Day 263: music is hard

music is hard. (because music is hard.)

When we get frustrated with ourselves, and we get all mad-sad-mad that we can’t play something the way we want to, I think we forget that music is actually hard. It’s difficult for us in the moment because it’s legit-complicated and if it weren’t we wouldn’t appreciate it so much. This stuff is truly complex and arduous. There is just SO MUCH going on, and this is true in so many areas of life. Let’s give ourselves a little more credit by acknowledging the difficulty of the tasks at hand a bit more realistically. We aren’t idiots. Difficult things are actually difficult.

 

Day 223: work smarter

Once in a while I catch myself saying something smart-ish in a private lesson and then realize I should heed my own advice.

A young student was working way too hard today. (We all do it. Pretty much all of the time.) His hands were tight and he was making every gesture with visibly intense effort. It was just all too much work. I heard myself tell him to ‘let his brain do more work so his hands could do less.’

Aha! Who just said that?

Later I had the most productive and physically-relaxed practice I’ve had in a long while. Reminder to self: do what you would tell others to do.

Day 216: release

Even though I am constantly talking/thinking/writing about relaxation, there IS a certain amount of tension required to do our work. (Or really any work for that matter.) And when things get tougher, it might take slightly more tension. It’s important, then, that we learn to release any increase in tension/stress/work/effort as soon as we can.

Let’s remember to release. Even if we start from a place of relaxation (which is hard enough), it is inevitable that we will hit at least SOME tension. Let’s release that tension in the moment; better music and happier musicians will emerge.

Day 214: On my difficulty scale: will a 10 ever be a 1?

So let’s make a difficulty scale of 1 to 10. (10 being the uber-difficult.) There could be a zero on the scale, but nothing would be there, so there isn’t. Here’s what I’m wondering: when something is truly a 10 on the difficulty scale, or maybe even if it is a 9, can we ever hope to bring it to 1?

For me, in all honesty, I’m thinking NO. I’m not exactly proud to say it, but I’m grateful to bring my difficulty number down at all. Just like I’m learning each piece of music one note at a time, I’m content to go down the difficulty scale just one number at a time. I’m realizing that for me at least, a 10 will never be a 1, and that just has to be okay. Harder stuff is harder. I will be completely thrilled when a passage that was once a 10 becomes a 3 or 4.

This is humbling, because I know musicians for whom everything is at a 1 after some work. (Good on y’all, but also I hate you.) I’m just going to keep working; what else is there?

Day 210: just, TRY.

Sometimes we need to remember that any effort forward is better than nothing.

It is too easy to get stuck in “I can’t.” When I was a little girl my dad forbade those 2 words: “I can’t” just was not allowed. Even though I don’t exactly forbid these words in my studio, I do encourage creativity in place of giving up. There is ALWAYS a clever way to move forward. And this isn’t just for kids or beginners: we all need fun little games in our practice if we intend to keep going without losing our minds. Here, a few suggestions.

Just try…

1. going much slower. Exactly how slow can you go?

2. simplifying like crazy. How small can you make the problem? ISOLATE.

3. clever practicing. What is a weird way you can approach your problem? (Often the weirder, the better.)

4. thinking outside of the box. If what you are doing isn’t working, try something different.

5. reaching out. Ask somebody else what worked for them.

above all, JUST TRY.

Day 207: “but it’s too haaard!!”

“it’s too hard”

We’ve all said it, or at least thought it. And if we are teachers, we’ve heard it from our students, too.

While it is true that the problems we face are hard, it is false to say they are too hard. They are hard now but they will only get easier. Every single time we practice we face difficult things, but even the stuff that seems simple now was once hard.

Let’s be pragmatic. Let’s face the hard stuff head-on and break down the problems. Nothing is too hard. We are smart, and even when we aren’t being smart we have tools, and every single thing can be broken down one note (or one step) at a time.

Stuff is hard, but it’s not too hard. We’ve got this.

 

 

Day 182: don’t kill the kitten!

Don’t kill the kitten. Or whatever sweet, cute creature that tugs hardest at your heartstrings – you wouldn’t want to kill that, right? That’s the animal you want to pretend you are cradling in your hand, or wherever you find yourself holding tension.

My student Makayla has been struggling with some left hand tension. She’s squeezing the neck and fingerboard of the violin, and her thumb is migrating below the neck against her will. I told her to pretend a cute fuzzy chick was resting in her hand, and by squeezing she would be hurting the poor little creature. It quickly became clear that Makayla is not a fan of birds, even the littlest/cutest baby birdies, so we switched to kitties. And suddenly, Makayla was able to cradle an imaginary animal in her left hand , ever so gently.

Don’t kill the kitten/chick/puppy/beautiful little baby meerkat, okay folks?

Day 181: relaxation

I’ve long thought about relaxation. I’ve worked on it endlessly, using every exercise I’ve ever heard of. And I’ve achieved good results. Great, even. People approach me at gigs all the time and ask how I have such good posture and appear so at ease.  Still, there is nothing like a stop-you-in-your-tracks medical procedure to remind you what true relaxation really is.

Sitting down, with my leg elevated, my practice has a new & strange relaxation to it. Something about the helplessness of it all has me relaxed beyond a level I knew before. So: however relaxed you are, try to go even deeper. Only good will come of it.

Day 173: economy

Musicians often have to fret about economic matters. It’s incredibly expensive being a musician. Just having and maintaining a good instrument is a FORTUNE.  Private lessons to get us into a good school are expensive, weekly, and never-ending. Then school, and more school, and festivals and competitions and auditions, and more school. Then we have to fight to have a job, and even if we get it, we have to advocate on behalf of that job even existing, for the rest of our lives. I regularly have people try to talk down my fee for a performance or lessons and I have to tell them that I literally can’t afford it. It’s exhausting.

But… I thought today I’d write about a different and happier type of economy: the economy of effort. I had a student come to me with an indication in his music that he thought just had to be a mistranslation: “the left hand shall remain quiet.” Not a mistake, but rather an instruction to work less. A reminder to be a quiet little insect crawling along the fingerboard with minimal effort. Working less will result in less tension, less pain, less stress, and more success. Let’s remember to be economical with our effort, in all that we do.

Day 168: even the hard stuff gets easier

Recently I started working on some Lillian Fuchs etudes for an upcoming project. I’ll be performing a couple of them in a few weeks, but just a month ago they seemed REALLY difficult. I’m starting to think Fuchs didn’t like anything that wasn’t played at warp speed. (And I don’t have much wiggle room- there’s a specific metronome marking on each one.) One etude in particular is chord after chord after chord, with tons of shifting, and of course it’s presto. I make a point to always reward myself with something easier and fun after a tough block of work, so I’d follow the tough Fuchs work with something lighter.

Today I was working on something that I find pretty difficult: chromatic scales in double-stops (6ths and octaves) in B-flat minor. I gave it a good 15 minutes; that’s about 3 years in Alexis-doing-0ctave-scales-time. And afterward? My “easier and fun” reward was one of the Fuchs etudes that seemed impossible a month ago! My hard thing from a month ago became my rewarding fun thing today. It felt so good!!!

Even the hard stuff gets easier. Maybe it will never be easy, but it will definitely be easier. Keep at it.