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You're listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod.
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I am Eric Hunter.
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I'm Clara Zhang.
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I'm Yuki Mi Song.
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Our guest today is Madeleine Bruiser, pianist and author of the highly acclaimed book, The
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Art of Practicing, A Guide to Making Music from the Heart.
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Madeleine is also the founder of the Art of Practicing Institute, which is dedicated to
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helping musicians improve their playing by releasing physical and mental tension, often
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helping them to deal with performance anxiety or even recover from physical injuries.
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She has helped thousands of musicians around the globe, and we are very lucky to have her
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here today.
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Everyone, please welcome Madeleine Bruiser.
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Welcome.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you very much.
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So I wanted to start with a little personal anecdote about my experience last summer with
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Madeleine's Art of Practicing Institute, because it was very influential on me.
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And I'm going to try not to go on too long because we want to let Madeleine talk.
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But it was one week I was able to attend because it was online because of the pandemic.
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And it was completely transformative for me.
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I had kind of been dwindling down my performing experience the last few years, focusing more
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on composition and just kind of feeling like I wanted to get out of it.
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And that week at the Art of Practicing Institute just really turned things around for me.
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And on the very last day, the last thing we did was everybody went around and said how
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they felt about things, what they got out of the experience.
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And it was supposed to be really quick, like 30, 60 seconds, because there are a lot of
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people.
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And I just had this very tearful, just, oh, this is fine.
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I found myself again going on for minutes and minutes.
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And I wanted to thank you for that first, Madeleine.
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And I hope this interview will inspire people to check out your materials and have similar
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revelations.
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Let's talk a little bit about the Art of Practicing and the Art of Practicing Institute.
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Can you tell our listeners exactly what it is, what is this all about?
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What do you do?
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You know, basically what I do is help people connect to themselves so that they can connect
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to the music and to their audience.
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And this whole approach that I call the Art of Practicing is in segments, but they all
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blend together.
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So first of all, it's about how to use your body and being much more aware of the body
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and how it works and what it feels like.
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So there's a whole lot of information about that.
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And a lot of it is surprising to people.
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Some of it is surprising to everybody, actually.
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And I think that's because it developed through many years of meditation practice in which
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I learned to sit still and notice what's going on inside of me instead of being kind of unconscious
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and reacting to all this energy without even relating to it.
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So what kind of things do you find that everybody is surprised to learn about physically?
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I think the most universal thing that is surprising to every pianist, and it also applies in the
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work I do with other instruments sometimes, is basically how to sit effectively at the
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piano so that your energy is really available to you.
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And I think what is not commonly understood at all is that the relationship to the ground
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is central.
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In other words, just as with an athlete, let's say a baseball pitcher pitches the ball, they
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don't like lean forward and pitch the ball.
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They get rooted in the ground.
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They kind of bend their knees a little bit, and they have that power that comes from the
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ground, and then they have power in their arm to deliver the pitch.
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And I often demonstrate this to people in workshops by having the whole audience deliver
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a punch into the air in an upright position and then compromise their posture, deliver
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the punch, and everybody notices that their power is compromised.
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What's really great about this at the piano is that there's tremendous physical pleasure
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from the feeling of the play of forces within the body.
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The feet are solid.
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The sitting bones are solid on the bench.
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And then when you spring from the keys, for instance, in the loud chord, you have a third
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contact point, which is the bottom of the keys.
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And so as you play and different movements are happening, there is a lot of energy going
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through the body that's very powerful and feels really great, and it gives you a lot
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of momentum in delivering the performance, basically.
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Whereas if you're kind of like this, which I used to do myself, moving around a lot in
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reaction to how the music is affecting you instead of just being there for it to enter
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into you and to go through, if you do this, you can't really feel even the arm weight
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very clearly and can't feel the energy that comes back into your arm from the bottom of
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the keys when you do this.
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So you're putting energy out all the time and you're not getting anything back in.
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This is really transformative for every pianist I've worked with.
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And as I said, with other instruments, it always applies to.
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Now, these days, people are working with the Alexander technique quite a bit, which definitely
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is very helpful and along the same lines.
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But I do think that what I'm doing at the piano is unique because it's very, very clear
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and defined exactly what the relationship is between the seat, the sitting bones and
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this.
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So that they're all interplaying and you really feel like something is playing in your body.
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And the whole point of the approach is that music lives in the body.
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So we have to be aware of the body and really connected to it.
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So how you sit at the piano has a huge impact on what's going on inside of the body and
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what your options are for movement and for self-expression.
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OK, so we're really talking about the efficient use of energy, basically, right?
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Right.
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It's basic biomechanics.
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And I think that there's just I think the issue is, which was certainly the issue with
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me until I was 37 and discovered this physical approach, is that music is so powerful in
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itself.
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It's so emotional for us.
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We love it so much.
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And so we get swept away with this very intense feeling.
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We just, you know, react like this, which is completely understandable as if you were
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dancing to the music.
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But we're not dancing when we're playing.
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What's happening is the music is dancing within our body and we make room for it in there
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and can really tune into that dance that's happening on the inside.
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And all that energy is free to play out and really carry to the listeners.
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I never thought of this before, but it's almost like we have to balance the subjective experience
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of our emotions as we feel the music, right, with the kind of objectivity of the body.
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You know?
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Well, actually, I think the body is the most subjective experience we have.
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It's intensely personal.
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And we actually cut ourselves off from what it has to tell us and what it can do, what
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it can do for us, what it can give us when we don't use it according to fundamental biomechanical
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principles.
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I mean, it's designed to be used in a certain way, and athletes are generally taught that.
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Musicians generally are not so much because we consider ourselves artists and we are artists.
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And so we feel like, well, an artist is a completely different kind of person from an
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athlete.
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But when you're playing an instrument, whatever the instrument is, you are an athlete.
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Doesn't mean you're not an artist, obviously.
