In its etymology, the word virtuoso comes from the Italian virtu meaning energy, quality, and virtus meaning competence, virility. It also includes the French vir, meaning virility and virtue, and virtutem, meaning bravery, courage and valour.
In tracing the root of this word, I realize that virtuoso refers to energy, ability and courage.
The combination of these three aspects clearly reminds me of the quest of every samurai: a perfect blend of heart (courage), mind (ability) and body (energy).
Has the word virtuoso then, like so many other words, been hijacked from its true original meaning? From a subtle definition of an art, that of being, it would have been reduced to the rather hasty label of a performance skill...
Yet the virtuoso is no sportsman.
MASTERY VERSUS CONTROL
At school, we learn to count, read and analyze. We become familiar with measurements. Big, small. When do we take an interest in the very first mechanism that enables our brain to apprehend our world, our heart to alchemize our emotions or our body to respond to its true impulses? At what point do we simply comprehend in HOW this organism works, to which we give so much information, demand that to provide more and, above all, are so often reproached for never being what we would expect of it?
And yet, without being master of one's very first instrument, meaning oneself, it's impossible to get further. At best, we would become dependent on external technics, these palliatives to our ignorance, by clever calculating machines, computers and other technologies reminding us to believe in our smallness. At worst, we would sink into bottomless despair...
Eventually we forget the very first of all technologies: ours. Singular, complex. Infinite.
A Stradivarius seems of poor quality as long as you don't know how to play the violin. That's the meaning of what I call mastery.
So what about being able to play your instrument?
When we feel overwhelmed by the lack of understanding of our own system, a natural reflex kicks in: the desire to control everything. Insecurity reinforces the desire for control.
And what could be more impossible to control than the world? Than life itself?
As far as we want to control the growth of a grass or the stem of a flower, we take the risk to end up feeling an endless frustration. And frustration makes us contracted people forgetting the other part of our muscle engineering : relaxing it ! A spirit that is constantly contracted is like too tight strings of an instrument sounding agressive.
And you can look for the popular self-confidence or seek out all the calming techniques on the market. But until you become a master of your very first instrument - yourself - it's all for naught.
The more you know a piece of land, the easier it is to grow a crop in abundance. The less you know about it, the less easy it will be to succeed.
The most spiritual ones would transpose the word "know" by "love". As simple as it is. Deep down, I believe that the greatest virtuoso is the one who loves, who truly loves every note, even when the joy seems a little heavy, even when the heart could become discouraged... To love even more. The true, unique discipline of the virtuoso is that which enables him to constantly retune his instrument until he finds the right vibration, whatever the situation is. To keep vibrating.
To love, to love more, is to pay special attention to allowing each of your muscles to relax, and your consciousness to unfold. This is what we call flow or inspiration. A state of concentration that skilfully uses all our energy resources in a specific direction. Isn't this the starting point for what we call mastery? That of the virtuoso?
Because a virtuoso is not a civil servant who works long hours. He's an all-rounder, doing and re-doing, empirically. Failing, then trying again. By refining, i.e. by using his sensitivity more and more to reinforce his power.
When I hear people talking about managing your emotions, I think of letting them digest rather. And even beyond that, when you think you still have to sort or filter your thoughts, I believe that no thought in itself presents any problem. It's my relationship with a thought that will decide whether it has the power to make me happy or unhappy. I like the adage that says: "don't believe all your thoughts!"
Indeed, the tyrant would want to annihilate certain thoughts. The virtuoso can embrace them and, like a magician, alchemize them.
BE YOUR OWN BOSS
So, to be a virtuoso of your own being, it is to know how to let it resonate when you need it to, and how to take hold of your technique when the moment is right. Sometimes contracted, other times relaxed. Depending on the measure and the score, sometimes digesting emotions, other times transgressing the thoughts...
The virtuoso is a leader who is called upon at every moment to make a decision, based on his art. His very being. Faster than his head, the decision can be taken instinctively, by the body, or intuitively, by the heart. As long as the terrain is in a favorable eco-system, these impulses will be favorable. The tortures of the mind begin when congruence is lacking...
Thus, mastery is basically a huge archive that is specific to each individual, to serve him in his actions as well as in his being. It is the care given to daily gardening rather than to acts of bravery.
In the end, the virtuoso is telling us to believe in coherence rather than control, in knowledge rather than repression.
IN THE MEANDERS OF OUR BRAIN
Now that we know how our brains play tricks on us, how can we still believe only what we see? But how can we find our way if we doubt everything?
Exists where my attention, my energy, my consciousness goes, says quantum science and neuroscience.
The brain transposes vibrations into sorted information according to the codes we have set up, consciously or, more often than not, unconsciously.
In discerning the shadows of what really is, here I am, truly skilful. Skilled in the subtle. Skilled in the mechanics of my emotions and a master of the laws that govern my body.
TO BE IN TUNE
So virtuosity is a form of full awareness?
Isn't being aware of one's own harmonies, rhythms and chords the surest way to become one's own best companion?
To tune an instrument, all you need to do is listen. To listen in order to adjust and readjust as you go along.
It's impossible to excel on an out-of-tune violin, even with the best technique in the world.
One day, discouraged by hearing a sound we don't like, that sound is our saviour: it demands our attention so that we can re-appropriate our instrument.
Falsehood is not what it seems. Beethoven said that the real fault was not a false note, but the absence of music. But what is your music?
In the end, the virtuoso would be closer to the peasant common sense spoken of by Milton Erickson, that virtuoso of hypnosis, i.e. the mechanics of our consciousness, than to an over-sophistication that believes we must escape from what we call: the mystery and the miracle, renewed every day.
To be what we truly are is the highest virtuosity of all!
From our fingertips to the depths of our soul,
I wish you a wonderful August,
Inspired by the virtuosity that is yours,
The music of your heart!
Hélène Tysman
