Week 1: Present Moment
Overview:
After a course introduction, there is a discussion about the definitions of mindfulness followed by the concept of what it is to be on autopilot. Participants are introduced to mindfulness of breathing and mindful movement. They are encouraged to choose a habit to be aware of during the week.
Daily Practice:
Mindful Movement MP3
Habit Awareness.
Week 2: Body and mind
Overview:
This session starts with a talk about musicians’ lives, good aspects and stressful aspects. Participants learn about brain evolution and the somaethetic body/mind link. There is a talk about expectation and reality of doing mindfulness and an introduction to the concept of“being” and“doing” modes. The new mindfulness exercise introduced this week is the body scan.
Daily Practice:
Body Scan Introduction MP3
Body Scan Meditation MP3
Habit awareness (a new one this week).
Alternate experience of singing or playing in "being and doing" modes.
Week 3: Suffering
Overview:
This week participants consider the usage of necessary and unnecessary muscles and do some mindful yoga. There is a discussion about music performance anxiety and a connection to the mindfulness concept of primary and secondary suffering. There is also a discussion about our daily experience of life as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Participants learn the mindful breathing journey and mindful counting exercises this week.
Daily Practice:
Mindful Breathing Journey MP3.
Mindful Breathing Counting MP3
Drop into your experiences throughout the week and categorise them as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral
Week 4: Perception
Overview:
This week includes a talk about sensory perceptions (visual/aural etc) and cognitive perception (judging/criticising etc). Participants take part in a mindful eating exercise and a mindful listening meditation.
Daily Practice:
Mindful Listening MP3
- Listen to music mindfully (in lectures/at home/concerts)
- Eat one meal a day mindfully aware of each mouthful.
- Listen to a friend or family member talking as mindfully as possible
Week 5: Widening awareness
Overview:
This week, participants learn to widen their present moment awareness physically doing mindful walking exercises and mentally doing loving kindness and sounds and thoughts practices
Daily Practice:
Sounds and Thoughts MP3
Mindful Walking:One (or more) walk/s a day done mindfully. Be aware of surroundings and self.
Week 6: Exploring difficulties
Overview:
Participants learn about the pillars of mindfulness, consider mental orientation and mindful choices this week and do preparation for next week’s performance session. Then they try out the new mindfulness exercise this week which is Exploring Difficulties.
Help in case difficulties arise:
Daily Practice:
Exploring Difficulties MP3
Loving Kindness MP3
Please mindfully prepare a 2-3 unaccompanied piece to sing or play for the following week.
Week 7: Practical Week
Overview:
Week 7 is unique to the MfS course where participants are encouraged to use all the mindfulness techniques learnt in the previous few weeks in a highly targeted manner in your own performing practice and reflect on the experience.
Originally, this was a live group exercise but if you complete the following tasks with mindful intention and reflection, you'll get a very similar experience to those who took the original course.
Practical Tasks
This week, instead of videos to watch, you have the following tasks to undertake before filling out the questions below.
1. Listen to someone sing live in a fully alive and attentive way.
2. Perform yourself with the intention to stay fully in the moment (preferably in front of an audience or recording yourself).
2a. If you get music performance anxiety, try using some mindfulness and see if it has any effect.
3. Ask someone to give you feedback on your performance, record them but also try to stay in the present moment and truly hear them in the moment.
4. Listen back to the recording later to see if you remembered exactly what they said or if you tended to focus on the negatives.
Mindful listening/observing reflection
As an audience member, what was your experience of mindful listening?
Your own mindful performance/s reflection
As a performer, what was your experience of performing in an intentionally mindful way?
If you get music performance anxiety, what was your experience after doing some mindfulness?
Giving and taking criticisms with a mindful outlook (Don’t forget to record it!)
How did you find taking criticism with a mindful outlook as you heard it the first time?
How did you find listening to the recording of the criticism later and what did you learn about yourself in the process?
Daily Practice:
Choose your practices yourselves - maybe do one each day?
1. Mindful movement
2. Body scan
3. Mindful breathing journey
4. Mindful breathing counting
5. Sounds and thoughts
6. Exploring difficulties.
7. Loving Kindness
Drop into your experience at regular times each day (reminder on phone/watch?) and observe physical sensations and mental thought processes. Log how they change.
Week 8: Summary
Overview:
Conclusion and a brief recapitulation of all that has been learnt.
Summary and recap. Participants do the“nourishing and depleting” exercise. Mindfulness exercises are mindful breathing and body scan. They may also be asked to complete a mindfulness questionnaire.
Life Practice!
What’s now for you?
Acknowledgments:
This course’s development has been heavily influenced by the "Mindfulness for Pain and Illness" course (Vidyamala Burch), Jon Kabat-Zinn’s "Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction" course, and the “Mindfulness: Finding peace in a frantic world” book/course by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.This book is the recommended text book for this course.