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The athletics is in the service of the art and of the human being who is making the music
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and who's listening to the music.
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So I think it's my experience is that what's going on in the body is intensely subjective
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and that our biggest problem in our life in general is not having the space or time or
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encouragement or guidance to tune into what's happening inside of us.
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So then we're not conscious of how we feel.
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So then we get mad at so and so when it's not their fault or all these things happen
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or we don't do justice to the music.
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And the other thing about music in terms of the body, there's two other things.
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One is the sound has to live in the body.
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So you have this play of physical forces from the movement.
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And then there's all this sound which is supposed to move us.
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If we're not moved by the music, literally, physically inside, viscerally, we can't move
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our audience.
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Everything depends on us having a deeply personal connection to the sound on the visceral level
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and really being able to tune into that.
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Most often what happens is students are told, well, the phrase goes up and it comes down.
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So play it like that.
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And they're operating from their head.
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It doesn't mean that the phrase doesn't go up and down, but it means that within that
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general up and down, there are continuous flow of specifics of this harmony, that harmony,
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how they're juxtaposed, what that does to you as a person inside.
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And this kind of artist makes people go wild basically.
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Because then that body energy goes directly into their body.
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That's what happens in a performance.
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So how do we cultivate the mental state for that?
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And what are some obstacles that we might encounter along the way?
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So what is now very widely talked about is mindfulness.
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I actually wasn't trained that way as a meditator to talk about mindfulness a lot.
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It was more about awareness.
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But mindfulness is an excellent word because people understand it now.
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It's part of the vernacular.
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And it really amounts to practicing connecting to yourself, hopefully on a daily basis, so
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that your life works better basically.
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You don't trip over things and say the wrong thing and all of that.
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But you have space in your mind.
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So the general problem we have is that the mind is very crowded.
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It's very busy.
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It's thinking about yesterday and tomorrow and next week.
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And it's feeling all this pressure.
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It has to do things and it has to do them by a certain time.
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And it's got a lot of worry, like, well, what if that person really didn't like me because
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of what I said?
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Should I apologize?
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Maybe I should.
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Maybe I shouldn't.
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And it goes on and on forever.
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So this is the busyness of the mind.
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Mindfulness is a practice that allows you to tune into your natural ability to be mindful.
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In other words, to be aware of what's happening right now.
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So the practice of, for example, noticing your breathing and then when you notice that
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you're thinking, you come back to your breathing.
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It's a very basic fundamental practice, but it trains literally the brain to return to
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the present moment.
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It's interesting that it also, when the brain opens, when the mind opens and relaxes, the
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body starts to relax.
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The perceptions open, the heart opens.
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It's like you take a little vacation.
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May I jump in because I really like the word mindfulness because it's a really it word
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right now.
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You know, every yoga class you take or meditation class you take, there's this mindfulness is
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the word that you hear a lot.
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Is it a connection between your body and what you do and your senses?
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Mindfulness is the practice of letting the mind settle down and relax.
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And then naturally, the natural acuteness of your sense perceptions just opens up.
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Always there, it's always ready to be there for you.
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But when the mind settles down, you can suddenly see and smell and taste and touch, actually
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feel things and respond in a more natural and beneficial way.
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So that includes how you touch the piano and your connection to the sounds that you're
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playing, that you're hearing coming out of the piano.
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Being aware or mindful of that actual note, those actual sounds, instead of being in your
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head and sort of singing in your head, there's a really there's a world of difference between
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hearing the music in your head while you're playing and actually being able to hear it
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as it's coming toward you out of the instrument.
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Oh, yeah, wonderful description.
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Yeah.
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And that sounds more really organic, true to yourself instead of just reading a note
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and like becoming sometimes you feel like you're part of just a machine, you know, just
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reading a note and play certain ways.
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But that might if you have used that mindfulness of playing, performing and practicing, I feel
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like it's more organic approach.
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Yes, the whole thing is very organic.
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I'm glad you chose that word.
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That's excellent.
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Thank you.
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Can you explain?
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I feel like people might be able to understand how mindful awareness can bring you back to
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the present moment when you're like worried about something that you have to do tomorrow
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or some little mistake that you made yesterday.
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I'm talking about kind of minor anxieties.
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What about something like long term trauma or like severe performance anxiety or something
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that happened to you long ago in the past that's stuck with you?
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How does mindfulness help with something like that?
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I'm really glad you asked that.
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I think that there's a line between meditation practice or mindfulness practice and real
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healing work.
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I mean, I do feel from my experience, definitely that mindfulness is a healing practice.
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But if you want to go really deep with a very serious issue, psychotherapy can be essential.
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There's a practice called the healing code.
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We teach at our programs and I teach my students a practice called focusing with a capital
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F where you close your eyes and tune into what's going on inside the body.
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That can be very revelatory where you get in touch with things on a kind of like a dream-like
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level where imagery can arise and you realize your own wisdom is really in there.
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But in terms of being traumatized, let's say the common example, the parents or the teacher
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or both abused the young musician, the little kid.
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Most likely that person's going to need some psychotherapy to really work through that
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because it goes too deep.
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It damages too much.
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It's too big of a wound.
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What I have heard, which I really believe is that when trauma happens, it happens in
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the presence of a person who hurts you.
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And having the presence of another person who heals you is necessary because that person
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is giving you the opposite message.
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And you need space to feel your feelings instead of telling you that they don't matter.
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That's really important.
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And I also feel that community is essential.
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For instance, with the Art of Practicing Institute programs and with the Masterclass series,
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we have time for discussion or a conversation.
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So when people can have a conversation and start talking about their fear of performance
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and what happened to them and what they're afraid of and all these things, this is really
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support that can heal also because you're not alone anymore.
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And I think musicians are beginning to talk about this more.
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They're not hiding it in the closet so much.
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It's really, really important.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I agree.
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And just speaking from my own experience, I'm glad you pointed that out and reminded
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me because we would have some long meditations in the morning, the beginning of every day,
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which would be kind of intensely personal experience.
