Season 1, Episode 13, Part 1: Madeline Bruser, The Art of Practice Institute

You're listening to The Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod.

I am Eric Hunter.

I'm Clara Zhang.

I'm Yukimi Song.

Our guest today is Madeline Bruser, pianist and author of the highly acclaimed book The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart. Madeline is also the founder of The Art of Practicing Institute, which is dedicated to helping musicians improve their playing by releasing physical and mental tension, often helping them to deal with performance anxiety or even recover from physical injuries. She has helped thousands of musicians around the globe, and we are very lucky to have her here today. Everyone, please welcome Madeline Bruiser.

Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

So I wanted to start with a little personal anecdote about my experience last summer with Madeline's Art of Practicing Institute because it was very influential on me. And I'm going to try not to go on too long because we want to let Madeline talk. But it was one week I was able to attend because it was online because of the pandemic. And it was completely transformative for me. I had kind of been dwindling down my performing experience the last few years, focusing more on composition and just kind of feeling like I wanted to get out of it. And that week at the Art of Practicing Institute just really turned things around for me. And on the very last day, the last thing we did was everybody went around and said, you know, how they felt about things, what they got out of the experience. And it was supposed to be like really quick, like 30, 60 seconds, because there are a lot of people. And I just, I had like this very tearful, just, ugh, ugh. Found myself again going on for minutes and minutes. And I wanted to thank you for that first, Madeline. And I hope this interview will inspire people to check out your materials and have similar revelations. Let's talk a little bit about The Art of Practicing and The Art of Practicing Institute. Can you tell our listeners exactly what it is? What is this all about? What do you do?

You know, basically what I do is help people connect to themselves so that they can connect to the music and to their audience. And this whole approach that I call the Art of Practicing is in segments, but they all blend together. So first of all, it's about how to use your body. And being much more aware of the body and how it works and what it feels like. So there's a whole lot of information about that, and a lot of it is surprising to people. Some of it is surprising to everybody, actually. And I think that's because it developed through many years of meditation practice in which I learned to sit still and notice what's going on inside of me instead of being kind of unconscious and reacting to all this energy without even relating to it.

So what kind of things do you find that everybody's surprised to learn about physically?

I think the most universal thing that is surprising to every pianist, and it also applies in the work I do with other instruments sometimes, is basically how to sit effectively at the piano so that your energy is really available to you. And I think what is not commonly understood at all is that the relationship to the ground is central. In other words, just as with an athlete, let's say a baseball pitcher pitches the ball, They don't like lean forward and pitch the ball. They get rooted in the ground. They kind of bend their knees a little bit and they have that power that comes from the ground and then they have power in their arm to deliver the pitch. And I often demonstrate this to people in workshops by having the whole audience deliver a punch into the air in an upright position and then compromise their posture. Delivered the punch and everybody notices that their power is compromised.

Right.

What's really great about this at The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song is that there's tremendous physical pleasure from the feeling of the play of forces within the body. The feet are solid, the sitting bones are solid on the bench, and then when you spring from the keys, for instance, in the loud chord, you have a third contact point, which is the bottom of the keys. And so as you play and different movements are happening, there is a lot of energy going through the body that's very powerful and feels really great. And it gives you a lot of momentum in delivering the performance, basically.

Right, right.

Whereas if you're kind of like this, which I used to do myself, you know, moving around a lot in reaction to how the music is affecting you instead of just being there for it to enter into you and to go through. If you do this, you can't really feel even the arm weight very clearly and can't feel the energy that comes back into your arm from the bottom of the keys when you do this. So you're putting energy out all the time and you're not getting anything back in.

Okay.

This is really transformative for every pianist I've worked with. And as I said, with other instruments, it always applies too. Now these days people are working with the Alexander Technique quite a bit, which definitely is very helpful and along the same lines. But I do think that what I'm doing at the piano is unique because it's very, very clear and defined exactly what the relationship is between the seat, the sitting bones, and this. So that they're all interplaying and you really feel like something is playing in your body. And the whole point of the approach is that music lives in the body.

Right.

So we have to be aware of the body and really connected to it. So how you sit at the piano has a huge impact on what's going on inside of the body and what your options are for movement and for self-expression.

Okay.

So we're really talking about like the efficient use of energy basically, right?

