I started my master studies in violin performance with Professor Morten Carlsen in autumn 2014. I had struggled for a long time with issues concerning unnecessary movement and excessive use of energy while playing. Virtually every teacher

I played for commented on this and thought it was my single biggest challenge. Many of them felt I made things more difficult than they had to be and that my movements got in the way of both the technical and musical aspects of my playing.

I worked pretty hard to get rid of unnecessary movement when practising specific pieces, and had some success at that, but as soon as I started working on a new piece I was practically back to square one. Different teachers had suggested numerous solutions, but I had a feeling that they were only addressing the symptoms, not the cause of my problems. I also took Alexander Technique lessons, which helped address various tensions but did little to limit unnecessary movement.

I also had a few lessons with Morten during my bachelor studies. I felt that Morten was able to look beyond the “external symptoms” during these lessons, and he soon steered me towards an approach that addressed what I felt were the underlying causes.

My view was that the problems were primarily linked to my desire to express something, and that the more involved I got in my performance, the more I would move around. When Morten and I started working together, it quickly became clear that my bad habits were more deep-seated than I had thought. I had been assimilating them over a number of years and performed without conscious mind control. I could hardly do a thing on the violin without the problems manifesting themselves in one way or other.

Morten wanted to go into more detail than I had expected, but I soon realised it was necessary. For about a month, I put most of my repertoire to one side and focused on exercises that in themselves were basic but for me posed significant challenges in the beginning. Thinking that there is so much repertoire and more complex technical challenges that you could be working on can make it difficult to accept that going back to basics in this way is the right thing to do. I probably benefited a great deal from taking a conscious approach, since it is important to find the right sort of motivation.

Once I got into it, I actually found it quite inspiring. In the beginning, we worked on specific exercises, and I could see where Morten was going. I soon made good progress and found satisfaction in mastering the simpler exercises. It is important to note, however, that most of the things we did were intended as experiments. The focus was not on achievement but rather on observing and discovering. We were really looking for light bulb moments.

Basic body balance was one of the first things we addressed. If, say, you lift one arm to one side while standing, the body will automatically move to the other side to create balance. This assumes that you allow the movement to take place. The idea was that these principles should be applied to all actions. For example, during a bow stroke, you would move one arm to one side, and you should then allow the body to perform a counter-movement.

Next, we did exercises where a complete movement (e.g. a complete bow stroke) was triggered by one single impulse. The impulse sets off and determines the entire subsequent movement. These exercises were quite challenging for me, because I was used to controlling every part of the movement. Exercises where the bow had to hit the string from above became especially important. In the moment before the bow hit the string I had a tendency to tense my muscles and control the stroke instead of sending an impulse at the outset and letting the bow strike the string as part of an overall movement. A whole series of movements can be considered a continuous motion, and the next movement could be an automatic reaction to the one before it.

In the summer of 2014, a couple of months before starting my master’s, I attended a Timani course. Developed by Tina Margareta Nilssen, Timani is an approach to voice and instrumental practice that improves co-ordination of the body. You learn in great detail which muscles you should use and about the relationship between mind and body.

Tina felt that my exaggerated movements and tensions were due to my wanting to express something while lacking the fundamental body balance and support. When your co-ordination is not optimal, the signals from the brain to the muscles become muddled. When you then also fail to use your supporting muscles in the right way, the body will automatically compensate and try to find the necessary energy – resulting in excessive movement and tension.

Even during my first session with Tina, I noticed that many of my habitual movements had become superfluous, and I quickly managed to produce a fuller and more open sound. Timani became an important part of my practice routines and worked brilliantly in combination with Morten’s methods. Tina and Morten are both talking about many of the same things, but from different perspectives.

One of the key elements in my work has been what I call modes – what state of mind you are in when playing. How you listen, what you listen for, how you think, and how you relate to your own playing. The really interesting discovery was how my mental “mode” directly affected my pattern of movement.