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And then there would be multiple group sessions following that where we got to kind of decompress
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and sometimes figure out what it all meant, bounce ideas off of, you know, that's absolutely
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critical to the process.
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I was just going to share a little bit last year when I started with Madeline and I remember
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those sessions, you know, it was right before COVID.
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We didn't even know how serious it was going to be.
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You know, it was just everything, you know, when you this is so fitting because I think
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we're going to release this in May.
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It's mindfulness, awareness, minds, right?
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And this is still new for me.
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You know, I have I always said I was atheist.
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You know, I was not really spiritual and grew up in Asia.
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I was, you know, I had a mother.
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So and I felt pretty confident with myself, you know, when I perform.
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But I also realized when I studied with Madeline, there's a little bit of me that I think it
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was during those group discussions that I finally realized I was being that way.
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So out there because I was trying to prove something.
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And because, you know, I grew up in Asia, in China, and I didn't have a very traditional
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training background.
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And so I was always there to fight, you know, and so I somehow made it in New York.
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And it's just, you know, I feel like everything is just when you Madeline, when you're talking
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about census with Kimi and I'm like, mind blowing, you know, like my mind is just because
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when how I knew of Madeline's work from years ago when I was in grad school in Massachusetts,
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I remember I had this one time I didn't perform well or something.
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A teacher gave me her book at Madeline's book and I held on to this book for a very long
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time.
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And last year, you know, everything was going well in New York.
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And then two years ago, right before COVID, there was something traumatic happened in
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my life.
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You know, it's just crazy personal things, but I don't even know how to deal with it.
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And then all of a sudden, I decided to go to a meditation retreat.
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And the day after I returned, Madeline kind of just showed up, you know, like, and it
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was through PTC.
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And then I got the chance to study with Madeline.
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It was just so inspiring.
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And I remember when I performed the finally after the discussion that I realized I was
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able to just be myself.
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I didn't have to prove to anyone anymore.
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I can perform when I want to.
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I didn't have to have too many concerts, too little concerts.
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And then one thing about the body too, and I have more questions later on, but I will
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just share this a little bit.
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As a person who has really experienced this, I'm also an amateur ballet dancer.
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And then I remember what Madeline described when I am on stage.
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I'm so hyper.
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I'm so excited.
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It's almost the same thing as my ballet teacher tells me.
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Clara, you're too jumpy.
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So yeah, so this is really amazing.
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I'm sure we'll have more to talk about, but thank you for letting me share that.
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You're welcome.
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Thank you.
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So, Madeline, let me ask you, what are some problems that people or your students typically
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come to you with?
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You know, what are some common issues that people want to work on with you?
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Well, injury recovery is definitely one of them.
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Sure.
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And physical tension in general.
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And performance anxiety is definitely one of them.
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And then there's the general feeling like, I just want to play better than that.
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Yeah.
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You know, I'm at a point where I'm not settling for this.
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And that can take people a long time to get through, but it takes a certain maturity to
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be able to say, all right, I'm not really where I want to be.
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I think I should try to go further.
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And they have some sense that I can help them do that.
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So it's those three things.
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And it always comes down to being disconnected from the body, the mind, the heart, the sounds,
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the rhythmic flow, all these, you know, just not not having received the full guidance
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that they needed.
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Those kinds of things.
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Sure, sure.
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Totally.
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I just want to take a minute and validate something because you just you just reminded
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me how difficult it is when you have this instinct that something, not even if something's
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wrong, but something could be better or something needs to be different.
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Or, you know, it's just an intuition that you have at that point that you want to be
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someplace different than you are.
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And having made my own progress in certain ways, I just remember it's so difficult when
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all you have is that feeling and you don't know even what the end result is.
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You might have some ideas about what it is, but once you get there, you find out, oh,
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no, I really didn't know.
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The only thing that was true is the instinct.
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Right.
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And I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the bravery of everybody that starts down
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that path.
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I couldn't appreciate that more.
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Thank you very much.
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And I face that every day in my life because my art form is teaching and I'm always coming
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up with new understanding of what it is that I actually teach.
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Actually in the last several months, I've been through a kind of major upheaval because
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I've gotten more connected to myself and realized I don't want to live in New York anymore.
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Oh, my goodness.
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And we, my husband and I have looked at three possible moving places and it's been a wrenching
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process.
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And just a couple of three weeks ago, we made our decision after visiting Philadelphia,
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we want to live in a suburb where it's green and pretty and quiet.
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I'm a little too old for that noise.
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Wow, Madeline, way to come on the show and drop a bomb.
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I know.
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We didn't know we were losing you, Philadelphia.
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And the internet, right?
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But thank you for appreciating me.
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But it's been a process of really having to come to terms with who I am inside, what I
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really want and how to go about doing it.
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And it's one of the, I mean, it's one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced.
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And to do it at my age is also feeling like a major challenge and pick up stakes and go
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somewhere new.
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Although we have wonderful friends there, which is a major plus.
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But the process has humbled me a lot.
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It's made me very aware of what kind of bravery it does take to go through any kind of transformative
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process.
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Yeah, totally.
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I'd be grateful for it.
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Because when you step into your transformation, you're right, you don't know where you're
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going to end up.
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I thought we were going to end up in Northampton, Massachusetts, where it was just going to
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be peaceful all the time.
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And we sit in front of the fireplace and read.
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And I teach a few students.
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That sounds wonderful.
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I realized that there's so much more to me than that.
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I would be walking away from my whole musical lineage, the feeling that the cultural lineage
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that is in a major place like this.
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Right.
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And really, we tried Connecticut, it didn't feel like anything for us.
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Because we thought it would be good, it would be close to New York.
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And we just decided to go a little further away.
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And unbelievable.
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Just everything clicked about it.
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Everything.
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Wow.
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Suburbs, the city itself, the friends.
