I aim to play the piano most days, if I am near one. I work from home a great deal of the time, and I do a lot of writing. The work often involves some complex problems – large and small – that need to be addressed. When I am stuck, simply fed-up and frustrated or just need a break, I’ll go to the room with the piano and play for 10, 20, maybe 30 minutes. When I sit at the piano, I might choose to run through one or two of the classical pieces I’ve learned to play reasonably well over the years. Or I might choose a jazz or popular standard that I’ve picked up by ear, which involves a bit of improvisation in that sense of working relatively loosely within a recognised framework. I never play the same tune in exactly same way: but then, who does?
Usually I just place my hands on or over the keys, and I wait to see what happens. I have no idea of what is going to happen before it takes place. Something stirs. Something starts. A note or a chord is played. And off I go. Or off ‘it’ goes, because I feel I’m not in conscious control of my fingers. I am, of course, but it doesn’t feel that way.
David Sudnow, in his now classic work Ways of the Hand (1978) which is a remarkable insider’s account of learning to improvise jazz piano that was based mostly on his own introspection, describes having the most vivid impression of his hands making music by themselves. Sometimes, for me, it feels a bit awkward, as I travel down some musical cul-de-sac or find myself in a particular and sometimes too-familiar groove. Other times it just flows, I’m ‘in the zone’, and I know, especially when it really flows, that it clears and refreshes not only my mind but also my spirit.
In relation to ‘flow’ and Czikszentmihalyi’s influential work on that topic, we know that performances that combine flow states with a degree of risk taking might hold the key to achieving optimal levels of musical communication in improvisation. Being in the flow or ‘groove’ sometimes enables experienced improvisers to move beyond or extend their previous cognitive limits.
Sudnow uncovered many principles about learning, and particularly, what we might call embodied learning. His analysis and observations resonate powerfully with the work and research around creativity in learning and teaching, and what might be referred to as learning or teaching at the ‘edge of chaos’.
Photo by Paul Kleiman
Stumbling with Confidence 