When your ensemble mindfully breathes together, it aligns all the musicians psychologically and physiologically. Breathing together in sync helps to create the sense of community, connectedness, and unity that is essential for a successful music ensemble. Just as mindful breathing serves our well-being, mindful breathing builds trust in ensembles and will help students decompress and feel better. Don’t be surprised when they start asking you to include more mindful breathing in your rehearsals and music classes! 

Gratitude Breath

By including a gratitude breath at the beginning and/or end of each rehearsal, we can cultivate a habit of gratitude. Ask your students to think of someone or something that they appreciate. It might be a pet, a friend, a family member, their instrument, music, or a memory. Breathe in your nose for four counts while focusing on what you are grateful for and exhale any stress, anxiety, or toxic negativity out your mouth for eight counts. Just release and let it go. It works well to repeat this three times. You may find that it will boost the mood of the players to ask for volunteers to share out what brings them gratitude. 

Focus Breath

Instead of asking students to stop talking during rehearsal, lead them through the focus breath, breathing in the nose for 4 counts and out the nose for 4 counts for three or four times in a row. This breath will center, calm, and focus your students, and the bonus is that it is impossible to talk when you are breathing through your nose! This is a great way to refocus students in a positive way, to direct them to where you want them to be, fully present and ready to make music, as opposed to focusing elsewhere. When we ask students to “stop talking,” it can create a confrontational rather than collaborative climate. Of course, there are times when it just needs to be said, but I believe that, in the end, you and your students will instead prefer engaging with the focus breath for a few moments. I use the focus breath at the beginning of rehearsal as needed to heighten awareness in the rehearsal and after transitions prior to working on another piece or retuning the group. 

Beginning a rehearsal with mindful breathing and a focus on gratitude primes the mind for its optimal state for learning, collaborating, creating, and music making. Incorporating mindful practices elevates self-awareness and allows us to fully tap into our feelings and emotions to then fully express meaning through our instruments. Directing our bodies to breathe deeply and our minds to focus on gratitude also calms nerves and anxiety, setting us up to be fully in the moment musically. When we are stressed and our heart rate is elevated, our breathing gets tight, shallow, and pinched off. But when we are calm, our breathing is relaxed and flows, which is optimal for producing a beautiful tone and phrasing. 

Confronting Performance Anxiety

Through daily mindful conditioning, we are also teaching our students life-long skills for managing, coping with, and avoiding performance anxiety. They will be able to transform nervousness to a calm, focused intensity. Taking a mindful, focused breath as an ensemble before playing a challenging piece at a concert is a great way to prepare students for a high-level performance. We spend so much time on the technique of “getting the music right,” yet we should also spend time on developing habits that will heighten our performance from the inside out. 

You can empower your students to lead the ensemble through mindful breathing practices to increase ownership and buy-in. Older students can also mentor younger students on these breathing habits and techniques. Developing breathing habits specific to developing great tone and air support serves an equally important purpose as mindful breathing techniques that help center the mind, heighten awareness, and relax the nerves.

This article originated from an edited excerpt in Upbeat! Mindset, Mindfulness, and Leadership in Music Education and Beyond  by Dr. Matthew Arau, published by GIA Publications.

The post Breathe New Life Into Your Music Ensemble appeared first on SmartMusic.

1. You can tiptoe into the year, getting deeper into the water, inch-by-inch.

   OR

   2. You can jump right in, feet first, and embrace this opportunity for change and renewal wholeheartedly.

I encourage you to choose option #2.

Take the lessons you learned from facing and overcoming the challenges of 2020 and look forward to the future with anticipation for a brighter future.

People around the world have made resolutions for what they want to do or accomplish this coming year. The problem, however, with new year’s resolutions is that most people do not follow through and achieve their goals. 

Here’s a Solution

Instead of focusing on the what, focus on the who. 

Who do you want to be in 2021?

• Our thoughts are our upbeats to our actions. 
• We choose our thoughts.
• We choose our attitude.
• Our thoughts and attitude lead to actions. 
• What we repeatedly do determines our habits. 
• Our habits create who we are. 

Use the power of the upbeat to believe, imagine, and visualize who you want to be. Put a note on your bathroom mirror or your computer monitor, in your wallet, in your phone, or on your car’s dashboard to remind yourself daily who you desire to be. Then, make decisions based on who you want to become. 

