TWO KINDS OF attention

I hurt my knee recently and needed to figure out what was wrong.

My experience with PTs (physical therapists) is that normally they try to usher you out in about 45 minutes. They hand you a sheet of exercises and get on to the next patient. My new PT on the other hand, has routinely given me up to two full hours. It’s the most time I’ve ever gotten. It is a very interactive process; I do plenty of work while I’m there, but so do they. The kind of attention I’ve gotten is making a difference.

A kind of alchemy

There's something almost alchemical about quality attention from another human being.

It brings healing in a tangible way. It is different from "OK, here's the program you need to follow independently with your own knowledge, will power and grit, and you'll get better on your own." That’s a model of individuals existing in parallel, each person doing their own thing. I’m talking about a different kind of work, one that is much more synergistic, much more about what we can only do together.

Think about how this applies to music. We may have practiced alone to get ready, but when we come together, something different happens.

Call it Connected Attention. More than individuals focused on their own improvement goals, there’s a spirit that grows up between the players, or between teacher and student, that is unique to that particular relationship. Over time, this becomes a robust, layered, organic thing, with its own life and its own expression.

In the same way we can transform ordinary ideas, thoughts and words into something very special, when we process them together with others. In the right environment, our work together becomes larger than the sum of its parts. It is more than mere addition. It is not 1 + 1 = 2, but 1 + 1 = 3.

Some of our cherished paradigms and beliefs really get in the way here. If playing music is about demonstrating individual ability, we will miss the opportunity for synergistic creation. If this music is only a means to collect skills, which will later be used to prove one’s worth in the world, then we have lost its essential magic: the alchemy of spirit between us.

Two kinds of quality attention

As I work with students on refining their attention I can see two aspects of it: Inner Attention and Connected Attention.

Inner Attention refers to that growing inner lens, that which drops into the body and feels more precisely. It is with this kind of attention that we hear sounds, see with our eyes, and pick up various kinds of touch sensations such as pressure, temperature, vibration. When in the first lesson I have a student become aware of the elbow hinge which moves the bow, I am helping them send their awareness into their body. In a more advanced student, it might be helping them sense just the right balance in the bow.

Connected Attention is the quality that senses the spirit growing between us. It sends itself outside of itself, tuning in to the other. But then it gathers that awareness together with the first kind, Inner Attention, so that the inner awareness is merged with the outer. This is a high level of awareness, and yet even young children can do it.

When both Inner and Connected Attention are allowed to flourish, there is germination. Like planting, first just a seed. But given water and good sunlight in the form of time together, vital energy emerges that is simultaneously inside of the people involved and deeply connected to each of them.

This dual attention glues an orchestra together, and it makes for the best kind of chamber playing. It is also the pinnacle of teaching, when it is achieved with a student.

Where to find it

Where can we find and develop these two kinds of attention? Mindfulness and meditation practices help develop Inner Attention. Once this is learned, music can become a meditation.

Here’s how I see students finding this inner mindfulness in violin lessons:

• Close listening to tone and by feeling how the body must move to produce it

• Directed attention at softening the hands while moving gracefully and fluidly

• Care for each note, not leaving any out, not hurrying to get through it

• Sending energy to specific body parts: e.g. elbow, tip of pinky, top of head

• Keeping with the flow of a phrase and shaping each part of it

• Tuning with awareness of how notes sound together

In this state of mind, we can truly tune in to the world around us. Connected Attention is Inner Attention directed outward. It is a deeper way of paying heed to what is going on around you, of seeing and hearing other people, of engaging more clearly with the world.

Both kinds of attention are constantly interrupted by our thoughts, which are often anxious and worried and unhappy. Mindful music addresses this problem by bringing us back to the present moment, and through sound, to a sensory awareness both inner and outer.

Connected Attention is Inner Attention directed outward.

The value I see in developing attention is therefore not only for music, but for life. If we can see music as a doorway to better attention, we can shed a lot of light to our other commitments and relationships, as well becoming happier in the moment with ourselves.

Four questions for reflection:

1. What kinds of attention manifest in your life now?

2. What stops you from having more Inner Attention in your experience?

3. Where have you received or given Connected Attention recently?

4. How does music help you and your child with Inner and Connected Attention?