Hypnosis?

February 1, 2004 at 10:12 PM · I'm a skeptical on hypnosis. Attaining a true hypnotic state is rare and difficult, its not as easy as they make it out to be. and a lot of the information you hear from the media and from books are no more than creations. Perhaps what you're more precisely thinking of is a state of meditation, where your mind is calm and free from other worldly troubles and your mind is free to explore your playing. that isn't hypnosis, but i think that would be far more attainable and beneficial.

February 2, 2004 at 02:35 AM · Working in the psychology field, I have to agree with the last post. "Hypnosis" as most people imagine it cannot occur readily - you cannot walk into a doctor's office and get hypnotized with a snap of the fingers. There are other relaxation techniques that do not require you to be in a trance-like state and allow you to concentrate, while still remaining relaxed.

February 2, 2004 at 03:44 AM · Greetings,

according to the psychologist I trained with there are two kinds of hypnosis. The first is the kind you might see on TV where someone is made to bark like a dog and so on. The second is one deeply relaxed state in which the subject is free to terminate the exercise at any moment. The former is , as mentioned above, not -a snap- and has also been/is open to abuse. The latter is actually rather easy to learn and I can honestly say I have never met anyone I wa s unable to induce this condition in very rapidly. It could be extremely beneficial for improving one`s approach to such matters as study, practice and so on. But, there is also an issue of complexity involved. You have to be able to specify exactly what you wnat to be able to do in order for the hypnotist help you achieve it.

Thus, like all good things in life it requires thought and hard work.

Overall, I think you can do most of this stuff on your own through intelligent work, play and Alexander technique followed by a large bowl of prunes,

Cheers,

Buri

February 2, 2004 at 05:08 AM · I'm really interested if hypnosis might be able to help me gain confidence when performing from memory. I sometimes am afraid of having memory slips and if I could just fix that, my performances would be a blast. Any ideas or suggestions?

February 2, 2004 at 05:27 AM · Greetings,

yes and no. The low key kind hypnosis I wa stalking about can help to remove the mental habits that may be giving you some trouble but you still have to do the memory work itself and if you are really having troubke then your first priority should really be sorting out what you do in the pracitce room.

I recommend you read a book called `You are your insturment` by Liebermann which contains some veyr good advice.

The other thing one should do is pracitc e from memory. I have found this ot be the simplest cur eot the problem. So often we seme to pracitc ewhile staring at the music and leave the -memorizing- to later instead of making it an integral part of the prcess of elarning a piece. Memorizing is pretty much a quesiton of deifning the date you are going to use to fix the piece in your hea dso it is synonymous with thoughtfulpractice.

You might also enjoy reading the `Inner Game of Tennis,`

Cheers,

Buri

March 27, 2004 at 12:58 AM · I'm reading the Inner Game of Music right now, and so far, in two chapters I am completely engaged. This is a great book!

March 27, 2004 at 01:01 AM · i've always heard the inner game of tennis was the best, but i dont know how it compares to I G O music because i have never read that one so i cant compare them.

March 27, 2004 at 01:22 AM · I would think that any violinist who is open to learn from it will profit from a trip to the local library to read about hypnosis. Some books that I've seen point out that, as Buri mentions above, there are various forms of concentration and absorption in one's work which are, in fact, self-hypnosis. These mental processes are on the same spectrum with the more familiar stage hypnosis. An experienced performer will recognize that these skills of concentration are at the very heart of preparing and giving a performance.

March 27, 2004 at 04:21 AM · Since posting this question, I've actually been to a hypnotherapist who specializes in performance anxiety and she was VERY helpful. I've found self-hypnosis to be very useful to help me relax and focus. The technique also helped me kick my insomnia, memorize Spanish vocabulary words and mathematical formulas.

Self-hypnosis/progressive relaxation and relaxation meditation are essentially the same thing.