Want to know how choosing who you want to be leads to success? 

I am healthy. 

Believe that you are already healthy, energetic, fit, and alive. Now, act in a way that a healthy person would act.

1. Make smart food and drink choices.
2. Sleep Well.
3. Exercise.

I am grateful. 

Imagine the feeling of gratitude. No matter how difficult our lives are, we can always find something or someone to be grateful for. Here are action items that support your desire to be grateful.

1. In the morning, take stock of all the things and people you have to be grateful for.
2. Smile often.
3. Share your gratitude and lift other peoples’ spirits.

I am connected. 

Visualize the feelings of friendship, love, and community that you experience when you are connected. Now, take action to foster these feelings.

1. Take the first step to reach out to friends and let them know that you care about them.
2. Reach out and connect with new people.
3. Be curious, fascinated, and interested in the people you meet.

Want to know 2 strategies to stay motivated throughout the year? Look below:

1. Attach your TO BE resolution to your personal mission or purpose. How will your decision to be something align with your sense of purpose?
2. Think about WHO ELSE you are making this resolution for, so you recognize how raising your personal bar makes a difference to someone else.

I’ll close this section with this poem from my beautiful wife, Merilee. May it bring a smile to your face as it did mine.

In with the new,

Out with the old,

We mined our struggles

And found the gold!

You may have been bruised,

But accept no defeat.

Let’s begin 2021 

With a thundering UPBEAT! 

Lastly, here are 6 simple strategies that have changed my life:

1. Wake up every morning to your “opportunity clock” instead of your alarm clock and focus on joy, gratitude, comfort, or what you are looking forward to that day with eager anticipation. 
2. Focus on a positive thought for 17 seconds in the morning so that the thought becomes a sticky thought and attracts more positive thoughts.
3. Visualize the day you want to create in your mind. Imagine your day with energy and enthusiasm. See yourself making a positive difference in someone’s life today and then take action and follow through.
4. Choose to focus on what you get to do and what you can do rather than on what you can’t do. Focus on what you enjoy rather than on what you don’t enjoy. Focus on the goodness in others rather than on what annoys you.
5. Write down three things or people that you are grateful for. You can do this on your computer, phone, or in a notebook. Review your gratitude journal at the end of the month. 
6. Share your appreciation and gratitude for someone with them. It will raise both of your spirits!

Wishing you peace, health, and serenity as you take a leap of faith and plunge into 2021. 

Together, let’s make a BIG SPLASH OF POSITIVITY!

The post The Power of the Upbeat: Strategies for Positivity in 2021 and Beyond appeared first on SmartMusic.

How we approach the waking seconds and minutes of our day impacts the trajectory of our day and ultimately the kind of classroom environment and culture that is created.

Everything rises in a positive culture. While we’ve likely known this intuitively before, today it has been supported through science. In a positive environment, everything is lifted. Creating an upbeat, positive culture in your ensemble can help your students flourish. What’s more, it can produce a musical community filled with joy, respect, growth, purpose, meaning, and excellence. 

To help, here are some ideas and strategies you can put to use today and some resources you can explore for tomorrow.

Adopt a Positive Attitude

What impact can our attitude have on our students?

Michelle Gielan, positive psychology researcher and former CBS News Anchor, writes in Broadcasting Happiness, that we broadcast feelings and emotions energetically. What we broadcast impacts the feelings and emotions of those around us. She writes, “Maintaining an optimistic, empowered mindset is advantageous. It fuels positive health, educational, and business outcomes – not to mention our happiness.”

When we broadcast happiness, we will see improvement in our mental, emotional, and physical performance. We will build stronger relationships, our brain functions at a higher level, and we will be more successful in our work. Our attitude is contagious and it will either lift up or bring down the spirit of the musicians that we conduct. 

In You Win in the Locker Room First, Jon Gordon writes, “Research from the HeartMath Institute shows that when you have a feeling in your heart, it goes to every cell in the body, then outward – and other people up to 10 feet away can sense feelings transmitted by your heart.”

We are not only conducting music but we are conducting and transferring our attitude and feelings energetically to our students. 

