Mistakes and Learning

Mistakes have played a big part in my learning, both academically and musically. In writing, mistakes and revision are what make for great writing. The more mistakes you find and fix, the better your writing will become. This has been very true of my learning to write. I remember a few particular papers in high school that I wrote, thinking I had done a great job. I turned them in to my mom, and when I got them back, they were marked up with corrections. Only when they were pointed out to me was I able to see how terrrible some of the wording sounded, all of the grammar issues, spelling errors, "messiness" in my ideas, and bad structure. Learning to fix these mistakes has made and continues to make me a better writer. So I  guess you could say that it isn't the mistakes that teach you, but rather learning to fix them. This went over to math too. My mom was a good teacher in that she made me work, and work hard for my grade to ensure that I reall knew my stuff. In math, if I wasn' getting it, she wouldn't just stamp on a bad grade and move on. She would make me do the same or similar exercises over and over again until I got it and it clicked. This frustrated me for a while, but it ultimately led to mastery of the materials. Realizing the mistakes helped reveal my weaknesses so we could pinpoint and refine them until I had it all down. The same went for my music. My teacher would help me pinpoint my weak spots and we would work on them over and over until they were fixed. We wouldn't stop until all of the tranitions were smooth, the duds were gone, and the tone was perfect. As you can see, realizing your mistakes and learning to fix them is very important. Though they may sting for a little while at first, they bring beauty to the finished product and confidence in your own mastery.



Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Confidence in Talking to Myself

In Virgil's Aenid, he writes "Possunt quia posse videntur" or "they can because they think they can" (17). This is very true in any type of performance situation, whether sports, your job, school or in my case music. In this past week, God has blessed me with three performance opportunities. As a performance major, this is a BIG deal, since this is all great work experience and music resume material. 

I was invited last minute this past Saturday to play at an old friend's (who had been in the same guitar studio when I started taking lessons) wedding. Since we had just talked about this blog post in class the day before I was invited, this was a great opportunity to see my confidence- or lack of it- in action. I took careful note of what kept going through my head as I prepared. When I was first asked to play at his wedding, my first immediate mental reaction was"No! I can't do that! There's no way I can have those songs performance ready in one school day!" I had failed at the very beginning. However, I remembered that we had also been talking about goals in Comp class to prepare for the "Write to Serve" project. One of my goals had been to take advantage of every performance opportunity that came my way. This snapped my mind into "Yes man" mode and I agreed to the performance. Over the course of the next day again and again my mind kept freaking out. How was I going to do this? I didn't want to ruin my friend's wedding! The one thing I had to keep repeating to myself was that I had performed the main piece for all of my scholarship performances last spring. I had to keep telling myself "If I could do it then, I can do it now!" 

Also, a few weeks back, I had been invited by the music teacher at Paten Elementary to play for her fourth and fifth graders this past Thursday  With the wedding performance, I had completely forgotten about it until my mom reminded me a few days before. This time, I was prepared. Yes, I did struggle some at first when I saw that I didn't have much time to prepare, but I was able to bring it all under control by remembering how much of a success that the wedding had been. That got me through, and this performance was a success as well.

Finally, this past Friday evening, another friend called and told me that because of the cold weather we have been having lately, she had to drop the band that she had hired and find someone who could play indoors that night. With the success of the past two performances behind me, I had the confidence that I could do it, and said no without any hesitation other than some minor details about repertoire length, but that was soon sorted out. That performance was a success as well. Thus, I know very well first-hand how much of a difference confidence can make in a performance situation. 

Work Cited
Nettleship, Henry, et. al. "Liber Quintus." Trans. Henry Nettleship. Virgil's Aeneid. 
     London: George Bell and Sons, 1898. 1-59. Print. 

(Originally wrote this last week, but forgot to publish it. Found it today and decided to revise :D)




Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Transitions and Finding the Time

The toughest part of my transition into college so far has been finding the time to practice playing my guitar. Before starting college, It was easy for me to make the time to practice. Being home schooled with a clear focus on my path in music, I could take two or more hours out of my day no sweat. Lately, though, I have been struggling just finding a few minutes to do it. Toward the end of this past spring I had lots of auditions to prepare for, because of my coming graduation, and had been working myself like crazy. I practiced every spare moment that I had. The result was beautifully polished songs, but a very tired out musician.

 As soon as the auditions were over I decided to take a short break and cut down on my practicing.  This was for many reasons: first, I was tired; second, this was my first summer without lessons, and the freedom brought out the worst in me; and lastly, I had developed an arm injury and was unsure if I would be doing myself harm by continuing to practice. Luckily, it turned out not being serious at all, and I was able to practice again.

 As I got into the swing of summer and got my plans together for college, I completely dropped off of my practicing. By the end of July I was only practicing maybe once or twice a week.  This is a very bad thing for me going into college as a performance major. And now that I am in college, things haven't gotten any better. I have been able to practice maybe thirty min before classes or when I get home, but at my level of playing this is barely enough time for a decent warm up. 

As a result of all of this, my arm muscles have gotten out of shape, I have less dexterity, and less accuracy. When I am able to find the time, I use it to kind of quick play all of my songs just to keep them under my fingers. However, I haven't really had the time for critical playing. I haven't been able to just sit down and perfect individual pieces. This is a very important and necessary thing for a musician. The lack of it has made my songs sloppier, made them lack tone, and I have developed many bad habits overall. In short, it has all been one downhill ride.

 I need to find some way to schedule in some time for practice. After all, this is my major! I am hoping to improve on this during my next few weeks in college.  This is something I need to set straight now before my classes become harder and I need to spend more time on them.

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.