221 Nina DeCesare: Beyond the Notes - Practicing with Purpose and Building a More Inclusive Future

absolutely for you. You're listening to the mind over finger podcast, and this is episode 221 Welcome to the mind over finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music, making peak performance and crafting a Purpose Driven Life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential. Dr Renee Paul Gauthier, hello, everyone. I am

so excited about today's guest, bassist, Nina de Caesar. Nina has built an incredible career as a performer, teacher and a leader, using her voice and her platform to create real change.

After five years in the Oregon symphony, Nina joined the base section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2020 she's also performed with top tier ensembles like the Cleveland Orchestra, la Phil Detroit Symphony and Seattle Symphony, and she's very active as a soloist and chamber musician, performing for organizations, festivals and series in the US

and abroad. Alongside her performing career, she's a passionate teacher and mentor, serving on the faculty at the Peabody Conservatory, domain for jet Academy and the National

Orchestra Institute. And she's not stopping there. In 2022 Nina founded the Artemis base initiative, an incredible organization advancing the careers of women and non binary bassists through mentorship, orchestral training and professional development, her work is opening doors and changing the face of our field something that couldn't be more needed in our conversation today, Nina shares her journey through the orchestral world, the mindset shifts that shaped

her path and the practice strategies that have helped her perform with clarity and confidence under pressure. We talked about performance preparation, how she supports her students in high stakes situations, and why representation and community matter so deeply in this work, whether you're trying to refine your practice approach or you're dreaming of reshaping the industry for future generations.

This episode is full of insight, wisdom and inspiration. So without further ado, here's my conversation with the fantastic, amazing Nina the Caesar. Let's go to the show. Nina, this Caesar, it's so great to have you on the show. Thank you. Yeah, I'm so thrilled to be here. I've heard so many wonderful things about you. Have watched a lot of your video performances with which are so wonderful, and I love a lot of the the missions that you're covering on social

media. And we're going to get to that I'm excited. I've talked about you in the introduction to this episode, but I'm going to get to the first question I ask all of the guests, which is, we want to hear about you from from you, from your own words. So can you please tell us a little bit about how your artistic journey unfolded? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So it actually started and ended. Well, not ended, but is, is currently in Baltimore.

So I grew up right outside of Baltimore, Maryland. And interestingly enough, I really wanted to play the flute when I was in elementary school, because my mom played the flute, and she said, your hands are too small because they don't make smaller flutes. And so she told me to pick a string instrument, because that's what they taught in third grade. And I don't know if it was stubbornness or just because I liked the sound when I heard it in the string orchestra, but I chose bass. I

was immediately obsessed. I was constantly just playing in practicing whatever I could get my hands on, whether that was, you know, Disney songs, Christmas music, all of that. I just loved playing so much. And I was incredibly fortunate to be able to study with the renowned pedagogue of young basis, George Vance, he wrote the progressive repertoire, which is the basically the adaptation of Suzuki for double basis. And his

life goal was to figure out how to best teach small chill. In young kids, whether that was sourcing smaller basis or, you know, teaching them to be able to play in, you know, higher positions without having any sort of baggage around it. And a lot of the work that he did was along with Francois Robert, who is an incredible virtuoso from originally from Syria that now lives in Paris. So I was really lucky to get to hear Francois play every summer. For the first few years I was playing bass.

And if any, if you've heard Francois play it, he has such a motive and like the ease with which he plays and the musicality with which he plays is really it makes a really strong impression. And so that really formed, kind of my approach to playing. There's a big emphasis from the Suzuki side of George's teaching on memorization. And so that has really carried through with me. And from there, I went to Rice

