Cello Zen

A Guide to Relaxed & Expressive Performance

By: Justin Mackey

Narrated by: Justin Mackey

The ways of the Zen mindset and its nature will come naturally to some, but for those such as myself, these skills can be learned without being born into it. Here is why I say this: The philosophy behind this book is not to learn the cello skill, but to adapt to the healthy lifestyle that allows you to perform with ease and expression. Those with "natural talent" are actually demonstrating this lifestyle naturally, mostly based on environmental factors.

Masterful control is at the fingertips of all who come to accept the principles of a Zen lifestyle. The cello was designed to be performed with ease and comfort. Your experience while performing was meant to be completely free from struggle.

Tension, stress, and impatience has no place in the mind of masterful cellists. While emotion is still present, its manifestation within the performance is under constant guidance. This ability to self-regulate the many facets of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual selves is what allows you to gain access to masterful cello performance. As you can guess, the ability to grow in these fields will also lead you to success in many other areas outside of cello performance.

©2018 Justin Mackey (P)2018 Justin Mackey

Helpful for the mental side of performance

I am glad to have discovered this book. I have been struggling with sounding confident on the cello and hope to use his techniques to catch my mind up to my hands.

Insightful + Concise

Really great read. The author goes straight to the point. Offers some clean + simple insight to relax + play + grow. Thank you for sharing.

Finally a book describing the one thing I have tried to describe for so long

As a performer and educator who happens to have fallen deeply in love with the cello, I find myself attempting to change, not only the playing techniques, but the lifestyles of my students as well.

I attempt to give them intrinsic motivation as well as solid foundational habits, however I could never truly find the right words to describe what I wished for them. I would spot check things and fix problems as they arise, however I always felt like I was lacking as an instructor due to what I was missing. Any attempt to describe it would get me strange looks from my students as they misunderstood my poorly communicated thoughts.

This book holds the key to every music educator’s dream goal, not only for themselves, but their students as well. I suggest this book to any aspiring music educator no matter the instrument as it provides solid foundational instructions that you won’t learn in college or even during proffesional lessons, as it’s something proffesionals do naturally yet find it hard to describe. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, as well as easy to communicate and translate into teaching environments.