Part of my problem was that I always tried to actively fill the music with something without having an adequate way of listening. I think if you try too hard to create the expression you are looking for, you can easily fall into the trap of listening more to how you want it to sound rather than how it actually sounds. I had to learn to allow the music to flow more and to be more observational and objective when listening. I think you have to keep a certain mental distance from your own playing. I have seen many really good performers who gave me the impression that they are observing their own performance from the outside. This is perhaps especially evident in pianists. Their fingers are working “automatically”, while they themselves are listening observers. This allows them to act and add that little bit extra, create a transition or, in the case of chamber music, respond to their fellow performers.

I think of this in terms of how active or passive you are while you play. As I said, I had a very active way of making music, whereby I would always try to create an expression and actively fill the music with something. The emotions I felt for the music were often not reflected in the sound I made, instead manifesting themselves in the form of tension and movement: my emotional expression was inextricably linked to extensive muscle use. As soon as I started to feel the passion, I began to use a lot of energy. This was something I had got used to over a long period of time. I had to learn that an expressive sound does not depend on tightening your muscles, to listen to the actual sound that I made, and to let the musical performance determine how much energy I should use. I also had to learn which muscles to use in order to create the desired expression and which muscles I could relax.

The way I listened, and how I responded to what I heard, had a direct effect on these aspects. Even after I had adopted a healthy pattern of movement, whatever mode I was in still determined whether I was able to limit muscle use and movement during a performance. This meant I had to take a more passive approach to my playing than I had been used to.

Also important is ensuring that the musical ideas are clear. Morten and I worked a lot on that. Having a clear idea about how the music should sound means I automatically perform in a way that allows me to produce this sound. After many years of musical practice, the relationships between different sounds and the physical movements required to produce these sounds have become automised to some extent. For example, if I want to play louder, my body automatically knows what it needs to do. However, I need to allow these automised processes to happen and to listen to the totality of my performance so that I can add that little bit extra. To do that I need to be in the “right mode”.

We tried different approaches to get me in the right mode. One useful exercise was to imagine that I was sitting a few metres away listening to myself perform. We also worked on completely removing my focus, and exercises such as counting backwards in a language I don’t know – whilst playing – had an astonishing effect.

I think this confirms that much of what you practise becomes automised and does not require conscious mental command or control. On the contrary, mental control can get in the way!

After about a month and a half we started working more on repertoire, and in the second movement of Mozart’s G major concerto we combined much of what we had been working on. Playing alongside Morten, I set out to listen more to what he was doing than to myself and I tried not to get too involved except for listening.

When after a while I succeeded, I realised that it just felt too passive. However, Morten put his viola down, looked me solemnly in the eye and said with conviction: “This is seriously good!”

It became clear to Morten and me that my perception of my own playing was flawed – and closely linked to the physical aspects of my playing. I had become accustomed to using a lot of muscles, and when I adopted a more relaxed playing style it actually felt as if my playing sounded a bit “sloppy”. When I managed to distance myself a bit I would often feel that there was no passion and that my playing was less musical and emotional, when in fact the opposite might have been true.

Even after the first few months, I felt as if I had improved in leaps and bounds. I was able to perform with a much greater sense of calm, both physically and mentally, and I had acquired useful tools for developing a healthy pattern of movement. The idea of bigger gestures over rigorous individual movements was applied to tasks that are more dexterous and to more specific technical challenges. One example is vibrato, where I once again had to allow myself to perform a relaxed movement and not force it.

I feel that the mental and the physical as well as the musical and the technical are all affected by the same issues. Technically speaking, I needed to allow movements to happen rather than control everything in great detail, and you could probably say the same about the musical element. Timani addresses some of the same issues. Everything you work on physically makes for natural and effortless music making, and my impression is that you are seeking a “mode” that allows you to observe yourself from the outside to a greater extent. The process of finding a good mode affected all aspects of my playing. This was useful even when I was only focusing on technique.

Finding the right balance in all this was challenging – and different for each piece. How active or passive should I be? Should I focus on what I’m playing right now, on what’s coming up, or on the longer musical lines? How much do I listen to myself in the bigger picture? How do I relate to my own playing and that of others? These are probably familiar problems for many, but the way in which my approach to them directly affected my pattern of movement, and how they were linked to all the problems I’ve been working on this year, was a new and important discovery. My journey to explore all of this has only just begun.