Muscled Music

 In yesterday's community band rehearsal, maestro had us read through some pieces and kept stopping us to remind us of the unforced, flowing, balanced sound we've sometimes achieved. He said even though we were just reading, there was no need to "muscle" through the music. He put his finger on something deeply significant about music making with that comment. 

 I knew immediately what he was talking about, but still had a hard time playing with musicality while struggling to get the right notes. As much as anything I'm guessing that so much brain function is being shifted to simple mechanics that there's nobody home in the part of the brain listening for higher order dimensions of the music. 

 Just about everything in music making requires balance, both in the sounds made and in the behaviors producing them.