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It's just unbelievable.
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And it is a major cultural center.
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And so it's very brave, I recognize myself, to actually step forward into this unknown.
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I mean, who am I going to connect with in the music world?
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I don't know these people.
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So we had a program in 2003 called Unleashing Natural Piano Technique.
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And it was five week series for pianists, four pianists, and they each had three workshop
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sessions and four private lessons within five weeks.
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And one of these people came because her teacher asked her to do it because she needed to recover
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from an injury.
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I had to completely toss out her whole physical approach to the piano, start her out with
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you know, A, B, C's kind of just one finger at a time, then adding the arm movement.
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And halfway through after the second workshop, she came up to me in tears.
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She said, I don't know what to do.
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I can't play the old way anymore.
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And I haven't gotten to the new way.
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Give her a big hug.
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I said, that's how it is.
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You're going to be all right.
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She got through it.
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She recovered from her injury.
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And she was very brave to do that.
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Yeah.
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Dropped out in the middle and said, this is too much for me.
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But she knew somehow that there was something going on that was right.
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And just like you're right, you have to trust your instinct.
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There is again, in the body, we know the life in us knows what it needs to do.
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It knows the direction it needs to go in.
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Oh, wow.
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I'm speechless.
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Well, I want to take a minute to thank you for what you do.
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Because when I was 21, I had a teacher named Mark Sullivan who worked with me for just
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one month over the summer in a summer program.
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He was from California.
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I wasn't out there yet.
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And at that point in my life, my technique needed a complete rebuild.
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And he took it upon himself to do that.
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It was such a generous gift with a student that you only have for one month but who desperately
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needed it.
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And I had so much that I wanted to say that couldn't come out.
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And you take that chance on your students all the time.
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And as a teacher, I just can't give you enough credit for that.
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Thank you.
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I think it's my personality.
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I just have this need actually to be very direct and go straight to the heart of the
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person because I always believe in them.
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I believe in every person who shows up.
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And my job is to help them believe in themselves.
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So I have to go for that heart of that person and know they can do it and be very encouraging
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and gentle through the process.
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Even while I'm being very clear, no, not like that, like this.
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It just has to be very sharp and on the dot while being aware of what that human being
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is going through.
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I'm not perfect.
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And nobody can be perfect with such a big task.
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I think there's no perfect teacher just like there's no perfect parent.
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You're feeling this desire to help this person and you can't know everything.
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And actually I learned so much from teaching.
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Practically every time I give a lesson, I'm learning something.
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Yes, that's what I love about teaching.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's very creative that way.
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So we're stepping into the unknown also.
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I mean, you know, I'm still a performer.
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I gave up performing at 37, which is the biggest shock of my life.
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But I'm still a performer, which means I go for it.
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You know, I'm a communicator and I just, you know, that's what I need to do with myself.
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That, especially if somebody doesn't even believe in themself yet and you're trying
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to help them get there, that requires a tremendous amount of energy and emotional investment.
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Over the course of your career, have you ever suffered from burnout or just feeling drained
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from like this constant expenditure of energy that way?
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Oh, definitely.
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I mean, last year's summer program, you know, we did it online for the first time.
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I was just remembering yesterday what a joyous creative process it was for four months to
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happen.
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It was very collaborative.
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I had a lot of help, support from the other teachers, but it was a whole new ballgame
460
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and we had so much to learn about technology and everything.
461
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Program was very successful when it was over.
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I was thrilled with it and I was completely exhausted.
463
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But I had scheduled a break.
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I knew that was going to happen.
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So the month of August was, you know, I taught some people.
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I mean, there were people away, but I just didn't have any of the stuff to do.
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I wasn't planning the next program.
468
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It was just, and I got a lot of rest.
469
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Just last week I took a week off, which was phenomenal.
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And I do that several times a year.
471
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And this is also from the meditation practice and community and teachings are always encouraging
472
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you to periodically take a whole retreat.
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You know, it's great to do it daily, but when you take a whole week for yourself and you
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don't answer email and you don't engage in work, there's nothing like it.
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I think that we don't realize that we need to be replenished.
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And I just read the other day that Americans are almost universally sleep deprived.
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And overworked.
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And overworked.
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Exactly.
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And we don't even realize what it's doing to us and that there is another way.
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So that's why I also gradually encourage people to get into meditation practice so that they
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can get more in touch with their need for rest and space and relaxation.
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That's actually going to be the key to higher accomplishment.
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And in fact, when I started meditating, I didn't feel like practicing the piano for
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two months.
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So I didn't.
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When I came back with a completely different experience, I would stop for 30 or 60 seconds
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sit there on the bench, do nothing, and then see what I wanted to do next.
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And I would notice things much more like how my hands were working.
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I would notice the sounds more, all kinds of things I noticed.
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And the result was that three hours of practicing, I accomplished more than I had previously
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in privacy.
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So this is what I think people need to understand that just as the body works a certain way,
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the mind works a certain way.
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It is designed to have rest built into its life.
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So that your mindfulness practice, that's a little mini rest.
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Then you stop in the middle of practicing, you say, what do I want to do next?
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Instead of constantly driving yourself, that's a little mini rest.
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Then it's every once in a while, you take a bigger break and give yourself a kind of
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a break.
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This, the human being needs this so much.
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This concludes part one of our interview with Madeline Bruiser.
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Tune in next time for more on the art of practicing, including a technical demonstration at the
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piano.
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You're listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod.
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I am Eric Hunter.
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I'm Clara Zhang.
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I'm Yuki Mi Song.
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Our guest today is Madeleine Bruiser, pianist and author of the highly acclaimed book, The
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Art of Practicing, A Guide to Making Music from the Heart.
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Madeleine is also the founder of the Art of Practicing Institute, which is dedicated to
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helping musicians improve their playing by releasing physical and mental tension, often
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helping them to deal with performance anxiety or even recover from physical injuries.
