Beginner’s Mind

Beginner’s Mind is a concept from Zen Buddhism, and the idea is simply that you try to see the world with fresh eyes and treat every experience like you are a beginner going through it for the first time. Whatever your background, whatever your experience, whatever your past beliefs and preconceptions, you show up as if you’re a beginner, and you look to see what there might be to learn.

Why? Because if we don’t, we are cheating ourselves out of a substantial amount of the potential learning available to us.

However smart and experienced we might be, we never learn it all the first time through. There are always some gold nuggets just waiting for you if you return to the same topic again. On top of that, when you return to the same fundamentals, you often find new depths and layers to propel you even further forwards. But you can only spot those opportunities if you come in open-minded. With a “Beginner’s Mind”.

This is why the best sports coaches have their team constantly focused on fundamentals. Like the legendary basketball coach John Wooden taking considerable time on the first day of practice each year to teach his players how to properly tie their shoes. Or american football coach Vince Lombardi bringing his players right back to the basics by starting out the season with “Gentlemen, this is a football”.

It’s why many of the most successful investors have the simplest investment strategies. And it’s why even at a very high level in music, wind players are constantly doing “long tones” practice.

It’s often the things we might write off as “beginner-level stuff” that actually has the highest potential impact for us.

There is a lot that could be unpacked on this topic, and how it relates to things like mindfulness and humility and mastery. It’s a powerful and wide-ranging principle.

The most impactful point is that Beginner’s Mind lets you shed all your preconceptions, your emotional and psychological baggage, and any limiting beliefs and unhelpful assumptions that might have accumulated in the past. It lets you really be open to absorbing something new.

At Musical U we’ve seen so clearly and consistently how absolutely vital it is that you be willing to take a Beginner’s Mind.

If you come into musicality training, or even this book specifically, ready to say “yep, I know that” or “skip the easy stuff!” or “I’ll do it differently because I know better”, you’re going to be cheating yourself out of the results you came for.

The solution to that is very simple: remind yourself to see things as if you are a beginner.

If you make that simple mindset shift, you’ll be amazed at the riches and discoveries that are waiting for you.

You don’t need to just take my word for it though. Here are three specific reasons to take this seriously:

1. In every field, the top experts extol the virtues of “focusing on fundamentals”. Remember that often the seemingly-simple things are the most critical for true mastery.

2. As adult learners we can really get in our own way. It’s awkward and painful for an adult to admit we don’t know something, or to allow for the idea that we might still have something to learn when it comes to the basics. We often miss out on learning because we’ve decided in advance that we know it all—or at least want to appear (to others or just to ourselves) that we know it all already.

   Even when we are well informed, we have blind spots. We “don’t know what we don’t know”. That’s why it’s so valuable to stay open to the possibility that there’s more yet to be discovered in familiar topics.

3. Music is an art, not a science. It’s easy to think that understanding something intellectually is all there is. We forget what children know instinctively to be true: that learning means doing, and just because you know how something is supposed to work it doesn’t mean it’s not worth testing and experimenting and exploring deeply.

I won’t pretend this has been easy for me! I know from personal experience how hard it is sometimes to put yourself back in the beginner’s shoes. But it is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make.

Any time you find yourself thinking “I know this already!” or “this is too easy!” or you’re feeling resistance because you feel something’s not a fit for you, remember that child-like curiosity, and openness to discovering something new. Remind yourself that it’s always valuable to firm up fundamentals, and there’s often treasure waiting for those who bother to come around again.

If you can approach your learning always willing to be open to the possibility that something that seems familiar or something that “you already know” actually might be well worth exploring afresh, I guarantee that is going to pay massive dividends for you.

So I invite you to adopt that mindset now and try to keep reminding yourself of it.

You can ask questions like these to help:

• “What would a beginner hear, see, or experience here?
• “How is this different to what I’ve heard before?”
• “How does this apply to me, my instrument, my music?”
• “Am I doing this fully already—or are there some new opportunities here?”

You might be approaching a musical term, a concept, a skill, a track or genre. Really, anything you encounter in your musical journey. Open yourself up to experiencing it in a fresh new way, allowing for the possibility that something you thought you just “knew” or was “obvious” actually might yet have a lot to be revealed to you.

When you take a Beginner’s Mind, not only do you avoid the big trap of thinking “I know this already” and skimming over (or even skipping entirely) some lessons that still have plenty to teach you, you’re also able to glean much more from going through that material, because at every moment, you’re actually allowing learning to take place at a much higher level. You’re priming the brain to be on the lookout for new ideas and new understanding, rather than going in with a slightly disengaged attitude that will only notice the biggest, most glaring learning points.

It’s like switching your brain from a hardened piece of clay that really requires work to change shape at all, back into soft putty that can be shaped and moulded with ease. Or like turning a sponge that’s already saturated and can’t absorb any more, into a fresh new sponge that’s just itching to soak up something new.

The challenge is to set your ego aside, quiet that voice that says “I know this already” or “this is a waste of time”, and be humble—be proud even—to be a beginner. And feel excited that perhaps even some seemingly very basic things might yet have secrets in store.