Editor’s Note: Grace Ueng, performance coach and founder of Savvy Growth, is the author of The Work of Happiness, she teaches audiences 12 keys to experiencing more happiness to perform better @ work and in life.
Four years ago when I had just restarted my piano studies, my teacher Teddy asked me if I knew what an “inner pulse” was.
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I said, "it’s the name of a med device company that once existed here in Research Triangle!"
I somehow knew that was not the inner pulse he was referring to ….
At the time, I really didn’t understand what he meant. And apparently Teddy knew that, because he didn’t spend the next four years hammering me about it.
Then, last month, I went to a chamber music camp.
And suddenly ... I heard the word pulse everywhere.
Why chamber is difficult
Playing chamber music is very different than playing as a soloist. It is especially difficult for pianists and vocalists. When you perform alone, if you take a little extra time somewhere, nobody else is sitting there waiting for you to come in.
In an ensemble, everyone has to share an underlying beat.
Last month in New Hampshire, I found out rather painfully that my inner pulse needed a lot of work.
Libertango
My biggest struggle came while practicing Libertango, by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. One of my coaches grew increasingly frustrated with me.
She could not understand why I could play Piazzolla’s Oblivion with just the right pulse but could not replicate that same pulse in certain measures of his similarly pulsed composition, Libertango.
This was actually a warranted question.
Her delivery of the question, though, was less than helpful. She exclaimed loudly in great exasperation, “WHY CAN'T YOU GET THIS RIGHT?”
The more frustrated she became, the more anxious I became.
And by the time I reached the measure she was not happy about, I was almost guaranteed to mess it up.
The frustrating part was that I couldn’t hear or feel what she was hearing.
Why could I feel the pulse in one of Piazzolla's works and not the other?
Afterward, I kept thinking about it.
The camp’s music director had simplified my Libertango part by removing some of the right-hand notes in the middle of the piece. I presume her thinking was that fewer notes should have made it easier for me to play these tricky measures.
I began to realize, however, that these right hand notes would have given me scaffolding. Without them, there was less structure helping me feel where the beat was.
A professional musician didn't need that scaffolding. I did.
That realization sent me on a mission.
Metronome exercise
One of the coaches suggested practicing pulse by taking walks listening to the beats of a metronome.
So for two days, that is exactly what I did. For 30 minutes at a time. No podcast. No music. Just: Click. Click. Click. Click. With my metronome set to my walking pace.
I can be a determined student 😊.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking quite so hard about counting the pulse and started trying instead to feel it.
And then I started noticing pulse everywhere.
Inner pulse everywhere
Swimming has a pulse. Dancing has a pulse. I realized that I could be a passable dancer when I listened and then moved to the bass, rather than getting distracted by the melody.
It even made me appreciate my son Nick’s electric bass playing differently. For years, I had smiled as I listened to his jazz band performances in middle school through high school and post-college gigs over nearly two decades.
I tried to hear the notes that he was playing, but didn’t think I could really hear them. I was just happy that he loved playing so much with his band mates.
But when I got home from camp, I decided I would now be able to hear these bass notes. An opportunity soon came about without my son even having to play for me.
My acting teacher, Renee Wimberley, had invited me to a fundraiser for her non-profit, Seed Art Share. It turned out that the evening was filled with oldies sung by talented vocalists accompanied by an equally talented band.
I enjoyed the performance for so many reasons including the fact that I was listening differently. I could now feel the inner pulse of each and every one of the melodies.
Piano lesson
For the weeks following camp, I kept thinking "just what did I learn at camp?"
I couldn't wait to have a lesson with Teddy so he could help me process all that I went through...both the good and the bad.
I had been dying to ask him a question.
Has my inner pulse really been that bad for four years? And if it was, why hadn't we been working on it all this time?
His answer surprised me.
When I first started studying with him, he said, I wasn't really thinking about pulse at all. I was more like:
See note. Play note when I found the note.
Ouch.
But then he told me something else.
My pulse had gotten much better.
And then I started to play for him a piece that I had the chance to perform for a masterclass at camp: an excerpt from Haydn’s Sonata in C Major Hob. XVI: 50. He stopped me at one point and asked:
“Are you feeling where the pulse is in that measure?”
This time I knew exactly what he meant.
And yes, I could hear it.
“I think I feel it better than it sounded,” I told him.
I had an a-ha: I knew the pulse. I just wasn’t fully playing it..yet.
Nick, the bass player
And suddenly I was no longer thinking only about inner pulse in regards to the piano.
I had dinner with my son the next evening. I excitedly told him about what I learned at camp and that after all these years, I finally understood the critical importance of his instrument, the electric bass. He smiled and said,
“Yes! Mom, the bass is what holds all the other instruments together!”
How often does that happen in business?
A leadership team knows its strategy. The PowerPoint is beautiful. The priorities make sense.
And then comes implementation.
Decisions get delayed. Other priorities creep in. People interpret the strategy differently. One part of the organization speeds ahead while another falls behind.
We can know what the overall beat is supposed to be, but we struggle to play it. And we are not all together.
Strategy and execution are not the same thing. And doing both well and in synch is not common.
Prioritizing versus the kitchen sink
Neither, apparently, are hearing the pulse and getting 10 fingers to cooperate with it.
I also finally understood something about Teddy’s teaching.
I asked whether, back then, he had simply decided I had so many other things to work on that inner pulse could wait.
“Probably,” he said.
Then he told me that learning to focus on one thing at a time was something he had gotten better at as a teacher.
Rising to the top
A good coach doesn't tell you everything you could possibly improve at once. A good coach figures out what you are ready to work on now.
Maybe Teddy knew something four years ago that I didn't.
- He could introduce the idea of inner pulse.
- He could suggest chamber music.
But I had to become ready to hear the lesson.
Camp provided me that chance.
One particularly challenging coach made the weakness impossible to ignore.
A metronome helped me begin to feel it.
The traditional metronome that my mom used when I was a girl
And four years after Teddy first asked me that question, I could finally sit at the piano, hear the pulse inside my head, and understand what he had been talking about all along.
Now I have to get it from my head into my hands.
Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like leadership too.
I’m still working on my inner pulse.
But now, at least, I know what I’m listening for.
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Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you took away something.
I'm a leadership coach who is also learning to be a better pianist.
I've thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of helping clients discover their strengths and vision for their careers and lives so that they are in coherence. If you are interested in the possibility of working together, reach out http://savvygrowth.com/contact/ and tell me a bit about your situation.
Wishing you happiness@work, Grace