inner game

When I wrote my review of the classic performance book The Inner Game of Music, I knew that a lot of people wouldn't like it.  It wasn't the most glowing review, to be sure, and the book itself has a lot of ardent fans around the world of musical performance.  One such ardent fan is Liz Garnett, a friend of mine from the UK who publishes her own performance related blog, focusing mostly on harmony singing.  (Liz is also listed in the OTS Coach Directory)  So in light of her comments, I'd like to clarify some of mine!  Hopefully the back-and-forth will be useful for everyone.

I'll quote a few paragraphs from her article, and respond.  First we talk about Self 1 and Self 2:

[Tom's] first point of contention is the division between Self 1, the nasty inner critic, and Self 2, the honest musician who would do a much better job if Self 1 would only shut up and let them get on with it. Tom finds this device unhelpful, and thinks a more holistic, rather than ‘schizophrenic’ approach will be better for performers. But I think that’s actually the Inner Game’s point: the Self1/Self2 idea is presented as a way to describe an essentially dysfunctional state that the book aims to help us leave behind. Describing the split is necessary if people are to diagnose that they have the problem.

The first thing to realize is that we're discussing models and metaphors here, not hard facts.  Of course there is no Self 1 and no Self 2 - they are inventions of Tim Gallwey, which he defines as everything that works for you, and everything that doesn't.  Everyone has things that work for them and things that do not!  It doesn't take a stroke of brilliance to realize that we want to get rid of the latter.

Having said that, a metaphor has value if it works, and this one has worked for a lot of people.  There are many paths to the promised land!  I just don't find the Self 1/Self 2 breakdown a particularly useful model for me.

Next topic is what should the performer hold in their head.  Inner Game of Music author Green says it doesn't much matter - anything to distract you from your negative self-talk and head games.  And to some extent I think that's fine.  I think it would be better to have something up there that pertains to the purpose of the piece, which I have called the "scene."  Liz takes exception to that term:

The focus on the ‘scene’ betrays a very character-based, verbally-defined performance context. Plays have explicit scenes, songs evoke scenes: the performer has a concrete persona to inhabit in these artworlds. But instrumental performers (who are the ones who might be focusing on their instrument) often have a much more intangible set of musical ideas to communicate to their audience. The soloist who is going to build the long, highly structured stretches of musical time in a Brahms sonata into coherent experience needs focal points that will take them into that abstract imaginative world. It’s not ‘navel-gazing’, it’s an important mental skill for that artistic world, just as the ability to focus creating scenes is an important skill for the singer.

Again, if focusing on your instrument works for you, have at it!

I'm a singer, and hardly an instrumental performer at all (not since high school!), but even so I suspect that the very best instrumental performers have something going on in their heads that is more explicitly about the artistry, and less about simply distracting their Self 1.  If the goal is just to rid yourself of stage anxiety, and that's a worthwhile goal for sure, do what you need to do.  If you want to reach higher, it's not going to happen by itself!  It takes focus on the emotional content of the music.  At least, that's my two cents.

I suggested also that "relaxed concentration" may not be the ideal emotional state for all performances.  Liz kind of disagrees with that, and refers to a book called "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" that I have not read.  So I've ordered it!  I'll read it before I comment on it.  Looking forward to that one.

Finally, in my original article I didn't comment much on the trio of Awareness, Will and Trust, and that's basically because, let's be honest, I just didn't get it.  Liz feels it's very important, and I suspect she is right - I hope she will consent to write a blog article about it that helps me understand it better!

Thanks, Liz, for the lively discussion!

I recall a few years back that the "Inner Game" concepts ran like a wildfire through my circle of a cappella singers.  Every educational event featured a class in The Inner Game, and everyone was talking about it.  The book itself, by Barry Green, was written way back in 1985 as a follow-on to the hugely popular "Inner Game Of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey.  Even today, many Inner Game concepts can be seen in the prevailing attitudes and beliefs in performance circles.

