Philip Hii – guitarist

When I was writing the AOV, a friend of mine, a good pianist, asked me, “Do you think people will actually read the book and become a virtuoso after reading it?”

I thought about it. He had a point.

How many people actually read a book and apply what they learned?

Very few. I attribute this to a few reasons.

First, there’s always resistance to change. We get comfortable doing what we do and it takes a great deal of effort to break out of our comfort zone to try something new, unless the need is so strong it overpowers that inertia.

Second, skepticism. We’re always a bit doubtful about new things and new ideas. This skepticism is healthy because there is a lot out there that doesn’t work.

Third, and this is probably the main obstacle to new ideas. It’s hard for people to understand the significance of something that they haven’t experienced themselves yet.

In this, it’s a bit of a catch 22. If you don’t know something exists, you won’t understand what it is. If you don’t understand what it is, you wouldn’t go out and look for it.

If you’ve never tasted chocolate, and someone tells you there’s this incredible smooth creamy heavenly food out there, you’ll probably be a little skeptical.

In the same way, if you’ve never experienced good effortless playing, it’s hard to imagine that it exists. And if it doesn’t exist, why bother to try those ideas that will bring about that playing?

Resistance.

But let’s say one day, you come across some chocolate. The minute you taste it, you know exactly what the person was talking about.

Same thing with good playing. The minute you experience it, you immediately understand what it is about, how easy and effortless it feels, and you’ll never go back to the old way again.

The hard part is in experiencing that moment. In many ways, it resembles a moment of enlightenment.

There’s a moment of unknowing before and a moment of knowing after.

It’s happened quite a few times in my teaching.

I would be trying to describe a particular technique to a student without much success and then suddenly, one day, it clicks, and the student understands it, and there’s an instantaneous change in his playing.

I remember one such student. I had been explaining the concept of separating the source of your rhythm from your playing (a concept I explained in the AOV), but somehow could not get through to him. Weeks went by.

And then one day, he came excitedly to the lesson and told me he understood it perfectly. He played the piece (I remember it was the Prelude to Bach’s Third Cello Suite) and the change was unmistakable. No more haphazard rhythm, no more arbitrary changes in tempo, everything was controlled and clear. It was like listening to a new player.

So I answered my friend.

“No, I expect many people will read the book and miss the points entirely. But there’ll also be those who will read the book and understand its concepts and apply them and experience the dramatic changes the concepts will bring to their playing. As long as I can reach those people, and help them improve their playing, that’s good enough for me.”

I’ve been teaching for a number of years now and the longer I teach, the more I realize how hard it is.

How do you describe the sensation of a technique to one who hasn’t experienced it?

It’s like trying to describe a place to someone who’s never been there before.

Like trying to describe Houston to someone who hasn’t been there before, you can fall back on analogies and say, “Well, Houston is a bit like Dallas,” (assuming he or she knows Dallas) but that still doesn’t convey what the real Houston feels like.

To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, “How do you describe the cold to someone who’s warm?”

If you’re not careful, you might emphasize the wrong thing, miss an important detail, or miss the big picture altogether, like the seven blind men of Indostan.

Zen masters like to use the analogy of the finger pointing at the moon. Don’t confuse the finger for the moon. Don’t confuse the directions for the destination.

That’s what directions and instructions are, just fingers pointing at the moon.

It’s why Lau Tzu had to start with a disclaimer in the Tao Te Ching.

“The Tao that can be described is not the Tao, the name that can be named is not the name.”

And then proceeded to describe the Tao and name all its eighty-one names.

Perhaps that’s what we teachers should do too, start with a disclaimer.

“What I’m teaching are just words, to understand the real thing, you’ll have to experience it yourself.”

And then try to describe or explain it anyway.

Control is essential if you want to achieve mastery in any field or activity.

You have a set desired outcome, you want to achieve that outcome, control gives you the tools to influence that outcome.

The problem is usually not with control but with too much control.

That’s because we all have a bit of the control freak within us. We think if we can control every aspect of our execution, we might have a better chance of achieving our goals. This need for control is especially pronounced in high stakes situations, such as when we want to master something as complex as the classical guitar.

There’s a term they use in the business world – micromanagement.

That’s what you do when you try to get into the details of your body functioning. You begin to micromanage your body.

When you dictate precisely to your fingers how they should play, which joint to move, in what order, how much follow-through to effect, you’re micromanaging your body. When you prescribe detailed instructions on how to hold the wrist, what angle to hold the hand, you’re also micromanaging your body.

You’ve already predetermined for your body how it should operate.

I believe we all have an innate body intelligence, that our body knows best what works for it and knows best how to optimize its inner workings.

When you micromanage it, you kill these natural tendencies, you prevent your body from reaching its full potential, because you’ve preempted the need for it to discover those innate gifts.

Much the same thing happens in the business world. When you micromanage your subordinates, you kill their natural initiative and creativity, because you’ve preempted the need for them to think for themselves. You end up with a bunch of yes-guys who think their only job is to follow your orders precisely, and not much else.

Ironically, one of the things you lose when you try to control your body by micromanaging it is control itself.

Micromanaging your movements by enforcing a fixed system of playing on your body usually goes against the natural grain in your body. It creates conflict in the body. As a result, you’re much less likely to achieve control because you’re so constricted with tension.

So why do we still micromanage?

The answer is trust.

You don’t trust your body to perform its functions properly, so you think you can do better by giving it precise instructions on how to do it.

It comes back to the question of body intelligence.

Is there such a thing as body intelligence?

I’ll let two observations answer that question.

First, if you have an itch, no one can scratch it for you. Only you know where the itch is.

Second, I have yet to see one documented case of a baby teaching himself or herself to walk by following precise instructions on how to do it.