University and studied with Paul Ellison. And I, during my time in university, I was very focused on the idea of being a soloist, but after a certain amount of time, I decided, Oh, well, you know, I'll try taking auditions, and I was very fortunate to win an audition pretty early on, and so I left during my my first year of my masters and started a section job in the Oregon symphony. Absolutely fell in love with Portland and with my colleagues there. It was just the most kind

and like very like, family feeling orchestra. Loved hiking and everything about Portland, honestly, but when there was an audition for a job in my hometown orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, I decided to take it. So I actually took that audition just a few days before my wedding to my husband, and so that was a really chaotic time, but I was really fortunate that it worked out I moved to Baltimore during the pandemic, which was lucky because the Oregon Symphony was

unfortunately furloughed for over a year, and so I just got very lucky that the Baltimore Symphony started paying me pretty soon after the pandemic started, and since I've been at Baltimore, I was appointed to the faculty at Peabody, where I have between seven and nine students each year, and I've gotten back into performing recitals really regularly. And yeah, that's basically it.

I love it. It's so great that you have this coming home moment where you get to come back to your, as we say in French, the source of where all started. And I love how you were told that your hands were too small for the flute and now you're playing double bass. It's fantastic. Yeah, my mom actually asked the elementary school strings teacher if my hands were too small for the bass. And she was like, No, I don't think so.

So that's amazing, and that's one of the things I love about your journey too, is that there are so many preconceived notions about who can play what instrument, and what are the prerequisite to you know, have the ability to pick an instrument, and you're really just showing everybody that there's no such thing doesn't exist. And I know that you wrote a blog entry on the presence of of women in the classical music

industry in the base sections of orchestra. Maybe, why don't we just start there right away, and we can get to all of the fun practicing performance stuff later. I know that you are in the process, or have started already an organization called Artemis for women and non binary musicians. Can you please tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, so the idea of the Artemis based initiative is basically to

raise awareness and support for women and non binary basis. It was kind of born out of the fact that, as a teacher, I see that there are so many non male basis, you know, before college, and then there's a bit of a drop off in college, and then when we get to the professional orchestra world, unfortunately, the majority of orchestras in the United States have have no women or non binary basis in them, and there's only one that has more than one. And you know, I think that in itself, is

challenging. It's always difficult to be the only one anywhere. If anyone is used to being the only woman in the room. Then, you know, regardless of whether you get along with your colleagues and whether they're supportive, there's always a sense of otherness. And even more importantly, for that, and I this is really important to me, in regards to my students, is, you know, you can't you can't be what you

can't see. And so I so often see younger students self selecting out of your casual route because, you know, they just don't think it's possible for them. Society socializes girls in non binary basis from a young age to unfortunately, have less confidence. And, you know, be be quieter and try to play by the rules. And so Artemis basically is born out of the idea that with more empowerment and more awareness, we can really help to

make these changes on the professional level. And so there's four basic tenets of the of the first kind of initiative, which is a mentorship program, a orchestral training program at the Curtis symposium for women and non binary basis seminar series, which we have our third seminar coming up this week, and a set of scholarships for instruments and summer festivals. And so my hope is, with all of these programs, each kind of tackles a different area of you know, things that can

really help students succeed. And so I'm hoping it'll it'll create change and raise awareness. I love that it's so important for things to start going in the direction that is more inclusive. What do you see as the things that need to change more rapidly? I what I would like to see is I would like to see more women and

non binary basis hired to faculty positions. It's not to say that men are not good at teaching non men, or that only women can teach non men, but there are certain aspects of playing bass that I think having a wider range of diversity in teaching, such as, you know, height is a big thing. So in my studio at Peabody currently, like my tallest student is five seven, and I'm five four and my shortest student is right around

five feet. And the physical interaction with a bass can be really different at that size than if you are over six feet. And if you look at the overall size of the average faculty based teacher in the United States, most of them are larger men, and many of them have spent a lot of have invested a lot of time and energy in learning how to teach people in smaller bodies. But even just that fact in itself, is something that can

be really helpful to just be a little more aware of. And I think having more representation at the faculty level also creates built in mentorship possibilities. There are many students that especially when they're going through particularly challenging things, might feel more comfortable going to a teacher that they see themselves in, when they might not feel quite as comfortable going to a male teacher. And so that's not to say we shouldn't have male based teachers as

well. I just think, you know, if we have a bit of more of an even split, I think, will really benefit our students that are are actually close to an even split at this point. Yeah, yes, absolutely. That aspect of representation is so important, but also that aspect of students having the ability to find someone that will resonate with the the things that they are going through and can understand from a personal perspective.

