As musicians, and students of music, we work with time as one of our tools. We really and truly work in time. After all, what is rhythm other than beats spaced out in time?
And playing with time can be tricky. It means we must focus all our attention on the present moment as we play. And our present-day culture of multi-tasking with flashing, beeping things isn't helping us to practice focus in our lives.
But assuming you have turned off your cell phone before you practice or perform, one of the other main distractions is self-criticism.
If you judge the music you play as you play it, then your attention will be drawn away from the present moment. If you judge the last few notes you played, then it's highly unlikely that you will find the next few notes to be any better because you will no longer be paying attention to the present moment.
How can you focus on playing beautiful music if your attention is focused on criticizing the notes you played in the last two bars?
The Main Distraction
Distraction stops the flow of creativity, and self-criticism is one doozy of a distraction.
Kenny Werner wrote a great book called "Effortless Mastery" which I recommend to everyone who plays music at any level. In the book, Werner gives us a great tool for helping us to focus on the present moment: Love every note you play.
The more I think about that the more I realize how important it is. If you love every note you play, you will not spend time cursing that flat chord you banged out moments ago.
And this is not just a mind trick to get us to focus on the present. We don't have to "pretend" to love everything we play. In fact that probably won't work.
Who are we to judge ourselves?
Who are we to criticize anyway? We are all capable of creating something beautiful, something that was intended to be exactly what it became. We are all at our own points in our musical development. And even the very first step of being able to play your first chord is beautiful. It is beautiful because you are on your way to becoming an artist.
Why shouldn't we just love the sound of one simple chord? Why must our "tastes" require such complicated technical wizadry? I find that some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard is quite simple. Listen to Trois Gymnopédies by Eric Satie.
And think about how far you have come in your development. Maybe your goal is to be able to play Jimi Hendrix's "Red House." You might not be able to do that yet, but if you had a recording of the first guitar lessons you ever took, I bet you'd probably cringe at how "lousy" you sounded then compared with today.
And in the end, does it matter if you don't believe me that your one chord is beautiful? If you can truly love every note you play, you will become a much "better" musician in less time because your creative flow will not be blocked by your self-criticism.
And is our goal to become "better" musicians? Or musicians more true to our authentic selves?
Great books on this subject:
- Effortless Mastery, by Kenny Werner
- The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron
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