1,000 Days of Piano - Day 134: Wanted: Lost Marbles

Tomorrow is Halloween, which means that National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. (Followed immediately by Christmas, but why dwell on that!) Yes, I am planning to write a novel next month, while keeping up with my blog and everything else. Crazy, no? I just can’t bear the thought of giving up NaNoWriMo for four years in a row. That’s the logic behind the madness. Four measures and 1,800 words a day. Including Thanksgiving. I’d like to think it’s either genius or insanity, but it’s likely the latter.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 132: Nothing Special

I get the feeling that a lot of people think that playing the piano is some special, magical, unattainable ability. Maybe they suffered through torturous lessons as a child. Maybe they never learned. Maybe they felt (correctly) that they had no natural talent.

Natural talent is helpful. Certain skills just come easily. Yet, natural talent is not required. Learning to play the piano doesn’t take some unusual, mystical power that you either have or don’t have. It doesn’t even require hours of daily practice. It does require minutes of daily practice, though, along with diligence, discipline, and resilience. It requires a willingness to make mistakes and not take yourself quite so seriously. That’s it. There’s nothing special about it. It demands the same qualities as learning to make pancakes. Practice, mess up, try again, repeat. That’s all.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 131: Three Against Four Will Not Be the Hill Upon Which I Die

Three against four, for the uninitiated, is playing triplets with one hand and sixteen notes with the other. In the case of this Sonata, it’s playing triplet sixteenth notes with the left hand and thirty-second notes with the right. It’s rubbing your stomach while patting your head at the same time on steroids. It’s the reason (confession time here) I never learned to play my father’s beloved Chopin Fantasie Impromptu. I can play two against three scales easily. With diligence I can master three against four scales. Putting together a melody with accompaniment? I set my teeth and make a run for it, and Lucy yanks the football away at the last minute. If I were very clever, I would edit my attempts into a montage similar to the ones in movies where the hero get knocked down repeatedly. Face in the dirt. Face in the dirt. Face in the dirt. I even tripped over the trill in measure seven, which I can nail with focus. Oh, well. Despite appearances, three against four will not be the hill upon which I die.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 130: Taking a Break Does Not Equal Broken

I had a lost week. Maybe I’m still having it. Was I any busier, any more overwhelmed, more discouraged than usual? Maybe. Maybe not. I did a lot of teaching. I did a lot of housecleaning. I recorded a performance (see above). I watched a lot of Netflix. I practiced the Sonata. I checked the scores of the Nationals World Series Games, and squinted at the news headlines. And I took a break from the blog. Maybe it was yin for yang in the balancing act that is my life. Maybe it is whatever I say it is. For now, it is well.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 125: Questions with No Answers

The tasks on my overflowing to do list are piling up until the windows of my mind might explode. How on earth am I going to get it all done? The practicing, the teaching, the dishes, the laundry, the writing, and the recording...I could go on but the list is too exhaustive. Or is it exhausting? Whatever the case, my questions will have to go unanswered for another day. And that has to be okay. A solution exists for every problem, but I’ll never think of it if I’m drowning in overwhelming. I will figure it out. In the meantime, I can learn to do without answers one measure at a time

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 124: Still Pretending

I’m still pretending. I’m still pretending it’s okay that I missed two days in a row posting to this blog. I’m still pretending I didn’t mess up when I played part of my piece for someone. I’m pretending that all of my students practice diligently every day. I’m pretending that I practice diligently every day. I’m pretending it’s not after 11:00 at night. I’m pretending that I’m a grownup. I’m pretending I don’t feel as though I’m falling hopelessly behind on all the many thing I have to do. I’m pretending that everything is always working out for me. Why? The alternative is so much more unpleasant.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 121: Pretending

I’m pretending. I’m pretending that I already know this music, that my mistakes were insignificant, that I’m not laying the tracks just ahead of the train. I’m okay with being a work in progress. It’s just so much fun to imagine how wonderful it will be to play the entire Sonata. So I’m pretending one measure at a time.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 120: Elusive Confidence