Yeah, exactly you talked about seminars. Please tell us a little bit about the type of topics that people can experience when they sign up for these seminars. Yeah. So the kind of pilot set of seminars started with a panel discussion with myself and five other very successful female basis at the top, it was on International Women's Day, and it was called Women in base, and it was hosted by the

International Society of basis. The second seminar, which we will be posting a recording of soon on the Artemis website, is was a discussion of sexual misconduct in the classical music field, raising awareness around types of rules, boundaries, things with teachers, colleagues, etc. We had a very interesting discussion with many of the attendees answering questions for younger students that it's very aware when you speak to younger students about these

kinds of difficult things, that often they don't quite know what to do when. They're in a tricky position. So I think this kind of awareness is so important for for even just keeping students safe at the base level. So then our third seminar is coming up this weekend. It is a seminar on orchestral leadership, led by Robin Bollinger. She's wonderful. Yeah, she's amazing. And, you know, it was kind of tricky to decide to have a non

base player like so early in Artemis. But I also think that Robin is just like such an inspiring figure, and the way that she stepped into her role as concert master at the Detroit Symphony as a younger woman is something that I really do want all of the Artemis mentees to see and learn from. And she's someone that I see myself in, and I hope that the younger

students are also able to see themselves in her as well. And then following that, we will have a career skills presentation by Mary Javid, who is the professor of career skills at Curtis Institute. And so that will be kind of a, a real professional development opportunity for the art Miss mentees and anyone who wants to attend to learn about you know,

how can I present myself best in a professional atmosphere? How can I put my best leg forward when approaching my career, not necessarily talking about orchestral auditions, but all of the other things that come into working as a professional musician. And the last well, we have two more summarized after

that, I guess so. One is another panel discussion. This one will be for raising awareness and support for non binary and trans basis, which is incredibly important right now that we are finding ways to hear from and learn from and support anyone who is has a different gender identity than you know, what they were were born with, especially as the current

administration is, you know, attacking their rights. So I think this is a really important time to be having this discussion, that one will also be hosted by the International Society of basis. And then the last seminar for this first run will be a seminar on confidence by Susan Cahill, who is a

professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. And so that will be an opportunity for the mentees and anyone who wants to attend, to learn how to cultivate confidence in themselves and identify sources of doubt and figure out how to really build themselves up to feel, you know, confident moving forward. Mm, I love

that all of those topics are so relevant, so important. And as you said, as it appears that we maybe there's a tendency to want to move backwards on some issues, I think it's important to actually forge ahead with raising awareness on these very, very, very important topics, where can people find information about Artemis in perhaps apply sign up. Yeah, there's, so there's a website, Artemis based initiative.com, and there's an Instagram page also Artemis based initiative.

All of it is linked from my personal Instagram and website pages. So yeah, and from there, there's there's places where you can sign up for individual seminars. The mentorship program application recently closed, but the orchestra training program at Curtis is still open, and so, yeah, it's all online. Oh, that's fantastic. I think it's so important, and I really want to personally thank you for moving forward with this very

important project. And I'm going to put all of the links in the show notes for people to find this easily, and I'm going to be following all of your activities very closely, because this is definitely a mission that I believe in. That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Nina, you have a career that I think you know all musicians. No, I shouldn't say that, because I don't know all musicians, but let's think many musicians would would dream of having the opportunity to do all of the

things that we enjoy doing as musicians. You perform still as a soloist, some chamber music, you play with an orchestra you teach at the Peabody Conservatory. And as I've said, I've watched some of the video performances you're playing. It's just so beautiful, so beautiful, such great artistry. So I really want to talk to you a little bit about the first let's tackle. The you know, the playing part of things. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your perspective on what constitute

