Each year we receive this opportunity to reflect on those who have made our freedoms possible and to be grateful to those who paid the ultimate price to protect us and those freedoms. They made it possible for us to have a day off, a cookout, to enjoy the unofficial start to summer, and to play our music, free from arduous circumstances. Remember and honor them.
We musicians are always learning, developing, growing. That may be the best part of being a musician. Our constant growth is good for us – keeping our minds working! And that keeping active still leaves us with room to grow!
And yet, we often hem ourselves in. We want everything to be easy and quick. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that. We need room to grow, and we have to take it. We need to acknowledge that need – and take that space.
We’re good (typically) about having the physical space for playing. Square footage for our creative growth and our musical life is a given. We also need to accept that we also need another type of space – time.
It can take a long time to thoroughly learn our music. There is so much to get under our belts – all those notes, fingerings, rhythms, harmonies, rests. The right order, repair points, and just plain ol’ remembering. Yikes!
The answer, of course, lies in giving ourselves enough room (time) to know the music. Because it’s much more than simply getting the notes into your head. How do you do that? Practice time of course, but also by using a strategy called distributed practice.
Distributed practice requires that you have a multilayer view of your practice time. Distributed practice is a more macro level of thinking about your practice time while daily practice is a finer view. Daily practice will be part of building each tune but it’s the summation of all those days over weeks and months that really solidifies the music in you. The other prize in distributed practice is repetition (and lots of it!).
Now, as a champion procrastinator, I’d be the first to tell you that allowing practice to be distributed over time is hard. It’s easy to tell ourselves some variation of: I learn really quickly! Look, I can play it! Christmas is forever away! Been there. Done that. Designed the T-shirt!
But is it really learned? Or are you fumbling along on momentum and luck?. Are you really playing it? Or are you jerking through the sore spots and hoping the left hand is faking it good enough?. Christmas gets earlier every year (at least it doesn’t start until after Halloween!).
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re good and that you have fully learned your music. How do we assess our progress if it’s happening over time? That’s not as easy as watching our daily progress because we have to take the long view – but you can do it. How do you know?
I have a new (to me) metric for growth and progress that I use and figured you might be able to use it too. I look for “ease.” Yes, that’s vague and yet, you know it when you feel it. When you start learning a tune, there is so much to learn (as we mentioned above) that you struggle to keep it all in mind while you work on it. It’s like herding cats – everything is moving, you can’t keep track of where you are, and who knows which one to pick up next!
As you spend more time practicing, you know each of the elements a little better, and (if you’re patient) you’ll realize that your brain isn’t working as hard. It does start to feel easier. Later, it’s easy enough to comfortably play the melody and accompaniment at the same time – with ease. Eventually, it becomes easier to play the tune accurately under pressure (like in a lesson or when performing).
Eventually is the essential word there – because it is the most challenging part of establishing the room to grow. You can’t get there without it eventually coming together in the time space you created. And with time and space, the tunes really do solidify and become easy to play, no matter what else is going on.
Do you notice tunes getting easier as you continue to play? Do you think you could use ease as a metric for progress? Is there something that would be better? You know I want to know what you think – let me know in the comments!
I know many people find Spring to be full of possibilities but it’s my least favorite season of the entire year. It’s the time that my focus wanes which is only bad because there’s stuff to get done. It’s that time that, you know, you need a little motivation! If, like me, you need a little motivation, click on the graphic to download this motivational poster. Hang it where you’ll see it to remind yourself what you’re up to. Let me know if you actually like it and if we need more or fewer (you know, in the comments!). Enjoy!
Let me know if you actually like it and if we need more or fewer (you know, in the comments!). Enjoy!
Last week we talked about asking questions to encourage our creativity. I hope that you spent the week asking questions of yourself – I know I did! As we said there, asking questions is a great method. The good thing about questions is that they beget one of two things – more questions and/or answers!
Who knew that asking the questions would be the easiest part of being creative?!?
Answers are good to have. Answers describe action. Answers are hard. Answers require us to be brave enough to act.
So, Answers can make you be stuck. Moving forward can be scary. What if we’re wrong? What if our creative idea is a dud? What if we fail?
Well, I can’t assure you that all your creative ideas will be brilliant. But I can help you be brave enough to give your creativity free rein to try! Although there are loads of them, let’s start with five ways to be brave enough for your creativity to shine through:
1. Remind yourself that you are creative. Having doubts? Think about this – every sentence you utter has to be generated from scratch. Each time you say something, you illustrate your innate ability to create (even if you say nonsensical stuff!). You are creative!
2. Size up the risk. It’s not like I asked you to go on TV and perform cold as the entire world watches! What’s the worst that can happen as you sit at your harp at home by yourself? Your rhythm is wonky? You hit some unintended tones? You forgot about reverb and what seemed like a good idea in your head turned out to be the sonic equivalent of baby s**t brown? No one is going to take away your birthday. No one is going to point and laugh. No one is even going to hear you unless you ask them to! The risk of exploring is so minimal as to defy definition!
3. Practice laughing. Here’s a harsh reality – not all your ideas are going to soar. So, when you have a serious creative misstep – laugh about it! (see 2 above – who heard your misstep? That’s right – no one) If a misstep happens alone in a forest, did it happen at all? Only in your laughter!
4. Laugh with yourself, not at yourself. Don’t be your meanest critic. Be nice to you!
5. Being creative doesn’t mean you can’t learn something. Every time you try something and it works – celebrate!! And every time you try something that doesn’t work, you can learn from it. What is causing you to have a gap? Do you need to master another technique? Have you become an idea one-trick pony? Learn what your gap is and then create a way to fill it!
I’m going to be brave enough to stop there – I am sure you have other, better ways to help yourself find the courage to be creative – what are they? Let me know and we can share our epic tales!