by Madeline Bruser | Apr 26, 2020 | Uncategorized
“First of all,” I said, “how are you doing with this virus situation?“. The person on the other end of the phone was a customer service representative at my Internet provider company. I had no idea who she was apart from that. But I knew she was one of us. One of the...
by Madeline Bruser | Apr 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
I’ve been working hard for a few weeks to bring our new program to life—the online summer program for the Art of Practicing Institute. We knew we had to make it happen. But how could we turn this phenomenal in-person program, normally held on the beautiful green...
by Madeline Bruser | Mar 18, 2020 | Uncategorized
Last Thursday, my brother sent me an article about the coronavirus that stunned me. I canceled my plans to leave on Saturday for a meditation retreat in Vermont and am doing my retreat at home. By Friday I had asked all my students to switch to online lessons. Then...
by Madeline Bruser | Mar 2, 2020 | Uncategorized
This story describes how our anxiety about having a memory lapse in performance can be overcome by cultivating our natural coordination and our natural responsiveness to sound“I was the kid who sat at the piano for three hours playing and singing every day when I was...
by Madeline Bruser | Feb 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
This story describes one of the primary ingredients in overcoming performance anxiety: achieving a full connection with the constantly shifting human energies in a piece of music. After discovering how to let go of excess tension in his arms and play more freely and...
by Madeline Bruser | Feb 17, 2020 | Uncategorized
At a recent lesson with me on a virtuosic piece by Liszt, Evan saw that he was creating unnecessary tension in his arms by holding his elbows out. As soon as he he let them relax, he began playing with tremendous freedom, and brilliant energy leapt out of the piano....
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