In Which She Relates Her Practice to Sitting Meditation (Don't Roll Your Eyes)
My practice sessions last night and tonight have been fantastic. Every day I'm impressed by how much the previous night's practice has helped me. Last night I started teaching myself the chords for Romeo & Juliet by the Indigo Girls. I had already mastered my G and C (my switching between them still isn't perfectly smooth, but I'm getting there) and was relatively proficent at my A minor. All I really needed to learn was F.
Not as easy as it sounds, grasshopper. The F is a somewhat difficult chord because it requires the use of all four fretting fingers, across three different frets. Last night I could barely get it, much less use it when I needed it in the song.
(Which, incidentally, makes Romeo & Juliet a good song to learn it on, since the rhythm allows for some pregnant pauses between chords.)
But tonight, I was halfway through the song before I realized I was hardly struggling at all with the F. Instead of it taking last night's 3 seconds to contort my fingers into position, it took me only, say, 1-1/2 seconds. Marked improvement in just 24 hours.
What's so interesting about this is that I'm seeing for the first time in a very long time the fact that practice makes perfect. There is only one other thing I practice regularly in my life: sitting meditation. And yes, over the course of the two years I've been meditating my practice has gained much more stability, clarity and strength. But practicing to make "perfect" is an impossible goal with meditation. By our very human nature, we are incapable of being perfect at watching our breath.
Moreover, with meditation, improvement is often very hard to see. One day I'm able to be present and open-hearted for several minutes at a time, while the next day I can't disengage from my thoughts for even a moment. There is no steady movement forward. Over time the "curve" of my practice is going up, but from day to day I often feel like I'm backsliding.
Guitar is not the same. So far, anyway, every single day I've been able to see improvement. I can actually use what I learned yesterday when I practice today--and that offers a real feeling of accomplishment. It reminds me of learning French the semester I was in Paris. I'd learn a word in class, or from my host father, and then all day long I'd find myself using it (irregardless of whether it was truly appropriate for the context). I spent the semester watching in wonder as my grasp of the language became stronger and stronger.
I'm learning a different language now, one that I hope will serve me even better than my French (which is now laboring beneath a thick layer of rust). I know that it will; it already has.
Eh bien, cela m'a dèja fait trés contente.
Not as easy as it sounds, grasshopper. The F is a somewhat difficult chord because it requires the use of all four fretting fingers, across three different frets. Last night I could barely get it, much less use it when I needed it in the song.
(Which, incidentally, makes Romeo & Juliet a good song to learn it on, since the rhythm allows for some pregnant pauses between chords.)
But tonight, I was halfway through the song before I realized I was hardly struggling at all with the F. Instead of it taking last night's 3 seconds to contort my fingers into position, it took me only, say, 1-1/2 seconds. Marked improvement in just 24 hours.
What's so interesting about this is that I'm seeing for the first time in a very long time the fact that practice makes perfect. There is only one other thing I practice regularly in my life: sitting meditation. And yes, over the course of the two years I've been meditating my practice has gained much more stability, clarity and strength. But practicing to make "perfect" is an impossible goal with meditation. By our very human nature, we are incapable of being perfect at watching our breath.
Moreover, with meditation, improvement is often very hard to see. One day I'm able to be present and open-hearted for several minutes at a time, while the next day I can't disengage from my thoughts for even a moment. There is no steady movement forward. Over time the "curve" of my practice is going up, but from day to day I often feel like I'm backsliding.
Guitar is not the same. So far, anyway, every single day I've been able to see improvement. I can actually use what I learned yesterday when I practice today--and that offers a real feeling of accomplishment. It reminds me of learning French the semester I was in Paris. I'd learn a word in class, or from my host father, and then all day long I'd find myself using it (irregardless of whether it was truly appropriate for the context). I spent the semester watching in wonder as my grasp of the language became stronger and stronger.
I'm learning a different language now, one that I hope will serve me even better than my French (which is now laboring beneath a thick layer of rust). I know that it will; it already has.
Eh bien, cela m'a dèja fait trés contente.
posted by Kelly at 8:09 PM
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