Right. It's basic biomechanics. And I think there's just, I think the issue is, which was certainly the issue with me until I was 37 and discovered this physical approach, is that music is so powerful in itself. It's so emotional for us. We love it so much. And so we get swept away with this very intense feeling. We just, you know, react like this, which is completely understandable, as if you're dancing to the music. But we're not dancing when we're playing. What's happening is the music is dancing within our body.

I like that.

Make room for it in there and can really tune into that dance that's happening on the inside. Mm-hmm. Then all of that energy is free to play out and really carry to the listeners.

I never thought of this before, but it's almost like we have to balance the subjective experience.

Of our emotions as we feel the music, right, with the kind of objectivity of the body, you know?

Well, actually, I think the body is the most subjective experience we have. Okay. It's intensely personal.

Yeah.

And we actually cut ourselves off from what it has to tell us and what it can do, what it can do for us, what it can give us when we don't use it according to fundamental biomechanical principles. I mean, it's designed to be used in a certain way and athletes are generally taught that. Musicians generally are not so much because we consider ourselves artists and we are artists. And so we feel like, well, an artist is a completely different kind of person from an athlete. But when you're playing an instrument, whatever the instrument is, you are an athlete. Doesn't mean you're not an artist, obviously. The athletics is in the service of the art and of the human being who's making the music and who's listening to the music. So I think it's my experience is that what's going on in the body is intensely subjective and that we, our biggest problem in our life in general is not having the space or time or encouragement or guidance to tune into what's happening inside of us. So then we're not conscious of how we feel. So then we get mad at so-and-so when it's not their fault or all these things happen or we don't do justice to the music. And the other thing about music in terms of the body, there's two other things. One is the sound has to live in the body. So you have this play of physical forces from the movement, and then there's all this sound, which is supposed to move us. If we're not moved by the music, literally physically inside, viscerally, we can't move our audience. Everything depends on us having a deeply personal connection to the sound on the visceral level and really being able to tune into that. Most often what happens is students are told, well, the phrase goes up and it comes down, so play it like that. And they're operating from their head. It doesn't mean that the phrase doesn't go up and down, but it means that within that general up and down, there are continuous flow of specifics of this harmony, that harmony, how they're juxtaposed, what that does to you as a person inside. And this kind of artist makes people go wild, basically.

Right, right.

Because then that body energy goes directly into their body. That's what happens in a performance.

Okay, so then how do we cultivate the mental state for that?

And What are some obstacles that we might encounter along the way?

So what is now very widely talked about is mindfulness. I actually wasn't trained that way as a meditator to talk about mindfulness a lot. It was more about awareness. But mindfulness is an excellent word because people understand it now. It's part of the vernacular. And it really amounts to practicing connecting to yourself, hopefully on a daily basis, so that your life works better, basically, you know. You know, you don't trip over things and say the wrong thing and all of that, but you have space in your mind. So the general problem we have is that the mind is very crowded. It's very busy. It's thinking about yesterday and tomorrow and next week, and it's feeling all this pressure. It has to do things and it has to do them by a certain time. And it's got a lot of worry, like, well, what if that person really didn't like me because of what I said? Should I apologize? Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. And it goes on and on forever. So this is the busyness of the mind. Mindfulness is a practice that allows you to tune into your natural ability to be mindful. In other words, to be aware of what's happening right now.

Right.

So the practice of, for example, noticing your breathing And then when you notice that you're thinking, you come back to your breathing. It's a very basic fundamental practice, but it trains literally the brain to return to the present moment. Interesting. Can I— it also, when the brain opens, when the mind opens and relaxes, the body starts to relax, the perceptions open. The heart opens. It's like you take a little vacation.

May I jump in? Because I really like the word mindfulness because it's a really, uh, it word right now, you know. Every yoga class you take or meditation class you take, there's this mindfulness— is the word that you hear a lot. Is it a connection between your body and what you do in your senses?

Mindfulness is the practice of letting the mind settle down and relax. And then naturally, the natural acuteness of your sense perceptions just opens up. Always there. It's always ready to be there for you. But when the mind settles down, you can suddenly see and hear and smell and taste and touch, actually feel things and respond in a more natural and beneficial way. So that includes how you touch the piano and your connection to the sounds that you're playing, that you're hearing coming out of the piano, being aware or mindful of that actual note, those actual sounds instead of being in your head and sort of singing in your head. There's a really— there's a world of difference between hearing the music in your head while you're playing and actually being able to hear it as it's coming toward you out of the instrument. That's—

Oh yeah, wonderful description.

