Performance Philosophy: ListenFeelPlay
Unlock the imagination of your ear and the intelligence of your physical body, and embrace a playful attitude.
By listening and feeling with full awareness and clarity of intention, confidence flows, creativity is unleashed, and you will play with natural expression and ease.
Unlocking the imagination of the ear involves precisely fine-tuning what you are listening for. Paying extraordinary attention to both what you intend to hear as you play, and what you actually hear as you play, and objectively comparing the two, gives immediate access to improvement and development of musical expression. These two awarenesses, or realms, may seem to be the same thing, but the creative power is in the objective acknowledgment of how they differ.
- The intention is generated in the realm of the imagination, and is where our true creative potential resides. The forming of intention begins the creative process.
- The actual is generated in the realm of the physical and is instigated by and responds to the intention. The actual finishes the creative process.
A key to playing to your creative potential is for the aural picture of these two realms to be identical to each other - in total alignment. When this is achieved, your ear is finely tuned to both your imagination and the sound you are producing. You are in total control in the creative moment of performance.
As a performer, it is vitally important to be aware of your physical body - how you move, and how you feel. We use the body to physically manifest our creative imagination, and how we engage with our body directly correlates to the success and enjoyment of our performance.
The body has enormous intelligence that we can tap into and listen to simply by paying attention to how the body wants to move and feel. Allowing the body's intelligence to guide our movement allows balanced and efficient use of the body. It unlocks natural and rewarding expression and ease. Our creativity has an open channel to self-expression when the body is free and unleashed.
Play refers to the carefree, childlike act of ‘playing’, of exploring and experimenting with curiosity in the creative realm. Play is unhindered by judgement or any sense of limitation, and fully engages the imagination.
Play is having the ability to be light-hearted in the vital creative process of self-evaluation, at the same time developing the ability to support oneself, and nurture self-belief and confidence.
Would you like to put ListenFeelPlay ideas into practice?