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She has helped thousands of musicians around the globe, and we are very lucky to have her
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here today.
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Everyone, please welcome Madeleine Bruiser.
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Welcome.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you very much.
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So I wanted to start with a little personal anecdote about my experience last summer with
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Madeleine's Art of Practicing Institute, because it was very influential on me.
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And I'm going to try not to go on too long because we want to let Madeleine talk.
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But it was one week I was able to attend because it was online because of the pandemic.
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And it was completely transformative for me.
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I had kind of been dwindling down my performing experience the last few years, focusing more
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on composition and just kind of feeling like I wanted to get out of it.
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And that week at the Art of Practicing Institute just really turned things around for me.
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And on the very last day, the last thing we did was everybody went around and said how
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they felt about things, what they got out of the experience.
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And it was supposed to be really quick, like 30, 60 seconds, because there are a lot of
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people.
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And I just had this very tearful, just, oh, this is fine.
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I found myself again going on for minutes and minutes.
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And I wanted to thank you for that first, Madeleine.
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And I hope this interview will inspire people to check out your materials and have similar
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revelations.
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Let's talk a little bit about the Art of Practicing and the Art of Practicing Institute.
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Can you tell our listeners exactly what it is, what is this all about?
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What do you do?
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You know, basically what I do is help people connect to themselves so that they can connect
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to the music and to their audience.
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And this whole approach that I call the Art of Practicing is in segments, but they all
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blend together.
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So first of all, it's about how to use your body and being much more aware of the body
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and how it works and what it feels like.
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So there's a whole lot of information about that.
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And a lot of it is surprising to people.
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Some of it is surprising to everybody, actually.
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And I think that's because it developed through many years of meditation practice in which
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I learned to sit still and notice what's going on inside of me instead of being kind of unconscious
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and reacting to all this energy without even relating to it.
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So what kind of things do you find that everybody is surprised to learn about physically?
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I think the most universal thing that is surprising to every pianist, and it also applies in the
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work I do with other instruments sometimes, is basically how to sit effectively at the
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piano so that your energy is really available to you.
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And I think what is not commonly understood at all is that the relationship to the ground
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is central.
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In other words, just as with an athlete, let's say a baseball pitcher pitches the ball, they
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don't like lean forward and pitch the ball.
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They get rooted in the ground.
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They kind of bend their knees a little bit, and they have that power that comes from the
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ground, and then they have power in their arm to deliver the pitch.
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And I often demonstrate this to people in workshops by having the whole audience deliver
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a punch into the air in an upright position and then compromise their posture, deliver
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the punch, and everybody notices that their power is compromised.
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What's really great about this at the piano is that there's tremendous physical pleasure
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from the feeling of the play of forces within the body.
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The feet are solid.
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The sitting bones are solid on the bench.
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And then when you spring from the keys, for instance, in the loud chord, you have a third
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contact point, which is the bottom of the keys.
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And so as you play and different movements are happening, there is a lot of energy going
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through the body that's very powerful and feels really great, and it gives you a lot
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of momentum in delivering the performance, basically.
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Whereas if you're kind of like this, which I used to do myself, moving around a lot in
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reaction to how the music is affecting you instead of just being there for it to enter
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into you and to go through, if you do this, you can't really feel even the arm weight
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very clearly and can't feel the energy that comes back into your arm from the bottom of
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the keys when you do this.
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So you're putting energy out all the time and you're not getting anything back in.
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This is really transformative for every pianist I've worked with.
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And as I said, with other instruments, it always applies to.
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Now, these days, people are working with the Alexander technique quite a bit, which definitely
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is very helpful and along the same lines.
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But I do think that what I'm doing at the piano is unique because it's very, very clear
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and defined exactly what the relationship is between the seat, the sitting bones and
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this.
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So that they're all interplaying and you really feel like something is playing in your body.
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And the whole point of the approach is that music lives in the body.
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So we have to be aware of the body and really connected to it.
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So how you sit at the piano has a huge impact on what's going on inside of the body and
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what your options are for movement and for self-expression.
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OK, so we're really talking about the efficient use of energy, basically, right?
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Right.
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It's basic biomechanics.
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And I think that there's just I think the issue is, which was certainly the issue with
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me until I was 37 and discovered this physical approach, is that music is so powerful in
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itself.
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It's so emotional for us.
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We love it so much.
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And so we get swept away with this very intense feeling.
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We just, you know, react like this, which is completely understandable as if you were
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dancing to the music.
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But we're not dancing when we're playing.
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What's happening is the music is dancing within our body and we make room for it in there
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and can really tune into that dance that's happening on the inside.
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And all that energy is free to play out and really carry to the listeners.
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I never thought of this before, but it's almost like we have to balance the subjective experience
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of our emotions as we feel the music, right, with the kind of objectivity of the body.
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You know?
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Well, actually, I think the body is the most subjective experience we have.
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It's intensely personal.
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And we actually cut ourselves off from what it has to tell us and what it can do, what
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it can do for us, what it can give us when we don't use it according to fundamental biomechanical
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principles.
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I mean, it's designed to be used in a certain way, and athletes are generally taught that.
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Musicians generally are not so much because we consider ourselves artists and we are artists.
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And so we feel like, well, an artist is a completely different kind of person from an
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athlete.
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But when you're playing an instrument, whatever the instrument is, you are an athlete.
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Doesn't mean you're not an artist, obviously.
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The athletics is in the service of the art and of the human being who is making the music
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and who's listening to the music.
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So I think it's my experience is that what's going on in the body is intensely subjective
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and that our biggest problem in our life in general is not having the space or time or
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encouragement or guidance to tune into what's happening inside of us.
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So then we're not conscious of how we feel.
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So then we get mad at so and so when it's not their fault or all these things happen
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or we don't do justice to the music.
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And the other thing about music in terms of the body, there's two other things.
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One is the sound has to live in the body.
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So you have this play of physical forces from the movement.