Yeah, and that sounds more really organic, true to yourself, instead of just reading the notes and, um, like becoming— sometimes you feel like you're part of just a machine, you know, just reading the notes and play certain ways. But that might— if you have used that mindfulness of playing, performing, and practicing, I feel like it's more organic approach.

Yes, the whole thing is very organic. I'm glad you chose that word. That's excellent.

Thank you.

Can you explain, I feel like people might be able to understand how mindful awareness can bring you back to the present moment when you're like worried about something that you have to do tomorrow or some little mistake, that you made yesterday. I'm talking about like kind of minor anxieties. What about something like long-term trauma or like severe performance anxiety or something that happened to you long ago in the past that's stuck with you? How does mindfulness help with something like that?

I'm really glad you asked that. I think that there's a line between meditation practice or mindfulness practice and real healing work. I mean, I do feel from my experience definitely that mindfulness is a healing practice, but if you want to go really deep with a very serious issue, um, psychotherapy can be essential. There's a practice called The Healing Code. We teach at our programs, and I teach my students a practice called Focusing with a capital F, where you close your eyes and tune into what's going on inside the body. That can be very revelatory where you get in touch with things on a kind of like a dreamlike level where imagery can arise and you realize your own wisdom is really in there. But in terms of being traumatized, let's say the common example, the parents or the teacher or both abused the, the young musician. The little kid, most likely that person's going to need some psychotherapy to really work through that because it goes too deep, it damages too much, it is too big of a wound. And what I have heard, which I really believe, is that when trauma happens, it happens in the presence of a person who hurts you. And having the presence of another person who heals you is necessary because that person is giving you the opposite message and space to feel your feelings instead of telling you that they don't matter. That's really important. And I also feel that community is essential. For instance, with the Art of Practicing Institute programs and with the MasterClass series, we have time for discussion or conversation. So when people can have a conversation and start talking about their fear of performance and what happened to them and what they're afraid of and all these things. This is really support that can heal also because you're not alone anymore. And I think musicians are beginning to talk about this more. They're not hiding it in the closet so much. It's really, really important.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

And just speaking from my own experience, I, I'm glad you pointed that out and reminded me because we would have some long meditations in the morning, the beginning of every day, which would be in kind of intensely personal experience, and then there would be multiple group sessions following that where we got to kind of decompress and sometimes figure out what it all meant, bounce ideas off of, you know, that's absolutely critical to the process.

I was just going to share a little bit last year when I started with Madeleine, and I remember those sessions, you know, it was right before COVID we didn't even know how serious it was going to be, you know, it was just everything You know, when you— this is so fitting because I think we're going to release this in May. It's mindfulness awareness minds, right? And this is still new for me. You know, I have— I always said I was atheist. You know, I was not really spiritual. And growing up in Asia was, you know, I had a type A mother. So, and I felt pretty confident with myself, you know, when I perform. But I also realized when I studied with Madeline there's a little bit of me that I remember. I think it was during those group discussions that I finally realized I was being that way, so out there, because I was trying to prove something. And because, you know, I grew up in Asia, in China, and I didn't have a very traditional training background. And so I was always there to fight, you know? And so I somehow made it in New York, and, It's just, you know, I feel like everything is just— when you, Madeline, when you're talking about senses with Yukimi Song, and I'm like, mind-blowing, you know, like my mind is just— because when— how I knew of Madeline's work from years ago when I was in grad school in Massachusetts. I remember I had this one time I didn't perform well or something. A teacher gave me her book, Madeline's book, And I held on to this book for a very long time. And last year, you know, everything was going well in New York. And then 2 years ago, right before COVID there was something traumatic happened in my life. You know, it's just crazy, uh, personal things, but I don't even know how to deal with it. And then all of a sudden, I decided to go to a meditation retreat. And the day after I returned, Madeleine kind of just showed up, you know, like, and it was through PTC. And then I got the chance to study with Madeleine. It was just so inspiring. And I remember when I performed finally after the discussion that I realized I was able to just be myself. I didn't have to prove to anyone anymore. I can perform when I want to. I didn't have to have too many concerts, too little concerts. And then one thing about the body too, and I have more questions later on, but I would just share this a little bit. As a person who has really experienced this, I'm also an amateur ballet dancer. And then I remember what Madeleine described. When I am on stage, I'm so hyper, I'm so excited. It's almost the same thing as my ballet teacher tells me, Clara, you're too jumpy. So yeah, so this is really amazing. I'm sure we'll have more to talk about, but thank you for letting me share that.

