I have a strange habit of practicing scales while watching clips of top gymnasts. Particularly of Nadia Comaneci, probably the most famous gymnast of all times and the first ever to achieve a score of perfect 10. My love for gymnastics and admiration for Comaneci, started at a very young age. I did gymnastics myself for a few years as a kid, and am obviously still in love with those dangerous yet graceful movements of the body. There was even a year or two, when my gymnastics practice was right before my cello lesson. Switching from one thing to the other was interesting and challenging for the body and mind likewise.
There is a true meditative quality in practicing scales, because it requires absolute accuracy and concentration, while hardly any new thoughts are produced. Somehow, watching gymnastics puts me in the right state of mind, the right physical sensation. I’m concentrated on precision and cleanness, full control, homogeneous transitions, smooth movements. But on top of all on beauty.
There is a true meditative quality in practicing scales, because it requires absolute accuracy and concentration, while hardly any new thoughts are produced. Somehow, watching gymnastics puts me in the right state of mind, the right physical sensation. I’m concentrated on precision and cleanness, full control, homogeneous transitions, smooth movements. But on top of all on beauty.
If you practiced scales since early stages of your learning, you are likely to reach a point in which you know what you want to hear and feel. In difference from practicing a piece of music, where a lot of thinking and emotions are involved, practicing scales is about the craft: muscles, mental clarity, fluency. If you are used to do it on a daily basis, you might agree with me that it puts you in a meditative state. I was never a professional gymnast (not even close to it), but I do know that in order not fall from the beam and not to let the nerves take over, one needs the concentration and clarity of a meditating mind.
I guess this is the source of my strange habit.
Jascha Heifetz was famous for his strict scales routine. As many other great virtuosos and teachers (for example his own teacher – the great Leopold Auer), he considered playing scales as the very basics of playing the instrument. It was probably the most important and essential part of his entire practice.
Like Nadia Comaneci, his talent was discovered at a very young age and intensely nourished since then.
If you look at the following examples of both MegaStars, you might notice a lot in common. Aside from both performances being astonishingly impressive, aside from the perfection, there is something about the timing that strikes me every time I watch this:
Comaneci (14 years of age in this video), does a routine that would make any contemporary gymnast laugh. Yet the level of control and ease she has is nothing seen elsewhere. Watching carefully each movement, each flip and twist, one notices that at different points time almost stops. It is so much in control and so graceful, that it almost looks like played in slow motion.
It is a common trick among musicians to practice having a slow feeling in a fast passage: playing fast, but inside feeling slow. I guess that’s what she’s doing.
Just like Nadia’s perfect 10 – Jascha Heifetz is so much in control and so graceful, that no hysteria or hectic feeling reaches the music. Regardless of the virtuosity and the speed of the phrases.
I see similar beauty in both of these timeless heroes.
Try pressing the play button of both clips at the same time. Watching these together is magic.
