How do I start practicing again?

I once booked a gig to play not one, but two Beethoven symphonies in two weeks. I had been craving an opportunity like this for a while. Plus, this music was in my bones. I knew each melody and rhythm by heart; its musical impulse coursed through my veins. I saw the call and said yes, with total confidence. Except for one tiny detail. I hadn't picked up my instrument and played anything more than a C major scale in three months. 

I took a moment to reflect on what I had just agreed to. Arpeggios are pretty hard, and Beethoven writes a lot of them. He also writes a lot of fast scales in keys other than C major. Wait, that passage in the fourth movement is nearly impossible… Do I even have the physical capacity, or will I be losing my body in this process?

Dread.

I know so many adults who receive the call to start playing their instrument again. It can look like a challenging invitation from a colleague. But most often, the call is a stirring in the soul, a moment where a quiet inner, younger voice reawakens, desiring expression, demanding life again. 

The desire seems so simple, but really, it’s a calling from beyond the velvet doorway into a world of felt connection. What exactly about music is motivating us to answer this call from time to time? Does the heart desire contact with a beautiful sound? Is it the creation and participation of a musical form that puts us together again?

When I was an undergraduate composition major, I would often play cello in my school’s philharmonic orchestra. It was my tangible connection to the world I was reimagining as a composer. In this sense, cello is the root of my musical practice and understanding. There were many days where I’d spend five hours with my instrument, getting my fingers and arms to do exactly what my mind hears and wants, training my body to respond intuitively, while staying relaxed even in the tensest passages. My musical lens is informed by my cello, and much of the way I view the world is through this lens. Cello is a part of my hands, my legs, my torso, my eyes, and my cerebrum.

Aristotle observed that our minds conform to the thing we seek to understand. It takes the shape of the thing we spend time and attention on, and changes us in the process. The conformity of the mind was philos, love. The intangible part of an instrumentalist’s body and mind is shaped by their love of the instrument. When life “got in the way” between my body and my instrument, the spiritual severance became a great source of pain. Life’s many distractions kept me busy while I was away from the thing I love. I told myself that seeking out things to do to afford life in NYC, like working day jobs, working on my composition craft, having some semblance of social life, and finding decent places to live were all done with the promise of creating a stable future where I can play freely, and not be surrounded by discomfort or struggle. That future never came, and there was always something else to do with my time other than to sit and practice. In time, the severed state became the new norm.

There are two kinds of distance that grow between the player and the instrument from time away. One kind is a physical one, and the other is of the heart. With the passing of each silent week, our bodies become less molded to the shape of the instrument. Our calluses disappear, our fine musculature weakens, and our hard-earned posture deteriorates. On the other hand, the heart’s desire to sing out inevitably grows in the garden of life. This actually grows the connection between the two of you. In the body, it is experienced as longing. The spiritual need for music develops regardless of your technique. I’ve actually found that this spiritual development makes the music you make a lot deeper. The trick is overcoming the difficulty of having the desire to play again and not possessing the physical connection you had when you first put your instrument down.

What works for me is having a mindset that detaches from the destination. I knew I couldn’t conquer Beethoven that day or even in a week, but I had faith that day by day the connection will reform. Picking up your instrument is an act of faith in the present moment itself. It’s not always easy. When you go to pick up the instrument again, the cruel part of you will say you sound so bad, and so out of tune. We all know this voice. Yo-Yo Ma sounds so much better. It’ll drive you to put that instrument right back down if you listen to it. The best weapon you have against that sassy inner critic is to have an even bigger and stronger why for wanting your spiritual and physical reconnection. If you don’t, the cruelty will win and deprive your soul of its life. There is a spiritual war that goes on in everyone’s heart, and it is about the consequences of letting this hellish inner critic win, of not being okay with imperfection, of allowing the ease and decay of silence to exist over the struggle and vitality of creation. As Nietzsche put it, "He who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.” 

How I longed for the orchestral world again! To play as a member in a family of cellos in a family of stringed instruments, and to be thrilled by the characters in the woodwinds, and to be awed by gilded brasses, are among the most powerful ways to tap into the collective expression of humanity. When I saw the invite and read the conductor was doing Beethoven, I leaped on board with lightning speed, fueled by the longing in my soul. My current lack of technique didn’t matter. I had a strong enough why again. I was going to play two of my favorite pieces by my second favorite composer. All I had to do at that point was pick up my instrument and start practicing safely. 

That same day, I took the cello and bow in my hands and sat down on my practice chair. I was relieved. We still fit together. I am transported back to the blues and yellows of my elementary school auditorium with the sound of my plucked open strings. The aural memory from back in time, when dozens of kids my age plucked their half-size instruments quietly to tune up on the laminated wood, is oddly comforting. I fell into a familiar routine. Scales. Etudes. Then, the piece. Cracking open Beethoven’s score, I honed my dexterity. My coordination. I made my way through each melody and accompaniment, focusing on the sound I created, each day, shrinking the distance between my cello and me. 

In time, we became one again. My instrument felt like an extension of me.

My experience of unity with and becoming my cello is characteristic of a state known as flow. Even after a three-month hiatus, I was able to enter flow after picking my instrument up again. I found that flow could carry me through the distance, and transmute the pain I felt into the deep joy of musical connection and orchestral performance again. It’s as if my cello forgave me for needing some time away, and was just as joyous as I was when I worked up the strength to perform at those massive rehearsals. When you pick up your instrument, even if it has been a while, your aim should be to become your instrument through finding flow. If you want to pick up your instrument and start practicing again in a safe way, you must find flow.  

Here’s the key. You don’t have to be Hendrix or Gil Shaham to enter a flow state. This isn’t like a runner’s high that’s achievable from running seven hours straight. Playing is never about virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake. Music is never about the technique alone. These things are tools that serve your why, which likely concerns the expression of your soul. Csikszentmihalyi taught us the precondition for flow is ensuring the demand matches the skill. Pick a goal that matches your skill. Not too hard, not too easy. If your demand is below your skill level, you'll ruin that posture from excessive yawning. If it's above, the dread will drive you into anxious paralysis. Break your goal down into sizable chunks, set 15-minute timers so you don’t overextend yourself, tell the inner critic to screw off, and unite with your instrument by focusing on the sound you create. 

The goal at the beginning outmatched my skill by far. Over time, I worked my strength up to where I could flow with the group in concert again. The strength came from flow.

The concert was a culminating experience. It was many things at once: a deeply harmonic experience, an engagement with two transcendental works of art, a gift to the public, an act of service as part of a greater whole. It was the result of my practice that began in elementary school, and went through college, fell off and picked right back up in other moments just like this one, every so often in “adult” life.

The way to safely reconnect with your instrument is through flow. Through flow, you will connect with the transcendent aspects of musical performance. Through flow, you’ll enjoy the journey. You’ll connect back to the timeless world-beyond-words, all pouring from the simple act of picking up your instrument and practicing once again.