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.

So Madeline, let me ask you, what are some problems that people or your students typically come to you with? You know, what are some common issues that people want to work on with you?

Well, injury recovery is definitely one of them.

Sure.

And physical tension in general. Um, And performance anxiety is definitely one of them. And then there's the general feeling like, I just want to play better than this.

Yeah.

You know, I'm at a point where I'm not settling for this. And that can take people a long time to get to, but it takes a certain maturity to be able to say, all right, I'm not really where I want to be. I think I should try to go further, and they have some sense that I can help them do that. So it's those 3 things, and it always comes down to being disconnected from the body, the mind, the heart, the sounds, the rhythmic flow, all these, you know, just not, not having received the full guidance that they've needed. Yeah, those kinds of things.

Sure, sure, totally. I just want to take a minute and validate something because you just reminded me how difficult it is when you have this instinct that something, not even something's wrong, but something could be better or something needs to be different or, you know, it's just an intuition that you have at that point that you want to be someplace different than you are. And, you know, having made my own progress in certain ways. I just remember it's so difficult when all you have is that feeling and you don't know even what the end result is. You might have some ideas about what it is, but once you get there, you find, you find out, oh no, I did. I really didn't know. The only thing that was true is the instinct. Right. And I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the bravery of everybody that starts down that path.

I couldn't appreciate that more. Thank you very much. And I face that every day in my life because my, art form is teaching, and I'm always, um, coming up with new understanding of what it is that I actually teach. Actually, in the last several months, I've been through a kind of major upheaval, um, because I've gotten more connected to myself and realized I don't want to live in New York anymore.

Oh my goodness.

And we, my husband and I, have looked at 3, uh, possible moving places And it's been a wrenching process. And just a couple of 3 weeks ago, we made our decision after visiting Philadelphia. We want to live in a suburb where it's green and pretty and quiet. I'm a little too old for that noise.

Wow, Madeline, way to come on the show and drop a bomb.

Oh, I know.

We didn't know we were losing you.

Philadelphia. Internet, right?

Yeah.

But thank you for appreciating me. But it's been a process of really having to come to terms with who I am inside, what I really want, and how to go about doing it. And it's one of the— I mean, it's one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced. And to do it at my age is also feeling like a major challenge and pick up stakes and go somewhere new, although we have wonderful friends there, which is a major plus. But the process has humbled me a lot. It's made me very aware of what kind of bravery it does take to go through any kind of transformative process.

Yeah, totally.

Grateful for it, because when you step into your transformation, you're right, you don't know where you're going to end up. I thought we were going to end up in Northampton, Massachusetts, where it was just going to be peaceful all the time and we sit in front of the fireplace and read and I teach a few students.

That sounds wonderful.

I got very—

I realized that there's so much more to me than that. I would be walking away from my whole musical lineage, the feeling that the cultural lineage that is in a major place like this.

Right.

We finally— we tried Connecticut. Feel like anything for us. And because we thought it would be good, it would be close to New York, and we just decided to go a little further away. And, um, unbelievable, just everything clicked about it. Everything.

Wow.

Suburbs, the city itself, the friends, you know, it's just unbelievable. And it is a major cultural center, and so it's very brave, I recognize myself, to actually step forward into this unknown. I mean, who am I going to connect with in the music world, right? I don't know these people. So it's, you know, we had a program in 2003 called Unleashing Natural Piano Technique, and it was a 5-week series for pianists, 4 pianists, and they each had 3 workshop sessions and 4 private lessons within 5 weeks. And one of these people came because her teacher asked her to do it because she needed to recover from an injury. I had to completely toss out her whole physical approach to the piano, start her out with, you know, ABCs, kind of just one finger at a time, then adding the arm movement. And halfway through, after the second workshop, she came up to me in tears. She said, I don't know what to do. I can't play the old way anymore. And I haven't gotten to the new way yet. Gave her a big hug. I said, that's how it is. You're gonna be all right. She got through it. She recovered from her injury and she was very brave to do that.

