Dear readers, it’s been a while. So something is going to happen, before we start this post, and that is that all paid subscribers will receive a pause in billing for two months. It doesn’t mean there won’t be any posts for the next two months! Rather, it’s just an acknowledgement that the pace of posts has slowed lately. I didn’t plan it; life is like that sometimes! Anyway, for now, who doesn’t enjoy a little summer bonus? And since it’s been a while, let me ask: how’s your practicing going? Oh, really? Interesting! Tell me more!
How IS it going? Do we know? What does that even mean? Always, we can’t escape it: we don’t know what we don’t know. We aren’t hearing what we don’t yet hear. That is always true, for every one of us, whether we are beginners or concert artists. So let’s unite around that fact and get down to business. Do you see yourself in any of these scenarios?
• Sometimes we have no idea how it’s going. We are going through the motions, but we feel lost and uncertain.
• We think we know more than we do. Much more! But we don’t know that, so, uh….
• Sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to trust what we DO know, or we don’t recognize it.
• Sometimes we are truly not in a position to evaluate certain aspects of our playing, because we haven’t heard them yet. We may or may not recognize this.
• Sometimes we don’t know what questions to ask.
• Sometimes we have so many questions that we are overwhelmed, & don’t know how to prioritize them.
• Other times we may find ourselves in that most tedious condition in which we have more answers than questions. (How’s your practicing going? No, wait—don’t tell me. Not today.)
• Sometimes we make an assumption that we “should” know, and we waste precious energy getting worked up about the fact that we don’t.
• Sometimes what’s needed is for us to set aside what we think we know….
• Sometimes we might realize there’s something we don’t have yet, but we also know that we have tools and know how to use them!
• Sometimes we sense that what’s called for is to imagine more than to know.
• Sometimes we need a little faith, including faith and trust in practicing and in the tools of practice.
• We might not know whether we have that needed faith….
• Sometimes we discover that knowledge is no substitute for patience.
• Sometimes our minds know, but our hands still won’t do it. Then what?
The reality is that playing anything on the piano is a highly complex undertaking. We can’t tackle every aspect of it at once. For much of our musical lives at least, we cannot yet hear every aspect of it at once. The aspects on which we are focused may entirely crowd out any awareness of anything else. We may be exploring some new element in our playing and not know whether it’s coming across—much less how it’s affecting every other element of the music and our playing. Maybe we’re not getting any feedback, feel that we have no point of reference. Or maybe a piece we thought we played magnificently is getting feedback that indicates it is not as successful as we thought. The whole thing, including our own relationship to our learning of the piece, can be a jumbled mess. We are so close in that we can’t see. We’re swimming in the water, so we don’t know water is there. If we have a teacher, or others we play for whose feedback we value and trust, that can give us something to go on, a place to start. Even if we disagree with the perspective we hear from someone else, it gives us something concrete to relate to, to measure against. But if we don’t have a teacher, or if we are wanting more clarity and perspective right now but won’t see our teacher for a month—then what?
It has to be okay with us that we don’t know. We have to be willing to accept that we are surrounded by a vast ocean of not only facts of all kinds, but also possibilities—perspectives, sounds, meanings, technical possibilities, colors, emotions, structures, ways of practicing, styles, textures… of which, even in the best of circumstances, we can only access a small fraction. Ask yourself: is it okay to live in the world, having no idea how the internet works or why the sky is blue or what preceded the big bang, or why humans do the things we do to one another, or anything else really? Somehow we make it through our days. We don’t know anything! Maybe we don’t need to know so much.
I watched a documentary about the painter Agnes Martin recently, in which she spoke in striking language of renunciation: giving up facts (“it’s just guesswork”), giving up the intellect altogether—“because it’s inaccurate.” All that we think we know: just guesswork! Martin says in this film: “I gave up facts entirely, in order to have an empty mind for inspiration to come into.” And: “If the mind is full of garbage… if an inspiration came, you wouldn’t recognize it anyway.” And: “I never have any ideas myself; I’m very careful not to have ideas, because they’re inaccurate.” How might we try on these radical statements in our practicing? For our purposes here, statements like these point to not worrying so much (about our practicing or anything else), but instead, releasing the struggle over our uncertainties, our inadequacies, the gaps in knowledge or skill. They point towards being patient and open, rather than hell-bent on “figuring it out.” And from that place of openness and patience, they point towards just doing it anyway. Wait til we know what to do, then do that. Dear readers, why not?
What’s needed is to clear out the clutter. Agnes Martin again: “I just sit around and wait for inspiration.” But what does that really mean for us, as we practice? Number one, it means often that we must slow down. Play slower—so that we can (number two) listen. One of our most profound and lifelong musical challenges is to play and actually listen at the same time; and it is especially hard when we are playing too fast, crashing through our practice, jaw clenched, pedal to the floor, in relentless pursuit of some idea we formed (guesswork!) that was inaccurate from the start. Let’s slow down and listen. Then—let’s relax, take some time. Just sit around and wait for some inspiration. The inspiration could be of the sort that helps us understand what we want the music to sound like (aha! It’s about a struggle against fate, now I get it); or, it might be of the sort that tells us what to do next in our practice (aha! I need to count out loud! Yes, dear readers, that can be every bit an inspiration too!). Do we know what these aha! moments in our practice feel like? Can we recognize them when they come (when, not if)? Or are our minds too full of garbage?
We have to be okay with not knowing. And then—we have to let ourselves know what we know! What would it be like if we trusted our instincts? I don’t know if this sounds right. Okay: slow down. Listen. Play it again, slower. Listen. What do we know about how it sounds? What can we trust in what we ourselves actually hear? Slow down! Play it again. Listen. We might not know “whether it sounds right,” but there might be many more important, salient, accurate things we can know—that we do know, as we slow down enough to actually listen. We have to be okay with knowing, too! What if we do know? What if telling ourselves we aren’t sure is just an excuse for, say, not counting out loud?
Which brings us to this: do we trust practice itself? Do we trust our tools? Do we recognize the power they hold, to bring us from confusion to understanding? From vague, jumbled thinking to clear intentions; from incoherent hacking to the most beautiful playing we can produce? We might read through past Pride & Practicing tools and ask ourselves: have any of these approaches worked for us in the past? Might they work now? Do we believe they have worked for others, or could? Is there a basis for trusting them, or any other ways of practicing we may have been taught? If our answer is no: well, good luck, dear reader. But—if we are honest with ourselves, our answer will not be no, because practicing does work. If, instead of thinking too much about it, we just do it, with open minds and quiet patience, we will absolutely find that out.
In that place where we don’t know what to do, we could say that what’s lacking is inspiration. Inspiration about how to play our piece; inspiration about how to practice. Inspiration might come from simply sitting quietly, and playing it again, slower, with more attentive listening. It might come from reading over a simple checklist we’d taken for granted before. It might come from suddenly hearing the particular dissonance in a particular chord we never quite noticed until today. It might come from a practice tool, or from an offhand comment a family member made about the piece as they bustled out the door while we sat at the piano. Where won’t it come from? Too much thinking. Too much analyzing, deducing, judging. Those things—all that guesswork!—may be part of the path that leads from unconscious incompetence, through conscious incompetence, to conscious competence…. but when we arrive at unconscious competence, surely we can let all that go. Let’s try letting it go sooner! Let’s relax into our practice with open minds and open ears, and wait for inspiration to come. I have no doubt it will.
Happy, patient practicing, and if you enjoy Pride & Practicing, please share it with your friends!