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And then there's all this sound which is supposed to move us.
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If we're not moved by the music, literally, physically inside, viscerally, we can't move
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our audience.
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Everything depends on us having a deeply personal connection to the sound on the visceral level
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and really being able to tune into that.
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Most often what happens is students are told, well, the phrase goes up and it comes down.
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So play it like that.
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And they're operating from their head.
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It doesn't mean that the phrase doesn't go up and down, but it means that within that
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general up and down, there are continuous flow of specifics of this harmony, that harmony,
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how they're juxtaposed, what that does to you as a person inside.
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And this kind of artist makes people go wild basically.
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Because then that body energy goes directly into their body.
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That's what happens in a performance.
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So how do we cultivate the mental state for that?
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And what are some obstacles that we might encounter along the way?
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So what is now very widely talked about is mindfulness.
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I actually wasn't trained that way as a meditator to talk about mindfulness a lot.
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It was more about awareness.
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But mindfulness is an excellent word because people understand it now.
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It's part of the vernacular.
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And it really amounts to practicing connecting to yourself, hopefully on a daily basis, so
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that your life works better basically.
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You don't trip over things and say the wrong thing and all of that.
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But you have space in your mind.
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So the general problem we have is that the mind is very crowded.
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It's very busy.
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It's thinking about yesterday and tomorrow and next week.
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And it's feeling all this pressure.
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It has to do things and it has to do them by a certain time.
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And it's got a lot of worry, like, well, what if that person really didn't like me because
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of what I said?
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Should I apologize?
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Maybe I should.
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Maybe I shouldn't.
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And it goes on and on forever.
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So this is the busyness of the mind.
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Mindfulness is a practice that allows you to tune into your natural ability to be mindful.
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In other words, to be aware of what's happening right now.
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So the practice of, for example, noticing your breathing and then when you notice that
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you're thinking, you come back to your breathing.
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It's a very basic fundamental practice, but it trains literally the brain to return to
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the present moment.
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It's interesting that it also, when the brain opens, when the mind opens and relaxes, the
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body starts to relax.
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The perceptions open, the heart opens.
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It's like you take a little vacation.
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May I jump in because I really like the word mindfulness because it's a really it word
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right now.
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You know, every yoga class you take or meditation class you take, there's this mindfulness is
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the word that you hear a lot.
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Is it a connection between your body and what you do and your senses?
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Mindfulness is the practice of letting the mind settle down and relax.
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And then naturally, the natural acuteness of your sense perceptions just opens up.
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Always there, it's always ready to be there for you.
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But when the mind settles down, you can suddenly see and smell and taste and touch, actually
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feel things and respond in a more natural and beneficial way.
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So that includes how you touch the piano and your connection to the sounds that you're
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playing, that you're hearing coming out of the piano.
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Being aware or mindful of that actual note, those actual sounds, instead of being in your
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head and sort of singing in your head, there's a really there's a world of difference between
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hearing the music in your head while you're playing and actually being able to hear it
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as it's coming toward you out of the instrument.
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Oh, yeah, wonderful description.
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Yeah.
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And that sounds more really organic, true to yourself instead of just reading a note
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and like becoming sometimes you feel like you're part of just a machine, you know, just
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reading a note and play certain ways.
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But that might if you have used that mindfulness of playing, performing and practicing, I feel
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like it's more organic approach.
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Yes, the whole thing is very organic.
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I'm glad you chose that word.
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That's excellent.
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Thank you.
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Can you explain?
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I feel like people might be able to understand how mindful awareness can bring you back to
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the present moment when you're like worried about something that you have to do tomorrow
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or some little mistake that you made yesterday.
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I'm talking about kind of minor anxieties.
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What about something like long term trauma or like severe performance anxiety or something
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that happened to you long ago in the past that's stuck with you?
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How does mindfulness help with something like that?
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I'm really glad you asked that.
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I think that there's a line between meditation practice or mindfulness practice and real
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healing work.
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I mean, I do feel from my experience, definitely that mindfulness is a healing practice.
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But if you want to go really deep with a very serious issue, psychotherapy can be essential.
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There's a practice called the healing code.
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We teach at our programs and I teach my students a practice called focusing with a capital
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F where you close your eyes and tune into what's going on inside the body.
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That can be very revelatory where you get in touch with things on a kind of like a dream-like
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level where imagery can arise and you realize your own wisdom is really in there.
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But in terms of being traumatized, let's say the common example, the parents or the teacher
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or both abused the young musician, the little kid.
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Most likely that person's going to need some psychotherapy to really work through that
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because it goes too deep.
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It damages too much.
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It's too big of a wound.
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What I have heard, which I really believe is that when trauma happens, it happens in
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the presence of a person who hurts you.
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And having the presence of another person who heals you is necessary because that person
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is giving you the opposite message.
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And you need space to feel your feelings instead of telling you that they don't matter.
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That's really important.
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And I also feel that community is essential.
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For instance, with the Art of Practicing Institute programs and with the Masterclass series,
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we have time for discussion or a conversation.
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So when people can have a conversation and start talking about their fear of performance
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and what happened to them and what they're afraid of and all these things, this is really
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support that can heal also because you're not alone anymore.
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And I think musicians are beginning to talk about this more.
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They're not hiding it in the closet so much.
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It's really, really important.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I agree.
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And just speaking from my own experience, I'm glad you pointed that out and reminded
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me because we would have some long meditations in the morning, the beginning of every day,
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which would be kind of intensely personal experience.
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And then there would be multiple group sessions following that where we got to kind of decompress
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and sometimes figure out what it all meant, bounce ideas off of, you know, that's absolutely
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critical to the process.
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I was just going to share a little bit last year when I started with Madeline and I remember
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those sessions, you know, it was right before COVID.
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We didn't even know how serious it was going to be.
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You know, it was just everything, you know, when you this is so fitting because I think
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we're going to release this in May.
