Thoughts

4am this morning I get woken up by firefighters who say they were called by my alarm system about a fire. (I don't have an alarm system.) It's 4:45am now, and I figure I'll be up for a while. Therefore, I'll finish a post I started a little while ago.


Dad sent me this article a while back: http://jamesclear.com/good-habits. It's about started and keeping good habits.

Point number one from the article: "start with a habit so easy you can't say no"

"The most important part of building new habits is staying consistent. It doesn’t matter how well you perform on any individual day. Sustained effort is what makes the real difference.

For that reason, when you start a new habit it should be so easy that you can’t say no to it. In fact, when you’re starting a new behavior is should be so easy that it’s almost laughable." 

This reminded me of a lesson earlier that day on the Junior High All Region music. I asked my 8th grade boy how he did on a recent test of it. He said, "Not well." I asked him about the feedback he got. He said he was told he needed more work with the metronome. For the rest of our lesson, we went measure by measure syncing up his notes and performance with the objective, unchanging metronome beat. 

I encouraged him to practice this way. If he approaches the problem measure by measure, he'll have the whole thing mastered in pieces. After that, it's just a matter of putting the pieces together. When the pieces are together, the entire etude will be mastered.

I consider how this is slow work, and I compared it to the 'slowness' of raising children. I thought about how I tell my students to be patient in the slow nature of mastering their All Region etudes. I thought about how I should tell myself to be patient in the slow nature of becoming healthy and shedding 50 pounds.

I also thought about how people today do not want to be slow. Here are examples of our desires to get through things quickly: 

1. Wanting to drive everywhere, instead of walking, biking, or taking the train (not including those with long commutes)
2. Desiring faster phones and internet connections
3. The present relief of watching tv series online versus the ancient agony of waiting for a new episode every week (these next generations will be so spoiled...)
4. Retrieving knowledge from Wikipedia. Who needs to study or learn anymore? Or read a book?
5. Drive-thru's and dining out instead of the tediousness of grocery shopping, meal planning, and home cooking
6. Microwaves versus Ovens and Stoves

I think what really matters in life are the things that take a lot of time. I'm afraid people are forgetting that, though. We're a very fast society, and one that's used to 'instant' mode. How can everything we want happen now? What would we do with the next 60 years of life? Will we desire even more to fill our days and years? What is life like for gluttons of experience and pleasures? 

I suppose that's what I'll be working on for the next year: slowing down. I'm going to try and relearn what minutes and seconds really feel like; live life in real time. (And maybe thrown away facebook and my iPhone, but that'll be another post someday.)

Ah, and before I forget: Today I went out to Tyler, Texas with two brass buds and recorded some stuff for the new Say Anything album. Super fun! That's one of my favorite environments to work in. I'll keep everyone posted about it when the album comes out.

Goodbyes

Alright, you will have to forgive me. It's been a very long week, and I am (as my British friends would say) KNACKERED. I'm going to write this as quickly as I can while I'm still feeling the spirit of the evening.

Tonight I finished up a short run of the musical Nine with Lyric Stage. We had loads of fun being on stage with the actors and pouring ourselves out through the lush orchestrations.

I started thinking this afternoon about other last performances in my life. I flashed back to middle school years. I used to get real sad about performing pieces for the last time, especially at Region or band camp concerts.

I don't really mourn last performances anymore. I suppose I've been playing long enough now that 'lasts' don't feel new or out of the ordinary anymore. It's just part of the whole process of being a musician:

1. Learning
2. Editing
3. Mastering
4. Performing (Showcasing, Displaying, however you want to look at it)
5. Finishing (Ending, Leaving, Departing, etc...)

Endings are just part of the cycle of my musical life now. I find it to be no sad thing. For when this thing ends, another begins - and usually it's right around the corner! There is no time to mourn an end!

In 39 minutes I will say goodbye to the last day of my 27th year of life. I'm not sad about that either. Another year means another part of my life. The cycle continues on.

Good night. Love you all. Thank you for reading.