“Tension is the enemy.” We nod in agreement. 

We practice the art of burning the candle at both ends. We’ll sleep when we’re dead. When asked how we’ve been, the knee-jerk response is, “Busy.” We hoard stress, offloading tiny bits at a time, Googling relaxation techniques and meditation so we can function just well enough to shoulder the next item on a list that never ends. It’s no surprise that “tension is the enemy.” 

Is it, though?

If you grew up in the 90s, you might remember an episode of The Magic School Bus about force in which Ms. Frizzle’s class plays baseball on a frictionless field. With no traction, the players are like pinballs, ricocheting off of each other and spinning out of control. (For those looking for a hit of nostalgia, it’s about 11 minutes into S01E10 - The Magic School Bus Plays Ball.)

We engineer friction out of our lives. We summon groceries within minutes, and they’re on the doorstep within hours. We expect that new mouthpiece to revolutionize our playing for good. The glowing screen has rendered boredom obsolete, and we’ve lost the skill set to cope with it. We’re playing on an increasingly frictionless field, but it isn’t solving our problems.

Tension is not inherently the enemy, but it feels that way when it falls out of balance. As Ms. Frizzle’s students learned, friction is helpful. Stress is incapacitating when unchecked, but in appropriate doses, discomfort is motivating. This is true in trumpet playing as well. Mentally, we can look to our practice: avoiding it altogether is a quick way to lose our skills, but obsessive iteration leads to diminishing returns. Physically, excess physical tension and the complete absence of it are both detrimental to sound. What we seek is not to vaporize all resistance, but to achieve equilibrium.

Effortless tone is a paradox. Musicians work extremely hard to sound like we aren’t working at all. There is no amount of daily practice time that guarantees mastery. There is no ideal measure of muscle engagement that ensures optimal air compression or a perfect tone. There are too many variables, and a prescription that works for one player might be entirely inappropriate for another. Balance is not always easy to attain. 

In and out of the practice room, I’m challenging myself to maintain the tension I need, detach from what I don’t, and recognize which is which. I might discharge some tension by un-clenching my jaw and taking a break, and I might take a healthy amount of it on with more exercise or triple tonguing practice. 

How do you find equilibrium? Share what works for you in the comments!