The culture of our band will rise when we can create a focus on positivity. While this may feel contrary to the traditional focus on what is wrong and what needs to be fixed in rehearsals, we can choose to create an upbeat culture that discovers a positive way of looking at learning and creativity. While mistakes need to be corrected and music needs to be played accurately, we can shift our verbal phrasing and physical gestures to paint a picture of what the music can and should be rather than continually pointing out what it is not. 

Our brain takes in 11 million bits of information per second but we are only conscious of 40 bits of information. What if we could control what we choose to focus on? It turns out that we can change our habits of thought and how we respond to situations.

Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, said on his TEDTalk, “It is not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which our brain views the world shapes [our] reality. And if we can change the lens, we can change [our] happiness and [our] outcomes.” James Jordan describes the choice that we have in rehearsal to react to sound in frustration or respond with love and care as mimetics in his book, The Musicians’s Soul.

“Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed but being negative will guarantee you won’t.” – Jon Gordon, author of You Win in the Locker Room First

A positive culture is one where the teacher has high expectations for each individual student. Positive teachers don’t just see students where they are; they see the student that they can become.

Try SmartMusic for free, today!

Connect and Create Trust

To create a positive culture, we must intentionally create a classroom that embraces connection and belonging. Students with a sense of belonging in school feel socially connected, supported, and respected. This sense of belonging can also help them to feel safe. Daniel Coyle writes, “Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: we are safe and connected.” Coyle continues to say that “Safety is not mere emotional weather but rather the foundation on which strong culture is built.” 

We need to pause and reflect on the emotional culture of our classroom and determine how safe and how connected it really is.

Brené Brown teaches in Daring Greatly that “We are hardwired for love, connection, and belonging.” “When I belong, I get to be me.” She shares that when we can be open and authentic and vulnerable, then we can create a path for developing trust and sparking cooperation. This is easier said than done, though. Vulnerability feels scary, exposed, and uncomfortable, like weakness. But it also feels authentic, open, honest, pure, and human. 

How can we create a culture that makes vulnerability possible? We need to take the first step. When music expresses loss or joy, share a personal story or feeling and show the feeling in our face and conducting gestures. If we expect our students to express feelings through their instruments or voice, we need to take the first step and lead by example. This will create a trusting space where being vulnerable is embraced and safe. In a trusting environment, students can feel safe to feel and express. When there is trust, they can access their feelings and express through their instruments on a deeper level.

Here are some strategies to build connections with your students:

• Learn your students’ names and something about them as quickly as possible; they want to be truly seen and heard.
• Support your students in their activities outside of your music classes.
• Create a spirit of togetherness and cooperation by honoring student input and creativity.
• Bring students up to the front of the ensemble to listen and give feedback to their peers.
• Let students know individually and collectively how much you value their effort and presence.

This reminds me of the following words by leadership guru, John C. Maxwell: “It’s one thing to communicate to people because you believe you have something of value to say. It’s another to communicate with people because you believe they have value. People’s opinion of us has less to do with what they see in us than it does with what we can help them see in themselves.”

Communicate with Students

In a society where the predominant form of communication is often accomplished while looking down and typing on a phone, how we communicate with our students is more important than ever before. We can be a role model for how to communicate with each other, human to human.

Judith Glaser, in Conversational Intelligence, shows how the language we use affects us at a cellular level. The things we say and hear can literally change our physiology. When we use words that inspire connection, such as “we,” “let’s,” “us,” and “together,” our cells literally get excited – our immune system elevates and our brain fires at a higher level. 

In a recent study done at Stanford University researchers found that including the word “together” had motivated people to work substantially longer and produce better-quality work. Phrases such as, “join us,” “let’s do this together,” and “sit with me,” motivate us because of our desire to be part of a group.

Our words can help create the feeling that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and when we do that our students will become intrinsically motivated to achieve for their fellow musicians. Positive and inspiring messages can also be communicated through posters on the walls, whiteboards or SmartBoards, the ensemble’s social media outlets, and concert programs. How we communicate affects the culture of our room, and in addition to verbal language, our tone of voice and body language make a significant difference. One of the most important ways we can communicate with our students is by smiling. This is the focus of a wonderful 2011 TEDTalk by Ron Gutman.

