The Mind Over Finger Podcast 022 David Eby: How Meditation & Consciousness Can Lead to Greater Performance
In this episode, I’m really excited to speak with cellist David Eby and to dive deeper with him in a topic that we’ve only mentioned a few times on the show so far and that I feel is so important and can be extremely powerful in our experience as musicians! I’m talking about pure mindfulness!
We discuss the positive effects meditation and consciousness tools can have on our practice and performance. Among many things, you will hear about the importance of adopting unprejudiced mindsets, how you can bring more flow and joy in your playing, develop and effective automatic response mode when facing challenges in performance, and create inspired connection in your playing by accessing a higher consciousness using David’s 4-step process.
We expand on:
- Mindfulness and consciousness in our practice - how to use these powerful tools
- How he got to experience that state of oneness with music in his youth
- The transition to college and how difficult it was to keep that magic state of being while negotiating the demands and pressures of university
- How harsh judgment of self and others influenced him and eventually led him to a crisis
- The pivotal moment that led him to pursue meditation and how it changed his life and brought him back to experience pure joy and love of music again
- How he studied and explored different consciousness techniques and started incorporating them in concerts, reaching a state of flow in his performance
- How meditation and consciousness can help us reconnect with the joy and bliss in performance (and, as a result, improve our results)
- Different methods of meditation
- How training the mind to return to the breath in meditation is training our brain to focus
- The automatic response mode that can help us overcome challenges in performance
- Hush/Heart/Lift/Flow Technique for more inspired connection in performance:
o Hush: create dynamic stillness (inner and outer silence) to better hear and feel subtleties of music
o Heart: deepen intuitive perception - open chest and heart
o Lift: engage energy - creating upward moving energy
o Flow: focus with effortless pleasure
More about David:
Website: http://www.davidebymusic.com/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/davidceby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheInspiredMusician/
Biography
Cellist, Director, Teacher and Author
“Inspiration and music came into my life at age 6 when I announced to my parents that I was going to play the cello. By 16, I was drinking up inspiration from the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals and sharing inspiration onstage as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony.
I attuned my skills at the Eastman School of Music where I received the Performer’s Certificate and BM under the tutelage of Paul Katz of the Cleveland Quartet. By the time I received my MM at Indiana University under the esteemed Janos Starker, my life was resonating unconditionally with the joy of music.
My first position as Principal Cellist of the Evansville Philharmonic and the Owensboro Symphony Orchestras taught me about how to share this joy in the context of leadership. As the founding cellist for the musical storytelling troupe Tales & Scales, I helped inspire the imaginations of young audiences across the nation.
An introduction to the West Coast awakened within me a profound yearning for the ocean and the mountains, and I arrived in Portland in 1996 to become the founding cellist for the internationally acclaimed band Pink Martini, as well as a cellist for the Portland Opera.
By 2001 an inward calling had grown so strong within me that I left everything to become Music Director at the Ananda Village in Northern California, with the singular opportunity to teach and direct a remarkable group of meditators. Each week we explored more deeply the realms of music, consciousness, inspiration, discovering the steps for achieving a consistently inspired performance. We were able to duplicate extraordinary experiences of flow in performance—where time stands still and all that exists is the joy of the music.
Hollywood made a dramatic entrance into my life in 2012 when I was asked to musically direct and produce the soundtrack for the film Finding Happiness featuring Elisabeth Rohm (LA Law, American Hustle). Soon thereafter, I arrived back in Portland, where I am currently teaching Workshops for the Inspired Musician, sharing what I have learned through this 18-year journey into music and inspiration.
I’ve sought to capture my experiences of inspiration on recordings, and my discography includes Sympathique with Pink Martini, Mystic Harp 2, Secrets of Love, Relax: Meditations for Flute and Cello, and Song of the Nightingale for Crystal Clarity Publishers, and the Finding Happiness soundtrack for Hansa Productions.
I currently perform with The Bodhi Trio, the Oregon Symphony, and Portland Cello Project, teach at Lewis and Clark College, direct the Advanced Strings at Oregon Episcopal School and am a Teaching Artist for the BRAVO Youth Orchestra. I live in Southwest Portland with my wife Madhavi, daughter Caitlin and our Manx cat, Maggie.
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Visit www.mindoverfinger.com for information about past and future podcasts, and for more resources on mindful practice.
THANK YOU:
Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show’s musical theme! Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.
Also a huge thank you to my producer, Bella Kelly!
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