For the past five years, I’ve had the extreme good fortune of studying classical guitar with the incredible Frank Bungarten.
I could fill hundreds of posts with different Zen truths shared by Frank through the lens of classical guitar playing. Studying with Frank is like learning straight from Guitar Yoda.
Like any great teacher, the subject of each lesson is always both/and:
Both the specifics of guitar technique AND how to live a good life as a human being.
Both how to push the musical expression of two bars of music AND how to expand my capacity to feel the highs and lows of embodied life.
One of the most consistent Frank refrains is:
Tension / De-Tension
Or, the natural oscillation between tension and relaxation that every piece of music requires.
Inhale / Exhale. Day / Night. Tension / De-Tension.
Relaxation doesn’t quite capture it like Frank’s word choice “de-tension.”
It’s not just relaxation but also release - unloading the power and tension that was required a split second previously in order to play the note in question.
One of the biggest gifts of playing an instrument is the daily grounding back into the simple truths that are so vital to live from yet so easy to forget.
Every day playing an instrument is Day One, in a sense. Beginner’s mind.
Few principles are more central to beginner’s mind than Tension / De-Tension. The primeval oscillation at the heartbeat of what it means to be alive.
Hustle culture ignores Tension / De-Tension at its peril.
Like most deep truths, the real challenge is in the details of each specific context and instance where Tension is needed to execute a maneuver…immediately followed by a need for total emptying of that tension into de-tension…to then reload the tension for the next leap.
Music is great at teaching the minutiae of this.
So is sport.
So is marriage. Parenting.
And meditation.
Mastery of Tension / De-Tension is one of the great challenges of life as a human being.
Thankfully, the heartbeat and the breath are there to remind us in every moment while still we live.