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It's mindfulness, awareness, minds, right?
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And this is still new for me.
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You know, I have I always said I was atheist.
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You know, I was not really spiritual and grew up in Asia.
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I was, you know, I had a mother.
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So and I felt pretty confident with myself, you know, when I perform.
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But I also realized when I studied with Madeline, there's a little bit of me that I think it
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was during those group discussions that I finally realized I was being that way.
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So out there because I was trying to prove something.
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And because, you know, I grew up in Asia, in China, and I didn't have a very traditional
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training background.
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And so I was always there to fight, you know, and so I somehow made it in New York.
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And it's just, you know, I feel like everything is just when you Madeline, when you're talking
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about census with Kimi and I'm like, mind blowing, you know, like my mind is just because
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when how I knew of Madeline's work from years ago when I was in grad school in Massachusetts,
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I remember I had this one time I didn't perform well or something.
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A teacher gave me her book at Madeline's book and I held on to this book for a very long
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time.
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And last year, you know, everything was going well in New York.
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And then two years ago, right before COVID, there was something traumatic happened in
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my life.
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You know, it's just crazy personal things, but I don't even know how to deal with it.
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And then all of a sudden, I decided to go to a meditation retreat.
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And the day after I returned, Madeline kind of just showed up, you know, like, and it
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was through PTC.
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And then I got the chance to study with Madeline.
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It was just so inspiring.
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And I remember when I performed the finally after the discussion that I realized I was
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able to just be myself.
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I didn't have to prove to anyone anymore.
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I can perform when I want to.
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I didn't have to have too many concerts, too little concerts.
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And then one thing about the body too, and I have more questions later on, but I will
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just share this a little bit.
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As a person who has really experienced this, I'm also an amateur ballet dancer.
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And then I remember what Madeline described when I am on stage.
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I'm so hyper.
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I'm so excited.
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It's almost the same thing as my ballet teacher tells me.
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Clara, you're too jumpy.
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So yeah, so this is really amazing.
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I'm sure we'll have more to talk about, but thank you for letting me share that.
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You're welcome.
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Thank you.
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So, Madeline, let me ask you, what are some problems that people or your students typically
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come to you with?
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You know, what are some common issues that people want to work on with you?
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Well, injury recovery is definitely one of them.
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Sure.
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And physical tension in general.
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And performance anxiety is definitely one of them.
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And then there's the general feeling like, I just want to play better than that.
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Yeah.
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You know, I'm at a point where I'm not settling for this.
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And that can take people a long time to get through, but it takes a certain maturity to
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be able to say, all right, I'm not really where I want to be.
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I think I should try to go further.
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And they have some sense that I can help them do that.
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So it's those three things.
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And it always comes down to being disconnected from the body, the mind, the heart, the sounds,
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the rhythmic flow, all these, you know, just not not having received the full guidance
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that they needed.
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Those kinds of things.
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Sure, sure.
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Totally.
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I just want to take a minute and validate something because you just you just reminded
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me how difficult it is when you have this instinct that something, not even if something's
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wrong, but something could be better or something needs to be different.
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Or, you know, it's just an intuition that you have at that point that you want to be
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someplace different than you are.
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And having made my own progress in certain ways, I just remember it's so difficult when
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all you have is that feeling and you don't know even what the end result is.
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You might have some ideas about what it is, but once you get there, you find out, oh,
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no, I really didn't know.
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The only thing that was true is the instinct.
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Right.
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And I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the bravery of everybody that starts down
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that path.
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I couldn't appreciate that more.
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Thank you very much.
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And I face that every day in my life because my art form is teaching and I'm always coming
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up with new understanding of what it is that I actually teach.
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Actually in the last several months, I've been through a kind of major upheaval because
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I've gotten more connected to myself and realized I don't want to live in New York anymore.
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Oh, my goodness.
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And we, my husband and I have looked at three possible moving places and it's been a wrenching
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process.
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And just a couple of three weeks ago, we made our decision after visiting Philadelphia,
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we want to live in a suburb where it's green and pretty and quiet.
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I'm a little too old for that noise.
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Wow, Madeline, way to come on the show and drop a bomb.
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I know.
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We didn't know we were losing you, Philadelphia.
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And the internet, right?
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But thank you for appreciating me.
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But it's been a process of really having to come to terms with who I am inside, what I
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really want and how to go about doing it.
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And it's one of the, I mean, it's one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced.
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And to do it at my age is also feeling like a major challenge and pick up stakes and go
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somewhere new.
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Although we have wonderful friends there, which is a major plus.
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But the process has humbled me a lot.
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It's made me very aware of what kind of bravery it does take to go through any kind of transformative
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process.
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Yeah, totally.
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I'd be grateful for it.
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Because when you step into your transformation, you're right, you don't know where you're
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going to end up.
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I thought we were going to end up in Northampton, Massachusetts, where it was just going to
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be peaceful all the time.
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And we sit in front of the fireplace and read.
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And I teach a few students.
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That sounds wonderful.
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I realized that there's so much more to me than that.
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I would be walking away from my whole musical lineage, the feeling that the cultural lineage
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that is in a major place like this.
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Right.
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And really, we tried Connecticut, it didn't feel like anything for us.
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Because we thought it would be good, it would be close to New York.
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And we just decided to go a little further away.
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And unbelievable.
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Just everything clicked about it.
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Everything.
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Wow.
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Suburbs, the city itself, the friends.
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It's just unbelievable.
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And it is a major cultural center.
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And so it's very brave, I recognize myself, to actually step forward into this unknown.
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I mean, who am I going to connect with in the music world?
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I don't know these people.
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So we had a program in 2003 called Unleashing Natural Piano Technique.
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And it was five week series for pianists, four pianists, and they each had three workshop
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sessions and four private lessons within five weeks.
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And one of these people came because her teacher asked her to do it because she needed to recover
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from an injury.