I am re-reading The Inner Game Of Music now, and testing all its concepts with what I have learned about performance from other sources, and now I find that I agree with a lot of the book, but I disagree with a lot of it as well.  I have just finished Chapter 3, which goes over the basic Inner Game concepts at a high level.

As a quick overview, the basic idea of the Inner Game is to remove the self-generated interference that is getting in the way of you being the best performer (or tennis player) that you can be.  The equation Performance = Potential - Interference ( P = p - i ) sums it up, no pun intended.  The interference in question is created by your judgmental self, which is your "Self 1".  Everything you do that works well comes from the other part of you, your "Self 2."  Some people have tried to map these concepts of Self 1 and Self 2 to "left brain" and "right brain" or even to "mind and body", but Gallwey specifically says that he's trying to say something much simpler: If it interferes with your potential, it's Self 1; If it expresses your potential, it's Self 2.

It's here that I start to have a problem with The Inner Game.  I see the performer as one thing, not two.  I believe it's more useful to view yourself holistically, rather than to honour the schitzophrenia of naming multiple selves.  As soon as you identify a "Self 1" that does things to you that you don't like, you're giving up control.  It may be a useful device, but it doesn't seem like the most useful one, nor does it seem entirely honest or accurate.

Moving along, once Gallwey identifies Self 1, we start to talk about strategies for reducing its power.  We hear Self 1 criticizing us, sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt in our minds while we perform, so we refuse to talk back to it.  We focus on something else in order to fool Self 1 into shutting up for a while.

Dude, it's not your Self 1, it's just *you* doing it.  So stop! ;)

Seriously, negative self-talk is a big problem for performers, and it can keep you from being in the ideal state of mind for performing.  It's a good idea to have strategies to manage it, many of which I addressed here, in my series on stage fright.

Shifting your focus to "the now" is a great idea.  And focusing on something that is happening in the moment is a good strategy.  My only issue is what Green suggests you focus on: look at your instrument, listen to the sound, focus on your feelings, focus on what you know.  The common theme is that you are turned inward instead of outward - navel gazing, while trying to perform.  In The Inner Game Of Tennis, Gallwey suggests that students look at the seams of the tennis ball as it comes toward them, and apparently that works really well.  But now we come to the crux of the problem - stage performance is not the same as tennis!  Sure "performance" is important in both games, but that's just because English is a stupid language sometimes.

If you're a tennis player, your job is to hit the little green ball over the net better than your competitor.  If you do this, you win.  The fans get excited (one hopes) but there's not a lot of emotional content there, other than the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  There is no suspension of disbelief - it's really two people hitting a ball over a net.

For a stage performer, on the other hand, there's an audience and they need to create a scene in their mind, based on what you are doing.  So what you do as a stage performer is much more difficult to understand and measure than a tennis game.  What you focus on in order to quiet your Self 1 negative self-talk is *critical* for a stage performer, and the only thing that makes sense as a focus is *the scene* - any mental cycles that you waste on your instrument, the sounds in the room, or your feelings, is a distraction from the scene, pure and simple.  The audience does not care at all about your feelings.  They only care about the scene they are creating in their heads, and the emotions being evoked.  They care about their own feelings.

In tennis, it makes a lot of sense to be in a state of relaxed concentration all the time.  In stage performance, relaxed concentration only makes sense if you're playing a scene where relaxed concentration is appropriate.  One wouldn't be in a state of "relaxed concentration" while singing a marching song, or playing a love scene.  Relaxed concentration is a sports performance thing, not a stage performance thing.

So here's how the book scores so far:

• Self 1 vs. Self 2.  Doesn't work for me.
• Focus on the now.  Check - I agree.
• What they suggest you focus on: instrument, your feelings, etc.  Nope, that's not gonna work.
• Relaxed concentration.  Nope.

Stay tuned!  The book has 12 more chapters.