The best laid plans…

You’ll be pleased to read that I’m writing this blog post having just completed my daily jog. (If you read last week’s edition, you’ll know to what this is referring.) I don’t mind winter in Paris, in fact, I quite enjoy it. However, after the novelty of being in Paris wears off, keeping positive attitude about things in winter can be like trying to run the wrong way up an escalator. In Paris, winter weather is often grey, drizzly and cold. The metros and trains (while excellent in terms of service and reliability) are packed at peak hours, and the average Parisian doesn’t cultivate the effusive enthusiasm that you’ll encounter in many anglophone cultures. (This is not to say that Parisians are not enthusiastic, or that they are “rude”—a criticism that is often leveled at the French by anglophone cultures.)

While for many people around the world Paris is an all-time favourite city, it’s not uncommon to meet people in France for whom Paris evokes very different sentiments. I love Paris, but, like any relationship, it’s not a static state. It’s something to which I tend through the little choices I make each day. For instance, I try to walk, when the weather permits, rather than taking the metro, and then en route I try to remain aware— actively taking in this amazing city: its buildings, landmarks, vistas… all steeped in history. I also try to take advantage of what Paris can offer that’s unique to Paris: this might mean trekking out on a cold night to hear a concert or lecture, even when I’ve got a great book or crime series on the go that would not require me to leave the warmth of my apartment. These small choices are seemingly insignificant, but I believe over time, they really stack up—becoming outlook defining.

The same is certainly true of leaning of a musical instrument. Your outlook can change over time, no matter how much you may have initially wanted to learn. It can lose its sense of fun; it can become like a chore, or worse yet, a grindstone around one’s neck. While some of us might put this down to external factors, such as poor teaching, etc., in the end, how positive or negative our experience is learning music comes down to us (because changing teachers is much easier than changing our attitude).

Like living in Paris, learning music will no doubt throw up its fair share of challenges. And, in the same way, I believe it’s the small choices made at each step (the take the metro or walk type step), that have the power to define our overall experience learning music. The great news? The path to success is simple, but it must be taken one step at a time.

What follows are some tips for making the right small choices; choices that will keep you on the path to achieving your goals of learning a musical instrument. Rather than telling you what to do, in most cases, I’m going to tell you what not to do, or at least what to look out for; things that I know firsthand to be path of least resistance, “take the metro” options, which, over time, can lead us away from our goal of leaning a musical instrument. At this point you might well ask:

“Hey Leo, giving us a list of don’ts rather than dos sure sounds a bit hypocritical coming from you, someone who professes to be a very positive person!”

Believe me, while I thought (briefly 😉) about trying to reformulate these into a list of “dos,” it just wouldn’t have been true to my own experience. The fact that you’re here in the first place means that you are motivated to learn; you’re passionate about music, and so am I! However, my experience is that passion and positivity alone won’t cut it. We need some structures in place to ensure we use our time working towards what we’ve defined as important to us. This includes anticipating the ways in which we may become distracted, and thus drawn away from our goal of learning music.

Set aside a time every day to check in with your music. Try to do this at a regular moment or time each day.

I think it’s important to set aside a time each day for practice. It can be only a couple of minutes; however, when the allotted time rolls around, it’s important that we are awake up to the tricks of the mind as we work to create our practice habit.

The mind is incredibly good at keeping us in the groove of our established habits; it’s a slippery customer, that can very easily coax us out of options that it judges less attractive at a given moment (even when we have made the conscious decision at a prior time to prioritize that option). Unless we’re really vigilant, our mind of the moment usually wins out, and we wind up, disappointed, having let another day go by without attending to that that we’d set out to do. All too often, it feels as though we are the helpless victim of our lazier side. Anticipating the excuses our mind might throw at us

is a useful strategy as we seek to nurture a fledgling practice routine. Here are a couple:

“I’ll just put away those dishes now, that should only take a few minutes and then I’ll be ready to practice.”

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying that you should just let the dishes pile up, or suddenly become the cliché of the aloof artist, disconnected from the realities of life (grocery shopping, housework, taxes, etc.). However, if our practice time has rolled around, we should question the urgency of putting those dishes away before all else. If we are really under the pump, what harm could three minutes of music practice do, before we turn again to whatever it is that can’t wait? If necessary, set a timer and be sure to stop the moment that it sounds. The thinking mind might protest, assuming the guise of the “responsible person,” telling you that your music practice is a luxury, while task x, y, z is something that cannot wait; however, in reality, it usually can wait, especially if it’s only for three minutes.

“I’ll just make a cup of tea/ coffee, to have while I practice.”

Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I love tea. For me, the only drink that polls higher is coffee! While it’s really nice to set yourself up with a hot cup of your favourite drink and run through your practice, be aware when the preamble to your music is taking prominence over the music itself. During my time as a conservatory student studying toward my Bachelor of Music degree, it was common to walk by practice studios with instruments in them but no people to play them! Their owners were out getting a coffee, taking a “5-minute break,” listening to another student’s recital programme… anything but practicing. I was certainly guilty of this too. Now, I’m not saying that these incidental moments should be done away with altogether, but one must always keep the main goal in focus, adjusting one’s course as necessary when the sideline assume prominence.

"I should watch this show with my family member—because it's important to be social—and then I'll get onto my music practice.”

The problem with this line of reasoning is that such obligations will always be there in some form or another. To be clear, nobody’s saying you have to be anti-social or skip your favourite show. It’s for this reason I suggest setting aside a time when you’ll practice. Obviously, that won’t be the same time as the family get together, or that favourite TV series that you watch every Thursday, etc. But, even when you’ve carefully planned around such commitments, it pays to remember that extra people about means extra potential things to distract you from your practice during the time that you’ve set aside for it.

There’ll never be a time when there isn't something important that's required of you—something that you have to do to help someone else. These tasks, while certainly needing your attention, should in most cases be handled by your schedule, just like other things in your busy life. The problem is that self-fulfilling tasks, such as daily exercise or learning a musical instrument, are harder to justify on purely “rational” grounds, and can often fall victim to these “altruistic” tasks. I use quotes here as spending time on your personal well-being, through things like exercise and music, is an altruistic act. It’s perfectly rational to say that it will help us to be the best people we can be, both for ourselves and for those around us!

We need to be mindful, because the connection between life-affirming, self-affirming activities and their benefit is not always immediate, especially at first. Even after good habits are more entrenched (and we know that we feel great after going for a run, taking a walk, or practicing our guitar), it can be hard to get to them on some days. Watching TV, answering emails, or even doing house chores are things where the connection between the action and its response is more immediate (we do some tidying up, our house is cleaner, etc.), but let’s not lose sight of the quiet (but constant) influences for positivity and happiness in our lives, moreover, let’s cherish them.