effective practice. How can one approach practice to get to a point where they feel that they can master their instrument and really hone in on the voice that they can share with the instrument. Yeah, I think there's kind of three main things that I try to make sure that I convey to my students about effective practice. The first is not even necessarily about individual practice sessions, but a bigger picture setting. Goals, setting intentions, time management, working towards things in a

really structured way, you know. So some people do really well with like, a practice journal, and they plan out every single thing they're going to do. And I think that's really great that in that works for some people. For me, that doesn't really work because it's too structured, and I end up kind of spacing out and then hitting things. But I kind of need to be a little more engaged in what I'm doing. So instead, I like to be very intentional about setting priorities for each practice

session. So especially for example, if I'm preparing for an audition or a recital, always in the back of my head I know, like, what needs the most work right now, and that's, that's where I start. And then, you know, as the practice session goes on and I have time, I'll add other things in, but yeah, in general, like having a really structured plan. So for me, for auditions, I don't keep a practice journal, but I do make a chart with all of the different excerpts and all the

dates, and then I cross each one off on each date. And that way, you can visually see how long it's been since you've worked on certain excerpts. Or, you know, if, if one is really giving you trouble, you can see that you've worked on it every day, and it gives you a bit of like, the dopamine hit, of like, okay, I'm accomplishing something so that that's really important to me.

And the other important thing to me for excerpts, for audition preparation, is keeping track of the tempos that I'm practicing at. I like to work things up slowly over time, and so I'll have it posted on each excerpt, and I'll put the date, and then I'll put the tempo, and I'll go up just a few clicks every day. And so that provides enough structure for me to know what I'm working on. But then as I'm doing it, I'm fully focused on

what I'm doing. So that kind of brings me to the second part, which is making sure that I'm always being incredibly mindful during my practice. And so that means, if I play something and it doesn't go well, I'm not going to immediately do it a second time, I'm going to stop and I'm going to identify the problem for string instruments and especially for bass, it's

really important to isolate things. So you know, there are things that are left hand issues, there are things that are right hand issues, there are things that appear to be right hand issues that are left hand issues, and vice versa. And then there's the third layer of musicality. You know, is this, am I creating the shapes that I want? Am I creating the dynamics

and in exactly the way that I want? Is everything, kind of, have I paid attention to the details away from the base enough to know exactly what I want to do, and then now I'm focusing on the technical aspects of figuring out how to make that happen. So when I practice, there's a lot of of pausing and and kind of, you know, addressing, and what's the word I'm looking for assessing and then addressing, so that it's not just doing one thing over and over, but truly every

single time I'm focused on on one specific thing. And during like this kind of practice, I also like to make sure one especially once things are starting to feel pretty good that I'm recording, and so I'll record, and then sometimes I listen back immediately, sometimes I'll listen back the

next day. The interaction between those two different time periods is really interesting, because when you listen back immediately, generally you remember exactly what happened, or you have baggage about what you just did, and you hear that more distinctly, versus a day later, suddenly there's there's

enough space to really view it a little bit more objectively. But either way, you want to make sure that you are spending the time to, you know, while you're playing, focus on what you're doing, so that when you're listening back, that's when you're listening and you're not critiquing yourself while you're playing. And so this is kind of the transition to the third type of practice that I think is really important, which is kind

of the switch to performance mode, right? So we have the type of brain that we're using when we're practicing, which is very much like, as I said, assessing and addressing. So we're like trying to figure out what is happening and how we can do better. And we've. Really don't want to be doing that when we're performing, whether that's an audition or a solo performance

or chamber music. We want to be making music, and the part of our brain that that sings, and then the singing comes through the instrument that is a completely different part of the brain than is thinking about, wow, that just went wrong, just now, right? Because we can't really do anything in a performance about what has already gone wrong, and so that's like the least helpful thing you can be focusing on. You really want to be engaged musically.

