After 7 days of daily blogging, I can honestly say that it’s been amazing! For one thing, it’s forced me to dig deeper into how improvising on piano enriches our musical lives in wonderful ways. (If you’ve never improvised before, it’s not too late to learn.) For another, it’s been a chance for creative thinking on a daily basis.
All too often we decide to do something daily, such as exercise, practice piano, or paint, and find that we can’t keep up the pace. We mistakenly think that if we can’t spend “enough” time on something to “do it well,” then it’s not worth doing at all. This simply isn’t true. Progress isn’t linear and yes, there will be days when we don’t have time.
What’s really important here is keeping the thread going. Even thinking about practicing for 5 minutes is better than dismissing it altogether. The creative juices will start flowing and we’ll stay “in the game,” which, after all, is the most important thing.
This week I found that writing daily got my brain working in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined before. I’d be walking down the street and make mental connections that surprised me. I got insights into jazz piano and became more interested in music than ever, if that’s possible! I also listened to recordings with renewed clarity, and yes, my piano playing get better as well.
If you want to try this yourself, here’s what I suggest:
Pick an activity you enjoy, and commit to doing it every day for a week. It can be practicing piano, improvising, listening to music, or anything else. It doesn’t matter if you do it for 5 minutes or 3 hours.
Just do it.
See what happens.
You may be surprised!
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