What I Got

If you practice a lot, your skill level goes up really fast. That's what they say, right? Well, yeah. Practicing all the time is hard work; it takes time, energy and focus. But it layers on itself day after day, and it gets easier and easier.

The Mendelssohn is getting sooo enjoyable. I used to think it was impossible--I started it almost 15 years ago!! But I wasted so much time playing the thing over and over again, and then moved on, thinking I'd somehow learned the piece.

You know what made the difference this time? Well, firstly, I decided to memorize it. The first movement, that is. It's 7 pages--not easy for me. I never knew what people went through to memorize. Now I know. I finally get that it's just a matter of practice, reenforcing what I learned the day before. I've got about 5 of the pages down. I could memorize the whole concerto now. It'd just take a few more weeks.

Second thing is, I decided to try playing it in tune. Not close to in tune, but in tune. This is consistently impossible right now. So I just train my fingers. Thanks to the advice of the teacher A. E., who gave me couple lessons in Boulder when I was there in the summer, and to L, who bestowed to me the lessons in the first place, I slowly came to see that playing in tune is a huge part of the practice. And most of my life, I haven't bothered with it. I didn't know I _could_ play in tune.

Now I know that I can--that's because I already know how to play in tune in my mind, but my fingers and my brain really want to play faster than my mind can handle. It's like when you are making a speech in front of people, and you want to say everything you feel all at once. The mind knows it, but it takes time for the brain to verbalize, and for the mouth to vocalize it beautifully.

Thirdly, and lastly, I'm preparing this music for a purpose, that being to make a tape and send it in as an audition. That gives me a lot of focus and motivation. I'm doing nothing more than any musician would do. I'm happy to say that I feel like I'm truly giving it my best.

Let me say that no one has heard these pieces from me yet. I practice in the practice rooms at school, and not once has the door been rapped upon in two months since I started preparing. So it will be really exciting to 'unveil' what I've been working on for the tape. I really hope I can give a sample here too.

It would be so great if my Aikido practice could some day be like this too... I miss CO where people can practice any day... well, one thing at a time. I think it's more important to build the habit of practicing. It doesn't matter what I'm practicing, as long as it's the same thing consistently.

The world is so much bigger than I can take in. It's full of lots of people working really hard. It's inspiring. It gets hard to know what to do with yourself, whether music is good enough. But it seems to be what I've got at the moment...