I love that. I could not agree more with everything. I love it. And one of the things that you said at the beginning, too, is, and I'm paraphrasing, these are not your exact words, but it's figuring out what works for you. For example, I also love charts, so sometimes I'll use a practice journal, right? Because also different projects will call for a different way of keeping track of things. I love this aspect of mindfulness that you're talking

about. I mean, as you might guess, with the name, like mind over finger, one of the things I've been using recently is an interval timer, because I find that sometimes I get really hyper focused, and I can go long stretch of time without pausing. And to reset intentional, I'll have a interval timer, and you can set it so it will go, you know, three minutes of work with

15 seconds of rest, and have that repeated 25 times. And for me, that's been so helpful in every, you know, every three minutes it goes off and it and I'll take 15 seconds to just close my eyes and breathe recent intention, let my brain quiet down. So that's been one of my favorite things to do recently. But yes, I love everything that you've shared. In one of the videos that I watched, you were just talking about phrasing. I

was just noticing how beautiful organic your phrasing is. And you know how everything feels so natural and it just, it's not even we don't feel like we're listening to an instrument base. It just is music. It's absolutely wonderful. And that's one of the questions I get a lot from listeners, which is, how does one work on musicality? I'm very curious to hear what that's like for you when you work on musicality.

Yeah, I this is, this is a great question, actually, and I can actually pinpoint one year that I worked so much on musicality in developing my ear, because my sophomore year of college, I unfortunately was so injured. I had a nerve injury in my left shoulder, and I wasn't able to play for almost an entire year.

And so that year was interesting, because there was a lot of just standing in front of a mirror and trying to make sure that I was like, like, you know, body awareness and paying attention to biomechanics and making sure I was like, relieving tension and playing in a healthy way. But the other aspect was so much listening to these, like just a few slow pieces that I was working on, like very simple pieces that I'd known since I was like 12. One of them was appraised on rev by

Fauci. And so I'd listen to, like, 20 different recordings. And every single one, I would really pay attention to what was happening with the phrasing. And I was paying attention to which, which recordings I was really drawn to, and I had a really strong emotional impact. And then kind of picking that apart and figuring out, like, well, what is that? How is that? And so then, like, when I was able to start playing a little bit again, it was very focused on, you know, staying relaxed, but

also just try. I'd already figured out exactly in my head, by mental practice, how I wanted everything to sound, and then figuring out how to make it actually, like happen physically. And I think this is something that jazz players, I mean, I'm not, I don't do jazz, but I think this is something they do a lot, where they they learn, like famous like jazz

solos and stuff, and they copy the phrasing Exactly. And I think it's so helpful to mimic something that you feel really emotionally connected to, you know, and mimic every nuance, and, you know, the overall shape of everything, and really commit to it, especially when it's something that's easy enough that you're not worried about things like shifts and all that, and so that, I think that's that's been really impactful for me, and I have noticed it's difficult to get students to do

this sometimes, because it's such a it's Like a quiet moment, you know? And it feels like, oh, I don't have time to do that, you know, when you're really busy as a college student. But I think it's one of the most helpful things you can do. I love that, because it teaches you the mechanics necessary to

create what your mind hears. Yeah, I love how. Kenny Warner talks about that in his book when he talks about how, you know, some people sometimes see as being too focused on technique as a bad thing, and it can be if that's the only thing that you're focused on, for sure, but increasing your technique definitely gives you more tools for expression. So I love this approach of of really creating a vivid experience of what things sound and what it takes to recreate that that's fantastic, yeah, and

ideally it becomes second nature. You know when you do it enough with easy pieces, and then you know, you work on something harder, and those skills are still there because you're what you're hearing in your brain knows how to translate to your hands better than you know, automatically, rather than your brain telling your hands, you know, if that makes Yeah,

yes, yeah. That makes so much sense. I love that, and it's really great to see how I mean, I'm sorry that you had to deal with this injury, of course, but how, in many ways, the injury was a gift in pushing you to get very creative with the ways that you could continue your progress, your journey. I'm so glad that you recovered, that you you know, were able to to heal properly with this really mindful approach that you

describe, and I think that is very inspiring for people. First of all, on how to listen to the body slow down, make sure that you're taking the proper steps to heal. But also, then, where are the gifts in this situation? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think the path of any classical musician is going to be filled with obstacles and challenges, and not all of them will have a silver lining. But if it's possible to find a silver

