A Search for Balance

A full-time symphony job brings its own unique set of challenges. In the orchestra I played with, we had 180 performances packed into a 38 week season each year. It was common to be “forced” to prepare the music for 3-4 different upcoming concerts at the same time. That could be as much as 8 hours of music to learn. The first year was a bit overwhelming, but like endurance training; it got easier as the years went by.

During those busy symphony years, two profound ideas came into my musical life. They helped me deal with the workload and shaped not only how I play, but how I create new music and even how I teach.

On the surface, these ideas are polar opposites. They may even appear antagonistic to each other. But I’ve embraced both. Each has precipitated its own organic transformation. Now, they are almost inseparable. They have become profoundly complementary. Not only do I practice them side by side, but they are also beginning to merge with each other.

I’m reminded of something that Eugene Levinson, the longtime principal bass of the New York Philharmonic once told his student, (my college roommate for 3 years) “Rolf! When you play scale… it must be like prayer in church!”

The first idea I came across during my symphony career was deeply spiritual. I experienced the opening of the Kundalini energy in the first year of studying Tai Chi Gung with Master Lama Rasaji. I share some of the details of this awakening in my first blog post. (https://musicinspiredbynature.com/2025/05/awakening/ )

This event ignited the soul energy of music from the inside. While it was always there to some extent, it only manifested in a soul chill up and down the spine occasionally, sometimes 3 to 4 times a year. Usually this happened on stage when playing with a guest artist of world caliber.  After the Kundalini was awakened though, the soul chill accelerated almost beyond comprehension. Multiple times a day, in practice, in rehearsal, in performances of many kinds. Now it happens nearly every time I sit to create music; something I do 6 days a week as an integral part of my daily practice.

The second idea to change my musical life was highly technical. Yet, it has completely transformed the way I play instruments and learn new music. I’ve applied these principles of technique to violin, piano, guitar and most recently the voice. Through simple repetitive exercises, the basic coordination of mind and body to play any music passage is essentially hard wired together, bit by bit.

This method is from Carmine Caruso. He was the founder of a unique method for mastering technique he called “Calisthenics for Brass”. I first became aware of it when Julie Landsman, a music professor teaching at the Julliard School of Music, gave a seminar at Rice University where I was a graduate student. One of the French Horn players in the symphony I played with was an advocate of the method, and we had many discussions about it.

I soon adapted those principles of mastering a brass instrument to the violin. Then I went on to apply them to piano, guitar and now voice. Over the past 30 years, I brought them into a complete music curriculum in 4 simple steps. It’s been adapted for beginners, something they can do about 5 minutes a day. This curriculum is now an integral part of the music class that I teach for the Circle of Chi community on their website www.circleofchi.com . An expanded version is currently being updated and expanded for children and choirs on: www.TheSchoolForCreativeMusic.com