Yeah.

Dropped out in the middle and said, this is too much for me. But she knew somehow that there was something going on that was right. And you just like, you're right. You have to trust your instinct. There is, again, In the body, we know the life in us knows what it needs to do. It knows the direction it needs to go in.

Oh, well, I'm speechless. You know, I, I, well, I want to take a minute to thank you for what you do, because when I was 21, um, I had a teacher named Mark Sullivan who worked with me for just one month over the summer in a summer program. He was from California. I wasn't out there yet. And at that point in my life, my technique needed a complete rebuild. And he took it upon himself to do that. It was such a generous gift, you know, with a student that you only have for one month but who desperately needed it. And I had so much that I wanted to say that couldn't come out. And you take that chance on your students all the time. And, you know, as a teacher, I just can't give you enough credit for that.

Thank you. I think it's my personality. I just have this need actually to be very direct and go straight to the heart of the person because I always believe in them. I believe in every person who shows up. And my job is to help them believe in themselves. So I have to go for that heart of that person and know they can do it and be very encouraging and gentle through the process. Even while I'm being very clear, no, not like that, like this, right? It's just has to be very sharp and on the dot while being aware of what that human being is going through. I'm not perfect and nobody can be perfect with such a big task. I mean, I think there's no perfect teacher, just like there's no perfect parent. You're feeling this desire to help this person and You can't know everything. And actually, I learned so much from teaching. Practically every time I give a lesson, I'm learning something.

Yes, that's what I love about teaching.

Yeah, yeah, it's very creative that way. So we're stepping into the unknown also. I mean, you know, I'm still a performer. I gave up performing at 37, which is the biggest shock of my life, but I'm still a performer, which means I go for it. You know, I'm a communicator and I just, you know, that's what I need to do with myself.

That, especially if somebody doesn't even believe in themself yet and you're trying to help them get there, that requires a tremendous amount of energy and emotional investment. Over the course of your career, have you ever suffered from burnout or just feeling drained from like this constant expenditure of energy that way?

Oh, definitely. I mean, last year's summer program, you know, we did it online for the first time. I was just remembering yesterday what a joyous creative process it was for 4 months to happen. It was very collaborative. I had a lot of help, support from the other teachers, but it was a whole new ball game and we had so much to learn about technology and everything. Um, program was very successful when it was over. I was thrilled with it and I was completely exhausted. But I had scheduled a break. I knew that was going to happen. So the month of August was, you know, I taught some people. I mean, there were people away, but I just didn't have any of the stuff to do. I wasn't planning the next program. It was just— and I got a lot of rest. Just last week I took a week off, which was phenomenal. And I do that several times a year. And this is also from The meditation practice and community and teachings are always encouraging you to periodically take a whole retreat. You know, it's great to do it daily, but when you take a whole week for yourself and you don't answer email and you don't engage in work, there's nothing like it. I think that we don't realize that we need to be replenished. And I just read the other day that Americans are almost universally sleep deprived.

Mm-hmm.

And overworked.

And overworked. Exactly. And we don't even realize what it's doing to us and, um, that there is another way. So that's why I also gradually encourage people to get into meditation practice so that they can get more in touch with their need for rest and space and relaxation.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's actually gonna be the key to higher accomplishment. And in fact, when I started meditating, I didn't feel like practicing the piano for 2 months, so I didn't. When I came back, it was a completely different experience. I would stop for 30 or 60 seconds, sit there on the bench, do nothing, and then see what I wanted to do next. And I would notice things much more, like how my hands were working. I would notice the sounds more. All kinds of things I noticed. And the result was that it 3 hours of practicing, I accomplished more than I had previously in 5 or 6.

Mm-hmm.

So this is what I think people need to understand, that just as the body works a certain way, the mind works a certain way. It is designed to have rest built into its life so that you do your mindfulness practice. That's a little mini rest. Then you stop in the middle of practicing. You say, what do I want to do next? Instead of constantly driving yourself, that's a little mini rest. And if every once in a while you take a bigger break and give yourself a kind of attention, the human being needs this so much.

This concludes part 1 of our interview with Madeline Bruiser. Tune in next time for more on the art of practicing, including a technical demonstration at the piano.