1e+a, 2e+a, 3e+a

Day 15
Just before I started practicing, I read the chapter in "Inner Game of Tennis" about concentration.  The author urges tennis players to not just "watch the ball", but watch the seams on the tennis ball as it flies over the net.  Watch how they grow and change, watch them as they leave your opponent's racket, watch them even when you think you know precisely where your shot is going.  And I was trying to think about what the musical equivalent of the tennis ball seams is.  It took me till the last 5 minutes of today's practice during a slow movement of a Handel sonata: subdivision.  Our "tennis seams" are the 16th, 32nd, even 64th notes that make up every rhythm, particularly in slow music.  And subdivision is always present, always "moving".  If you can truly concentrate on subdividing while playing a beautiful phrase, somehow the phrase feels more buoyant, effortless, graceful than you imagined it could be.  When in doubt, just...subdivide; distract your Self 1 while your Self 2 does the thing it always knew it could- make exquisite music.