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I had to completely toss out her whole physical approach to the piano, start her out with
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you know, A, B, C's kind of just one finger at a time, then adding the arm movement.
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And halfway through after the second workshop, she came up to me in tears.
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She said, I don't know what to do.
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I can't play the old way anymore.
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And I haven't gotten to the new way.
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Give her a big hug.
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I said, that's how it is.
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You're going to be all right.
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She got through it.
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She recovered from her injury.
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And she was very brave to do that.
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Yeah.
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Dropped out in the middle and said, this is too much for me.
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But she knew somehow that there was something going on that was right.
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And just like you're right, you have to trust your instinct.
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There is again, in the body, we know the life in us knows what it needs to do.
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It knows the direction it needs to go in.
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Oh, wow.
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I'm speechless.
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Well, I want to take a minute to thank you for what you do.
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Because when I was 21, I had a teacher named Mark Sullivan who worked with me for just
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one month over the summer in a summer program.
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He was from California.
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I wasn't out there yet.
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And at that point in my life, my technique needed a complete rebuild.
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And he took it upon himself to do that.
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It was such a generous gift with a student that you only have for one month but who desperately
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needed it.
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And I had so much that I wanted to say that couldn't come out.
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And you take that chance on your students all the time.
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And as a teacher, I just can't give you enough credit for that.
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Thank you.
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I think it's my personality.
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I just have this need actually to be very direct and go straight to the heart of the
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person because I always believe in them.
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I believe in every person who shows up.
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And my job is to help them believe in themselves.
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So I have to go for that heart of that person and know they can do it and be very encouraging
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and gentle through the process.
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Even while I'm being very clear, no, not like that, like this.
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It just has to be very sharp and on the dot while being aware of what that human being
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is going through.
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I'm not perfect.
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And nobody can be perfect with such a big task.
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I think there's no perfect teacher just like there's no perfect parent.
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You're feeling this desire to help this person and you can't know everything.
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And actually I learned so much from teaching.
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Practically every time I give a lesson, I'm learning something.
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Yes, that's what I love about teaching.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's very creative that way.
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So we're stepping into the unknown also.
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I mean, you know, I'm still a performer.
447
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,120
I gave up performing at 37, which is the biggest shock of my life.
448
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,880
But I'm still a performer, which means I go for it.
449
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:48,680
You know, I'm a communicator and I just, you know, that's what I need to do with myself.
450
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,420
That, especially if somebody doesn't even believe in themself yet and you're trying
451
00:29:52,420 --> 00:29:59,800
to help them get there, that requires a tremendous amount of energy and emotional investment.
452
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:04,240
Over the course of your career, have you ever suffered from burnout or just feeling drained
453
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,280
from like this constant expenditure of energy that way?
454
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:09,280
Oh, definitely.
455
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:14,800
I mean, last year's summer program, you know, we did it online for the first time.
456
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:19,280
I was just remembering yesterday what a joyous creative process it was for four months to
457
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:20,280
happen.
458
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:22,600
It was very collaborative.
459
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:28,520
I had a lot of help, support from the other teachers, but it was a whole new ballgame
460
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,880
and we had so much to learn about technology and everything.
461
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,240
Program was very successful when it was over.
462
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,120
I was thrilled with it and I was completely exhausted.
463
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,400
But I had scheduled a break.
464
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,160
I knew that was going to happen.
465
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,080
So the month of August was, you know, I taught some people.
466
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,520
I mean, there were people away, but I just didn't have any of the stuff to do.
467
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,440
I wasn't planning the next program.
468
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,440
It was just, and I got a lot of rest.
469
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:00,640
Just last week I took a week off, which was phenomenal.
470
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,280
And I do that several times a year.
471
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:09,040
And this is also from the meditation practice and community and teachings are always encouraging
472
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,400
you to periodically take a whole retreat.
473
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:17,840
You know, it's great to do it daily, but when you take a whole week for yourself and you
474
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:24,760
don't answer email and you don't engage in work, there's nothing like it.
475
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,120
I think that we don't realize that we need to be replenished.
476
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:33,680
And I just read the other day that Americans are almost universally sleep deprived.
477
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,120
And overworked.
478
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:37,120
And overworked.
479
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:38,120
Exactly.
480
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:43,140
And we don't even realize what it's doing to us and that there is another way.
481
00:31:43,140 --> 00:31:46,880
So that's why I also gradually encourage people to get into meditation practice so that they
482
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:51,920
can get more in touch with their need for rest and space and relaxation.
483
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,320
That's actually going to be the key to higher accomplishment.
484
00:31:55,320 --> 00:32:00,680
And in fact, when I started meditating, I didn't feel like practicing the piano for
485
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:01,680
two months.
486
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:02,680
So I didn't.
487
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:09,680
When I came back with a completely different experience, I would stop for 30 or 60 seconds
488
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,520
sit there on the bench, do nothing, and then see what I wanted to do next.
489
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:17,160
And I would notice things much more like how my hands were working.
490
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,440
I would notice the sounds more, all kinds of things I noticed.
491
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:27,400
And the result was that three hours of practicing, I accomplished more than I had previously
492
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,080
in privacy.
493
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:34,880
So this is what I think people need to understand that just as the body works a certain way,
494
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:36,500
the mind works a certain way.
495
00:32:36,500 --> 00:32:41,240
It is designed to have rest built into its life.
496
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:45,520
So that your mindfulness practice, that's a little mini rest.
497
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:49,360
Then you stop in the middle of practicing, you say, what do I want to do next?
498
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,840
Instead of constantly driving yourself, that's a little mini rest.
499
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:57,400
Then it's every once in a while, you take a bigger break and give yourself a kind of
500
00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:58,400
a break.
501
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:06,680
This, the human being needs this so much.
502
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,480
This concludes part one of our interview with Madeline Bruiser.
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00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,240
Tune in next time for more on the art of practicing, including a technical demonstration at the
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piano.
