On My Mind

By Dr. Stephen Caplan, Sponsoring Teacher

Out of the blue, back in 2023, I received an email beginning: “Greetings. This is Dr. Amy M. Simpson writing. I am a pianist and adjunct instructor at West Virginia University. My DMA dissertation covered neuro-music research in perception, learning, memorization, and imagery. I have been giving talks about best learning methods, generalized motor programs, variable practice, and imagery.” Dr. Simpson explained that she had contacted my UNLV colleague, the esteemed kinesiologist Dr. Gabriele Wulf, who told her about an article I had recently written for the journal of the International Double Reed Society. She was requesting a copy of the article, which I was happy to send her. This article, “Ninety Percent Mental, the Other Half is Physical!” (now available through the ABME website) describes how I reconciled two contradictory ideas—the need for increased understanding of the body through Body Mapping, with Dr. Wulf’s groundbreaking research proving that focusing on the body in performance can be detrimental.

A year later, I received a query from a publishing company to review a draft book

manuscript, Music on Your Mind, written by Dr. Simpson: “We would like your

assessment of the proposal as a whole - including any ‘gut reactions’.” In exchange,

they offered me cash or some free books of my choice from their extensive catalogue. I took the books!

Reading Simpson’s draft, I was impressed with how she distilled such an extensive

body of recent research about practice techniques into useful methods for music

performers and teachers. She also did a great job translating into plain language the

complex jargon of the neurosciences related to motor skill acquisition. In addition, I was pleased to see a one-sentence reference to my article that cited two possible external focus cues for wind players. After completing my recommendation to the publisher, I emailed Dr. Simpson directly with a note of congratulations. I also shared some minor critiques and suggested a couple of other resources I felt she should explore more thoroughly before finalizing her book.

Another year passes, and I notice that Music on Your Mind: What Musicians Need to

Know to Play with Success by Amy M. Simpson has been published by Palgrave

MacMillan. I receive a copy, and while reading it, I’m pleased to see that Dr. Simpson

has incorporated some of my recommended changes. I’m particularly excited that she

has adapted ideas about external focus cues for dancers explored in Clare Guss-West’s wonderful book Attention and Focus in Dance, and applied them to musicians. I’m also impressed by her final chapter, where she speaks from a place of vulnerability and honesty about the challenges musicians face, given the inconclusiveness and ambiguity of current research.

I’m surprised to see that Simpson now references my article not just in one sentence,

but in several places throughout the text. She highlights the section of the article

subtitled “How to Learn Embodied Practicing,” where I describe the three-step approach to practicing that we advocate for Body Mapping. She first introduces it in Chapter 5, “Optimal Learning of Motor Skills.” She then returns to it a few times, including in her final “Synthesis and Reflection” chapter: “Caplan’s three-step process—find the emotion, find the motion, then repeat the motion with emotion until it becomes second nature—extends musical and emotional benefits beyond just particular spots to all our music. Through this method, we can attend to all the music we perform with equal care, musicality, and confidence.” Simpson’s book credits this three-step approach to me exclusively, even though in my article I think I am clear that I developed this approach with guidance from Barbara Conable. However, if I wasn’t completely clear, then mea culpa, allow me to explain.

From my very first Body Mapping lessons, I began discussing how musicians practice

with Barbara Conable. She explained this three-step approach using slightly different language, and told me that she had been exploring these ideas with pianist Anita King and others. I first wrote about how to practice in my book Oboemotions, which Conable helped edit. I detail each step of the three-step approach to practicing, emphasizing how this method takes musicians away from an internal body focus, leading them instead towards an external music focus. To my knowledge, this was the first time these ideas were expounded in a Body Mapping publication. Much later, as a Sponsoring Teacher for ABME, I further refined my ideas about practicing through conversations with Amy Likar and the other Sponsoring Teachers. Therefore, I fully believe this approach to practicing is a shared belief of the ABME organization, and not exclusively mine.

Simpson’s book provides greater context and further credence to this practice

approach. In her Chapter 6 “Imagery,” there is a subsection entitled “The Brain and

Emotion.” Here she explains recent studies investigating the role of the amygdala and

the hippocampus in connecting emotion and memory. She outlines research proving

that strongly linking an emotional connection to the music early in the process will

improve your long-term memory consolidation: “In all, the brain structures that handle emotion also handle memory and connect the two tightly together.”

I highly recommend Simpson’s Music on Your Mind. It offers numerous pragmatic ideas outlining ways musicians can more effectively prepare for performance. It also provides a larger context for Body Mapping Educators to teach an accurate understanding of the body in a manner that enhances performance rather than undermining it.