lining, it's it. I think it really helps to lighten the load of moving through this difficult career path, you know? Yeah, yeah. One question that I think the listeners would be upset that I if I didn't ask, would be about preparing for performance. You talked about how it's a different type of practice, if, and that's something that I talk a lot about as well in podcasts and with all of my clients, I really believe that it's true. You talked about recording yourself.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how you prepare for performance and how that differentiates from practice, practice? Yeah, so the week before a performance, or two weeks before an audition? Well maybe, yeah, between one and two weeks before anything, I'll basically stop practicing and start doing run throughs, and I'm only focused on music. And, you know, every now and then it becomes clear that something still needs a little more detail work, and I'll try to do that as quickly

as possible. But for me, there has to be kind of an aspect of letting go because, and this is, I think I read this in inner game of tennis. It's like, you know, if we focus too hard on hitting the the ball with the tennis racket, like, if we're focused on what our hand is doing, will actually do worse than if we just, like, let our body do it, because our body knows how to, you know, play base better than our brain does,

right? And so after all of the work in the practice room, then it's like, you know, being able to be fully engaged and, like, kind of in performance mode, I think, is the last step for me. So, yeah, I just do run throughs, and I try to rest my hands a lot because, you know, base is tiring, and the fresher My hands are, the better things feel. And when you do these run throughs? Do you record yourself a lot as well? Usually? Yeah, especially for auditions, less

so for recitals. I think I'm I'm better at the excruciating process of preparing for an audition. And with recitals, I like to be a little kinder to myself. You know, it would probably sound a little better if I did record myself and go through all of that, but the stakes are a little lower, so I've avoided it so far.

It's one of the hardest things to remember, I think, and it's one of the things that I have the hardest time convincing clients of doing more is recording themselves, because it's easy to be lured by the working aspects of practicing. And it feels like recording is, for lack of a better word, wasting time because you're not actively playing, but it is such a great way to see what is actually going on. Yeah. Totally. Nina, before I let you go, can we please do a quick

round of rapid fire questions. I want to start with a question that I really love and don't ask quite enough, which is about thoughts or one thought that perhaps either change your life or thought that supports you. Yeah. So one thing that comes to mind. So right before I took the audition for Baltimore, I I had just finished Game of Thrones, and there's this, there's this saying that Arya, Arya Stark always says, which is not today. And the idea of that was, and,

you know, it's this, isn't exactly it. But the idea for me was like, Okay, there's fear, but also like, today is not the today's not the day to, like, let the fear win. You know, for her, it was like, not not today. Like death isn't going to win. You know, luckily for us, it's not really life or death, yes.

But for me, it was a bit of a mantra that was like, okay, not like, all the doubts and insecurities and concerns and thinking, like, oh, well, you know, I'm taking this audition right before my wedding, and it's my hometown and my family's there. How heartbroken would I be, you know, all of that. And I would kind of counteract it with this idea of, like, okay, not today. And so that was kind of a thing for me for quite a while

after that. And I think I felt more confidence at this point, so I don't feel the need to come back to that mantra as much, but it was definitely really impactful. Then. I love that. And I just want to underline how sometimes you practice the thought enough that it helps you develop either more confidence or or anything else to a point where you don't even need it anymore. And it really shows how sometimes a thought that you don't really believe quite yet. With enough

practice, you absorb it. It becomes part of you, and you fully, you know, adhere to it. And believe it, that's great, very powerful. Before I started recording, we talked about maybe book recommendations, and you said you had some books to recommend, yeah, well, okay, I'll start. So there's, like, a few fiction books I've read recently that are incredible, and I think everyone should read them. So that's demon Copperhead by