I am tired of chasing confidence. I am tired of feeling uneasy when I catch it. I am tired of letting it slip through my fingers. Some people have egos so large you wonder how they can fit through the door. That’s not me. I cling to a false humility, a life raft of self-depreciation. I may not have much, but I can still own it. What would be so wrong with that? Pride may goeth before a fall, but I can savor each small success like a small bite of a rich dessert. Just because I want to.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 119: Muzio Clementi vs. Alan Menken

I’ve proved that I can practice and concentrate with the full chorus of Beauty and the Beast (plus my daughter) singing “Be Our Guest” in the background. My daughter asked me not to post the first take,  in which it was a little unclear as to who drowned out whom. I went with the third take, with a quieter song in the background. I’m tired of warning my family that I’m recording. They have a life, and who am I to interfere? Besides, I get to practice my superior mind powers in the bargain.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 118: Treading Water

I’ve come to a standstill in my progress. I’m treading water. I’m not sinking, but I’m not moving forward. One thousand days is a long time to sustain inspiration. Other projects compete for my attention, projects that I can begin and complete in one-tenth of the time it will take me to cross the finish line here. Still, a commitment is a commitment. Inspiration will return. I will learn new music...if for no other reason than I will be too bored not to.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 117: Mutiny and Manners

I skipped a day yesterday. I was at home. I had WiFi. My piano was waiting for me. But it was a busy Saturday, and I was doing busy Saturday things. It happens. I realized at 11:00 p.m. that the day had slipped through my fingers, and I hadn’t recorded anything. My family rose up in protest. They wanted silence, and not even the promise of a cradle song would do. So I did the polite thing and went straight to bed. This morning I seized my opportunity and squeaked out a recording before anyone could complain. When you live with a musician, you learn to endure practice.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 115: In the Center of Chaos

I have a lively, busy family. Sometimes I’m trying to be thoughtful and not disturb them with tedious practice and repeated takes when recording. Sometimes I’m trying to be thoughtful and not disturb their routine with demands for quiet while I’m recording. Ideally, I can do my practicing and recording when they aren’t at home, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Spirited conversations, outbursts of song, and ordinary household sounds of groceries being put away may punctuate my performances. That’s life. Music is often my adventure, but it’s also my oasis of calm in the center of chaos.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 114: Faking It

It’s Thursday. I’m tired. So I’m faking it. I recorded a snippet of the Sonatina in F, hitching the beginning to the end with duct tape and string. I simply played measures 1-13 and went right into measures 56-71. Honestly, I just didn’t feel like dealing with the middle today. 

Some days it’s like that. Some days I just do whatever I can get away with to get the job done. All I need to do is get some rest, regroup, and come at again another day with fresh energy. We all do this. It’s sort of like ordering pizza on Friday night when you don’t feel like cooking. It isn’t really fake. It’s more like taking a break.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 113: Matter of Fact

I sat down without giving it much thought and recorded the last five pieces in Book 2. No big deal. Matter of fact. It still feels like a stretch, but today I did it without much consideration. I did it yesterday, and I might do to tomorrow. It wasn’t perfect, but I stayed in the present moment and focused on enjoying the music. It isn’t exciting, this daily, step-by-step march toward my goal, but it is the backbone of achievement.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 112: I Am Not My Mistakes

I still give the “evil red eye” that is the recording button on my phone way too much power. I play better without it—the consummate bathtub pianist. Everything is better when no one is listening. When the music flows, it’s no big deal. But I wear my mistakes like a scarlet letter. Sometimes they are like old friends playing the same practical joke on me. Others are new, waiting to ambush me when I least expect it. (Where did that come from? I’ve never done that before!)
Mistakes happen. I can treat them the same way as I do my achievements—no big deal. I don’t have to wear them on my sleeve. I am not my mistakes. Instead, I can embody my successes.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 111: Light-Hearted

Music is serious business, I know. It takes discipline, diligence, practice, skill, and knowledge. We musicians are Artists. We express joy, pathos, passion, and tragedy through our art. We pour ourselves into our work, and, if the muse is kind, it might begin to approach something like mastery. At the very least it is something that does not bring shame down upon our heads.

