Zbyněk Sklenský

An interview with Rosie Bennet about letting go of unnecessary control, musical phrasing and observation without self-judgment. The first part of a series about David Leisner and his broader perspective on gaming.

David Leisner is an extremely important person for me. That's why I want to devote an entire series to his interviews and also capture what goes beyond focal dystonia itself. The interview with Rosie Bennet is not about the rehabilitation process. It's about the relationship between movement, attention and music: when further conscious control is no longer helpful and how to learn without constantly judging yourself.

Lessons from a violist who changed the way of playing

Leisner recalls meeting violist and teacher Karen Tuttle. He played Bach's Chaconna for her and got a stimulus that didn't involve new fingering. He had to allow the music to develop naturally and feel the connection of the phrase with the movement of the whole body. Tuttle worked with the release of tension and the continuity of movements, not just where the finger hits the string.

According to Leisner, this changed the resulting sound and his experience of playing. What is important to me is that it was not additional gymnastics glued to the finished performance. Bodily experience and musical expression interacted. The movement, which sometimes has to be more obvious when getting to know a new approach, can later become an inconspicuous part of playing.

Letting go of control doesn't mean you stop learning

Leisner distinguishes between the phase of detailed learning and the moment when it is necessary to trust the acquired skills. If we break down even a well-prepared composition into individual movements every time we play it, we can lose its entirety. He also describes tilting the head toward the fretboard and anxiously watching the hands: attention can narrow to the point that it ceases to serve the player.

Part of the preparation can therefore be for him to postpone the song and come back later. He does not consider it necessary to maintain the entire concert program for weeks continuously at the peak of intensity. Individual parts can mature separately and come together closer to the performance. I understand this idea as working with attention and planning, not as a one-size-fits-all calendar.

What can a person with dystonia take from it

Focal dystonia is not discussed as a separate topic in this episode. Leisner talks about his own past health experience and tension, but does not present a treatment protocol here. For readers with FD, the interview is interesting mainly because of the question of whether all attention has turned into continuous monitoring of the affected finger.

It cannot be inferred that thinking causes dystonia or that the instruction to "relax" will remove it. However, as an incentive to work together with an expert, I find it useful to look for an assignment that also leaves room for rhythm, sound or phrase direction. Shifting attention does not mean ignoring the involuntary movements and continuing despite the deterioration.

Observation before evaluation

I find one of the most valuable parts of the interview to be the distinction between description and judgment. The sentence "it was terrible" does not provide much information. A specific finding about the length of the tone, the interruption of the phrase or the feeling of effort can already be the basis for the next step. Leisner does not want to remove the demands for quality. He wants real perception to precede them.

The same principle is used in teaching. First, he looks for something specific that the student did well and lets him know that he really heard his playing. Only then come the corrections. For me, this is an important reminder that one does not have to be humiliated first in order to learn something. For a musician whose certainty has been disturbed by illness, this distinction is particularly sensitive.

Beginners, joy and the limits of one's own opinion

When asked about absolute beginners, Leisner doesn't feign general experience: he says he doesn't teach them himself. He does not present work with large muscles as a necessary content of the first lesson. On the contrary, he recalls his early teacher, who supported in him a lively relationship to music. Technical precision should grow out of the musical sense, not displace it.

He is also critical of the cult of long hours and the idea that pain confirms true commitment. I do not consider his emphasis on joy to be a ban on honest work. It is a question of whether the work still serves the music and the person. At the same time, the absence of pain alone does not prove the health of the hand; control difficulties deserve attention even without it.

Even an experienced teacher is not done

In the end, Leisner speaks surprisingly openly about his own further learning, for example about the interplay between the fingernail and the tip of the finger in contact with the string. Old habits can return decades later. It also rejects the idea that there is a single look of the right playing: what matters is sound, functionality and the specific person, not belonging to a technical camp.

I keep three questions for my own reading of this conversation: Can I describe what really happened before I judge myself? Do I space the whole phrase next to the detail? And do I allow myself to change my mind if a different approach offers me a better experience? These are questions for musical life, not a test of whether a person with dystonia is trying hard enough.

Landmarks in the transcript: 03:05 Karen Tuttle; 18:26 putting down the song and trusting; 27:00 openness to different approaches; 31:54 observations before the court; 35:59 owns another teaching. Times may vary between episode versions.

Conversation source

Podcast: The Rosie Bennet Podcast / FRET NOT.
Episode: #27 David Leisner: Playing with Ease & Letting Go.
Host: Rosie Bennet.
Guest: David Leisner.
Issued: 2022-02-07 at 17:52:37 UTC.
Platform of the delivered material: Apple Podcasts.
Listen and Show Details: The Rosie Bennet Podcast / FRET NOT - Official Episode Page.
Background: supplied English transcript 01 - 27-David-Leisner-Playing-with-Ease-Letting-Go.txt. Apparent automatic name and title recognition errors are editorially corrected; this article is a thematic elaboration, not a literal translation.

On Apple Podcasts, the show is labeled The Rosie Bennet Podcast; the original label page and recording use the name FRET NOT.

Another direct source: David Leisner: the book Playing with Ease. Personal experiences and pedagogical opinions in the interview are not a universal treatment for focal dystonia.