Gutman asks; “Ever wonder why it’s hard to resist smiling in the presence of happy children? Kids smile as often as four hundred times a day, but only 30 percent of adults smile more than twenty times a day, and 14 percent don’t crack a smile five times a day.” He also talks about the health benefits of smiling. “The act itself of smiling lifts your mood, boosts your immune system, decreases stress, lowers blood pressure, and reduces your risk of heart attack. One smile alone can provide the same level of brain stimulation as up to two thousand chocolate bars! Smiling is also associated with living longer.” Gutman also suggests that when we smile we not only appear more likable and courteous, we are also perceived to be more competent. 

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.” – Mother Teresa

Our communication style, content, and delivery will be mirrored by our students and affect the culture of the ensemble. When teachers are sarcastic or derogatory to their students, the ensemble members will tend to be sarcastic and negative to each other. As teachers, we set the standard of how students treat and respect each other. 

How we give feedback matters. Be respectful and encouraging. Focus on what needs to be done rather than what is not done. In other words, focus on going forward rather than going backward and be as specific as possible. Rather than saying that a student is playing out of tune if they are flat, simply ask them to raise the pitch. If a student is rushing, ask them to relax the rhythm into the beat. If a student is playing the wrong rhythm, demonstrate or sing the correct rhythm. 

Remember the poignant words of poet Maya Angelou; “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Listen to Your Students – When They’re Not Playing

Listening is such an important part of how we communicate. One of the most important things we can do to create a positive culture is through listening. Students want to feel valued and heard. 

In a world where it appears that there is more talking at or shouting at each other rather than listening, it is important to remember that, we have two ears and one mouth – use them proportionately. We teach the importance of caring and compassion through listening.

According to Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, there are five levels of listening:

• Ignoring
• Pretending to Listen
• Selective Listening
• Attentive Listening
• Empathic Listening

If we really intend to get to know our students, we have to listen to them at the most empathic level. When we take time to hear our students, we learn about their experiences, fears, and desires, and our ensemble music-making experience becomes about making human connections rather than just facilitating the production of sound through machines. Take the time to pull away from the computer or administrative task when a student comes to your office to talk. Those moments can be precious to the student who likely simply needs an adult who cares.

Make listening to each other when playing or singing central to the culture of your ensemble and make listening to each other when not playing just as important.

Develop Student Leadership

Leadership is the great lifter just as a rising tide lifts all boats. When a student leadership team is developed, the music teacher can then focus on what they do best – teach music. Finding leadership roles for your students not only empowers them and gives them a voice, it communicates the trust, belief, and high expectations you have for them. Providing leadership opportunities is part of creating an environment where students feel safe, free, and encouraged to share their thoughts – musical and otherwise. 

I believe that leadership is inspiring and encouraging others to achieve their full potential. Leadership is not about having a title; it is about how we treat ourselves and others. Notice that the focus of leadership is on lifting others up and leading by example. Each student recognizes that their actions and words impact others and they have control of their thoughts and actions. 

We can teach leadership principles during the rehearsal of music. Here are some ideas:

• The melody is the leader.
• The harmony is the supportive voice or follower.
• Both the leader and follower are important and we change roles from follower to leader in music just as we do in life.

Involve your students in creating learning, rehearsal, and performance goals and for creating a vision and mission for your ensemble. When students are involved in this process, they are much more inclined to buy into the ensemble. Just like teachers, students are motivated when they feel there is a purpose behind what they are doing in school. Set short term, achievable goals and celebrate the stepping stones along the pathway towards achieving larger, overarching goals.

In Closing

When two or more people come together to create an ensemble, a culture will be created. We can either let a culture form haphazardly or we can choose to create a positive and upbeat culture by design. 

The attitude, beliefs, and actions of the director are largely responsible for the culture that is created. Our thoughts precede everything and our thoughts are the upbeat to our actions. A positive upbeat creates a positive impact. Set your intention to wake up with a spirit of gratitude and anticipation and choose to create a culture with students flourishing in a musical community filled with joy, respect, growth, purpose, meaning, and excellence.

Additional Video Resources

• The Happy Secret to Better Work – Shawn Achor
• Believe in your Students – Matthew Arau
• The Power of Vulnerability – Brené Brown
• The Hidden Power of Smiling – Ron Gutman
• Everyday Leadership  – Drew Dudley

The post Upbeat! Creating a Positive Culture in Music Ensembles appeared first on SmartMusic.