Barbara Kingsolver, babble by Rf Quang. And this is not a new book, but Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, very relevant. So yeah, I would definitely recommend those three for sure, even though they're not, they're not anything to do with music. But I think just broadening our, our kind of minds in general, is helpful. Yes, okay, thank you. I needed some book recommendations, so that

works really well for me. One of the big things in in in my life, for me as a musician, but also in my work as a coach, is making sure that practice is enjoyable, fulfilling, however you want to call it. What are some of the ways that you make your practice feel either enjoyable, fulfilling, enriching. Um, I think, like the ritual is, is kind of helpful sometimes. So I used to be, like, a big fan of energy drinks, and thankfully,

quit that by now. But I was kind of in a phase of taking a few auditions, some, you know, in the past few years, and I would always light a candle, and then I would, like, have an energy drink, and I would sit down and, you know, I would make a kind of a plan, you know, just like, look over and and figure out how much time I had. And I think starting with some sort of like, Okay, now we're doing this type of thing. You know, as simple as

it is, just like, lighting a candle feels like, okay. Like, this is this is time for me to be doing this. And, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, the dopamine hit of marking things off of a list can be really helpful for feeling like you're being productive and you're getting somewhere. Because I think one of the challenges of practicing for us is like, it's so hard to measure, you know, and there's kind of a feeling of, there's

never, there's never too much, right? Like, I could practice eight hours a day for the next 60 years and probably still have work to do. So I think just having, like, small, manageable goals, like just, you know, I'm going to check off six excerpts a day is, is something that, like, it's, it makes it easier to kind of feel like we're getting something done. Yes, yes. Couldn't agree more with all of these things. What is the habit that you have that you think contributed to your success?

I don't know. I'm a perfectionist, for sure, but I also think that's been as unhelpful as it was helpful. Yeah, I don't have a good answer, but I think what you just said is important too, because certain things get a bad rep, but they're not intrinsically bad. So perfectionism can be very helpful and it can be very destructive. That's one of my favorite quotes from Gretchen Rubin, which is the opposite of an absolute truth is also true.

So sometimes laziness can be good. If you're exhausted, you know what I mean? It's, it's, it's very important to keep in mind that there are dues that word I use earlier the. There are gifts in everything, and there are some negative effects as well. So it's how can we be mindful about those things? Do you have a favorite tool in the practice room? Oh, metronome. Maybe

that's a really great one. In the light of all of the work that you do with Artemis and your students and your own experience, what is the skill that you think young musicians should develop today? I think it's really important to to realize that. Okay, so I always tell my students, there's 100 different ways to play bass really well, right? And especially in the bass community, you know, there's French bow, German bow, sitting, standing, bent pin, straight

pin, orchestral playing, solo playing. And sometimes it feels like different camps and like, oh well, you have to do it this way. You have to do it this way. And so I think one skill that's really important is being able to absorb everything that you learn and put it in a toolbox and then figure out what is working and when to take different things and to never shut your ears to something just because you've been told not to do that or because you it automatically seems wrong to

You. And instead, it's really important to just figure out exactly why or where someone's coming from, or why they might do that, or why it works for this person, you know. And I think that's really important as a person too. It's like it's so easy, especially right now, in the current environment, to immediately be repelled by things that we don't agree with. And it's actually more important right now to figure out why the other person thinks this or is acting this way, or believes

this or is Yeah. And so I think it's just finding a way to, instead of decide immediately yes or no, really think critically and absorb and just it's all information that we can use really well said, beautiful. Finally, do you have a quick, actionable tip that the listeners could implement today, either in the practice room, their musical lives, or anywhere else? I think the one that is I'm always telling my students, it's like, when something isn't working, stop and figure out why it isn't

working. And so, yeah, that's good for practicing. That's good for life. It's too it's easier to keep doing the same thing over and over. But that's not, that's not growth. So growth comes from stopping and making changes. I love that. That's great. Nina, thank you so much for taking this time sitting with me today, sharing your insight, your wisdom. I have so much admiration for all of the things that you're doing, and I feel like overall, you're such a great role model for all of us,

musicians. And yeah, I'm just so grateful that I had a chance to speak with you today. Well, thank you for having me. This was super fun. Hope to see you in person sometime that would be great. Yes. And there you have it. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it. If you'd share with your friends and colleagues, take a screenshot, post it on social media and tag me. I mind over

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