Tenth Anniversary
Entry posted by DianeB in Diane's Blog Series 2
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Teacher, teach thyself.
It’s ten years to the day I opened the Learn and Master box and the possibilities spilled out. I’ve made it about half way through the course. Let’s look at my ten-year report card. For lack of a better rubric, I’ll steal from Tom Heany’s book First Learn to Practice, and use his “Seven Good Habits”.
1. Be Comfortable: A+. The spare bedroom steadily transformed from a straight chair with a music stand in 2012 into my dream practice space in 2019. It invites me, it comforts me, it schools me.
2. Be Honest: A. The recordings don’t lie, and now I can trust my ear rather well in real time. I feel the misfingerings, sense the rhythmic hiccups, and hear the buzzes: just the right amount of self-awareness without tipping into self-recrimination.
3. Be Optimistic: C–. Ouch. This one has been slipping for the past few years. Some errors seem intractable. My social and musical circle has significantly diminished, and justifiably or not, I have a growing sense that time is not on my side. Without the gatherings and retreats, this grade would be worse.
4. Be Persistent. A–. I can be implacable. In practicing, that’s an asset.
5. Be Consistent. A. My iPad has the receipts: 6,239 hours of time on task; averaging 1 hour, 54 minutes per day for precisely ten years. On the rare days I didn’t practice or study — about 15 a year — I was usually either sick, traveling, or tending to the family. There were only a handful when I just needed a break.
6. Go Slow. B–. I need to tap the brakes more often. Small. Simple. Short. Slow. Easier said than done.
7. Make Music. B+. I still attend my monthly acoustic jam; I’ve been to 84 since 2013. For two years, I had the neighborhood band; we played five gigs. And I’ve performed a song at each of the gatherings, so, opportunities taken. There’s still a lot of room to grow in my musicality.
What have I learned? Much, I suppose, and yet not nearly enough. I can get as exasperated today as I did in 2012. Back then, it was over “Aura Lee”. Now, my nemesis is “Josie”. Our horizon always recedes as we approach it. Once in a while, it’s good to turn around to look back at one’s wake.
We could add an eighth Good Habit to Tom’s list, the one that makes all the others possible: Be Grateful. Making music — yes, even with fumbled chords and riffs — is a choice. Not everyone who would like to hold an instrument has the chance. I’m grateful for the modest things I can do, and especially for all my music friends who have kept me on the endless path and brought me joy. Some of you will read this.
In a quiet moment, I recently confessed to my teacher of the past decade, “I always seem to be one fret away from total despair. But you never let me get there.”
He nodded reassuringly. “It’s a journey.”
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