There's a big difference between concentrating really hard on something and being perfectly aware of something. In America, we're used to working hard to concentrate on something, but I prefer not to work at concentrating when I'm playing. On the other hand, I want to be so perfectly focused that I know exactly what my body is doing at all times and am not distracted by things like: what other people think of my playing, whether I'm going to make that shift, etc.
I just made up a new exercise to get myself into that totally calm, focused, relaxed state. It worked so well it was scary, so I tried it on 6 of my students. It's a winner. One student played a passage, then followed my directions and did the exercise, played the passage again, and looked at me, dumbfounded: "why does that work?" "I don't know," I said, "but it's cool, isn't it?"
The purpose of The Magic Forehead is to practice focusing your mind in a relaxed way and to get used to forming a mental picture of what your body is doing, even when you're not looking at it with your eyes.
I'd suggest getting someone to read this out loud to you so you can do it with your eyes closed (or record yourself saying the steps and then play the recording).
The Magic Forehead
- Float your chest, and float your violin onto your "shelf".
- Count to 5. With each count, relax the right side of the back of your neck, down to your shoulder, even more.
- Breathe in and out a few times to make sure your shelf is still floating.
- Close your eyes.
- Let your eyeballs roll left, as if they're looking out of the corner of your left eye. Eyes are still closed.
- Let your eyes slide down your nose, like they're closing even more, until your forehead relaxes.
- Keeping that same forehead, let your eyes swing up so that they're "looking" at the end of your fingerboard where your left hand would be.
- Swing your left hand up to that place.
- Play a passage with your new forehead feeling, calmly being able to "see" in your mind how each finger looks as it goes down on the fingerboard. Enjoy that new relaxed, aware feeling!
Note: eyes are closed the whole time. When you can do it consistently with eyes closed, then open your eyes if you need to read music, etc. You will get so that you can do this very quickly, with one step running into the next.
Teachers: if you're showing this to a student, try this next:
Have your student stand behind you and watch your fingers as you play a passage. Now, let the student find the new forehead feeling by doing the exercise, and then the student should play the passage while seeing your fingers in his mind's eye. The student is not trying to change they way his own fingers are moving; he's just imagining that your fingers are the ones that are moving as he plays.
If you're doing this exercise by yourself, then you should instead imagine the fingers of a violinist whose finger motion you like. I just tried this with my stand partner during Nutcracker. It was very interesting and exciting!
I think you'll like the results.
Update: after teaching this to violinists and to tango dancers for a few weeks, people have reported feelings of increased awareness, a sense of well-being, and utter relaxation. Many adults have told me that it helps them in many areas of their lives.