2014 - Resolutions

I think making Resolutions at the New Year is a helpful and healthy thing to do. I get the impression doing so is unpopular these days. Here's why I think it's a good idea:

1. Schedules and Time (helps that it's beyond you and me)

I realize that if you think about it REALLY HARD January 1, 2014 is pretty arbitrary. It's just another day in the winter season. I had conversations with two separate people in the last couple of weeks revolving around that very point. 

I believe that it's good to recognize time, dates, and cycles of the year. What happens when such things aren't recognized? The simple answer is you miss birthdays, anniversaries, and other important events. And then you have a bunch of aggravated friends and family members. 

The more complex answer: life is over sooner than you expect it. If the turning over of a New Year is just 'another day,' then we lose the specialness we once revered in the passage of time. We have days and other days and then even more days. Then we wake up and a lot of time has passed us by. I'm 28 and I'm starting to feel that effect. My goodness, I was a senior in high school ten years ago. When did ten years happen? Taking the time to mark those yearly, special occasions slows life down - if only a little bit. 

2. Personal Assessment 

Oh gosh, I truly believe assessment of one's life is so important. Unfortunately, this is an age of 'do what you feel is right' and 'anything goes.' If anything goes, then there really isn't a need to check progress or status in life. Let me say, as a musician anything does NOT go. I can't show up to an audition or a job and just play whatever I want in whatever matter I want. People expect things. Audition panels want to hear a certain sound and ZERO mistakes. Conductors want certain musicians who'll play in particular styles to fit the job. If I need to produce a certain outcome to achieve success in my musical career, then I need periodic checkups to make sure I'm heading towards that outcome. 

Alright, assessment - great. What helps to make that happen is a set point in time. A fixed moment that forces one to sit down and say, "What am I now, and how can I be better?" Someone said to me recently that they could work to improve themselves year-round and don't need a New Year date for an assessment. To me, doing it as the year progresses seems somewhat shortsighted - as if you're looking only to next week. I believe a fresh look at life at the start of a new calendar year can lead to some new directions and experiences in the big picture. Resolve to do big things on purpose, and you have a greater chance of them happening than if you left life up to chance. 

3. Historical Records

New Year's resolutions are a great way to remember the history of our lives. Things that don't go well are great lessons. We're all taught by own lives - even our children learn from how we've lived! By taking a moment on or near New Year's Day to set goals or resolve to do new things, we remind ourselves of the last year we've lived. Even better if there's written documentation: years down the road, you can look back on a piece of yourself. Old resolutions contain our young hopes and dreams, but they also contain evidence of what went wrong in a past life. I find that kind of thing interesting to look back on.

Ok, enough verbiage. Here are my resolutions: 

1. Take more auditions. In 2013, I did one (my first one ever). In 2014, I want to take at least 5. 

2. Increase my performance income by 50%. It's tacky to say how much I earned last year, but I will tell you that I haven't met my financial goal yet. 

3. Get lesson invoices out to my parents within the first week of the new month. I'll admit that am not a huge fan of the 'administrative' part of my self-employment. I let this stop me from being responsible toward my clients - and I know they don't appreciate it. I resolve to be better about this. 

4. Blog once a week. For years I followed Boyd Dupree's blog on Eisley (his kids' band). I follow other bloggers, too. Shoot, we all do. We get nice insights into the stuff we love through things like a blog. I would like to be an open window into the music world. Therefore, I'll try and blog once a week.

The Big Leagues

I'm in the minor leagues. The small times. B-list. Still an understudy. 

That's alright, at least for now. I'll keep working and moving forward in my life. However, it still stings a little when I get that email that says I didn't advance to the next round of auditions. 

You know what's funny? Seven or eight years ago I ran from this whole process... subjecting myself to the mercy of audition panels. Who was I to be judged? I knew I wasn't good enough. I was not going to waste people's time by making them listen to me... a second-rate horn player and musician. 

For the last three years or so, though, I have begun to believe that perhaps I could do it. Perhaps I could make it to the Big Leagues. 

Maybe I can, but today I received an email that reminded me I'm not there yet. Tomorrow, I start over (sort of) and keep working towards the goal of being a successful horn player that earns a good income.

In my case I have found that this is what you get if you let years go by without honing the thing you should be doing. Maybe I could've used more people telling me that I could have been a good horn player. Maybe I could have used more encouragement. The fact is that I denied it and ran from this life. My good friends from Undergrad could tell you that. 

Don't waste time. Whatever you do, don't waste time. Even if you're afraid and feel absolutely alone and not quite sure of the place you've ended up in... don't waste time. 

The Big Leagues come after lots and lots and lots of strike outs.

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.