from books. I remember the first time I uncovered I literary symbol on my own, the pain I felt at the pit of my stomach when a book ended before I wanted it to, and the sense of independence and rebelliousness I developed as I snuck Marx and Nietzsche around my conservative, rural hometown.

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One question I ask myself often is how I can practice the skills I need in lessons outside of actual lessons.

I don’t want my 100th repetition of teaching a proper bowhold to happen in my 100th lesson on bowholds with my student. The spacing of my students, irregularity in the content of lessons, and uniqueness of each child doesn’t provide the opportunity for repetition that I require in my own students’ practice for them to build skill.

Furthermore, it could be absolutely detrimental to the growth of my students for me to make the careless mistakes that are part of the learning process on my students.

In an ideal world I would be able to practice on a simulation of a private lesson, as airplane pilots practice on flight simulators. While I’m still puzzling out the technology and circumstances to take advantage of, I’ve developed a few practice strategies to improve my teaching skills outside of practicing during actual lessons.

One of them is using some of the time I spend walking to and from campus or running errands to mentally run through my sequences.

For example, I’ll think through the way I [Read more…]

The first thing I did when I heard the Akropolis Reed Quintet was coming to town was type their name into Google. At the recommendation of my chamber music coach, Professor Will Fedkenheuer, I browsed the Akropolis website, joined their email newsletter, and followed links to updated youtube, twitter, and instagram profiles. Their online presence was interesting, aesthetically compelling, and frankly unusual as a relatively recently founded classical music ensemble. As someone who has chosen a professional path in the classical music industry, but also has a keen interest in business and entrepreneurship, I found myself wondering how Akropolis navigated the complexities of both worlds seemingly exceptionally. I wondered how, with a commitment to masterful musicianship, they were able to settle on an elegant organizational structure and unified mission, with funny instagram posts to boot. [Read more…]

Carol Dweck’s research into static and dynamic understandings of skill development have been referenced and discussed often.

Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, outlined the way people can understood themselves as having a fixed or growth mindsets. They might believe, as those with fixed mindsets do, that skill is innate, and that humans are fundamentally good or bad at something. Or, like those with a growth mindset, they might believe that at any moment everyone possesses particular skill set, but they have the potential to change and develop any skill.

Perhaps the most significant thing Dweck has to teach us is that mindset is not a matter of decision. Fixed or growing perceptions of our own ability is programmed into us based on our environment and experience. [Read more…]

What we call “I” is just a swinging door that moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

Shunryu Suzuki

A tradition I have been investing my energy into recently is Soto Zen Buddhism.

I didn’t start the semester expecting to do a deep, physical, intellectual, and spiritual dive into Zen Buddhism this semester, but I think the freedom from commitments and a desire to move toward authenticity has led me on this path.

Soto Zen Buddhism, especially in the America tradition, is a philosophy of life around the ideas of emptiness, suffering, one-ness, non-violence, gratitude, change, and truth. It is practiced through a commitment to zazen, seated meditation.

The mediation is not guided or prescribed, but by sitting in stillness and silence one can begin to understand what it means to be. Many zen centers, including the one I practice at in Austin, has three or four opportunities a day to sit zazen with the zen community.

After noticing shifts in my manner, thought patterns, and stress after a few weeks of zazen, I began to wonder if I could include meditation more directly into my teaching routine.

Since then I’ve experimented with various forms of seated meditation before and after I teach my students. The routine I’ve settled on is a brief, 2-5 minute meditation in the practice room where I teach immediately before and after my students are with me for our lesson.

To be specific, my routine is as follows… [Read more…]