That does not mean that we can’t be light-hearted about it. I can wander into my studio, seat myself dreamily at my instrument and play...a Bach invention, the opening theme song from “Gilligan’s Island,” or Baby Shark. I sat down several months ago and idly played the four opening bass notes of “Aaron Burr” from Hamilton, and my daughter impishly called out right on cue, “1776.” I’ve had piano students break out into the ominous strains of the music from Jaws when learning about half steps. (Or maybe I just used that goofing off moment as inspiration for teaching.) In any case, those moments of whimsy are sometimes the best and moment imaginative moments for the Artist. They remind me that I can be more light-hearted in my creativity.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 110: Still Challenging

It is still challenging to record the last four pieces of Book 2 in a row. They aren’t challenging for me to play...they are just challenging for me to record. So I’m going to keep recording them until the dailiness takes the sting out. Every now and then I’ll mix it up a bit when it gets too repetitive. I’m pushing the limits of my comfort zone. If I push my way out and circle the perimeter long enough, I’ll have an enlarged comfort zone. Then I’ll need to push myself out even farther. I’m prowling the edges of the wilderness. Up ahead lies danger and adventure, but the comfort of home is not too far behind.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 109: Still Scattered

I am still scattered. I practice a certain schedule of pieces each day and make progress on all of them. And then one day, I just go rogue and practice something completely different. I’m thinking that I just can’t stick to the program. The truth is that I’m simply choosing to practice something different today. It’s Saturday, and I’m taking a break from Book 2. I’m in a Mozart mood. After weeks of polishing Book 2, I need more of a challenge.

It turns out that I’m practicing something more than piano. I’m practicing seeing the best in myself and in those around me. My world is populated by kind, if occasionally mischievous, souls. I’m practicing being a little less tightly wound. I’m practicing serenity. I’m still scattered, and that’s okay.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 108: The Power of Fun

Today’s performance is far from flawless, but I had a good time. I’m getting such a kick out of playing and practicing these pieces that I always wanted to play as a child but never did. When it comes to music, ever underestimate the power of fun.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 107: Eat That Frog!

Eat That Frog! is a book by Canadian self-help expert, Brian Tracy. He takes the title and premise for his book from a famous quote by Mark Twain, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.” The idea is that if you complete your most onerous task of the day first, the rest of your day will be a breeze.
My twist in this is that if you accomplish first thing in the morning a task that will give you the most satisfaction, you will more easily endure it if the rest of your day collapses into a black hole of frustration and disillusionment.
I began my day by recording Suzuki Book 2 in its entirety. It was much more pleasant than eating a live frog, but it was not without a certain indefinable tension. I knew I had only one shot at getting a good take because I only had time to record it once. I must have had a slight premonition that any sense of productivity would be in shreds by evening. In any case, whatever else may have happened today, I can console myself with the thought that I did something worthwhile.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 106: Book 1 Rehearsal

One of my rules of leadership is not asking anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I wouldn’t ask a student to perform an entire book of pieces unless I would do it myself. So I recorded most of the Suzuki Book 1, just for the experience of it.
It was interesting, kind of like chewing one of those disclosing tablets we used to get as kids to encourage us to brush our teeth. Anyone who feels up in the seventies knows what I’m talking about. They were bright red pills that we’d chew up and spit out. The red dye would stick to the plaque so that when we looked in the mirror we’d know where we needed to brush and floss.

Sitting down and going straight through most of Book 1 felt like that. It highlighted the sticky places I need to practice. An exercise doesn’t get more valuable than that.

1,000 Days of Piano - Day 105: Talent v. Genius or Passion v. Fear

Today I was saddened to learn of the death of soprano Jessye Norman. Many of us may have talent, but Norman had true genius. She had an amazing voice, and she wasn’t afraid to use it. As a musician, I cannot even begin to compare, nor do I want to. I may have a modest amount of talent, but I lack brilliance, at least when it comes to music. What I lack in genius and brilliance, however, I wish to make up for with enthusiasm and passion.

Reading about Norman, I saw that she had a passion for opera since childhood. Of course. Those who are overflowing with a zest for creativity have no room for timidity.  Perhaps it’s unimportant whether or not I have talent as opposed to genius. Maybe it’s more important whether or not I allow my fear to overshadow my passion.