The Practice of Being OK Not Practicing (But Only Sometimes)
As I said yesterday, I am way ahead on practicing for this month, which is great because at 12:30 last night we had a family emergency. Everybody’s fine, but it’s the next day at 3:45 in the afternoon, and I’m just done. There’s no way I’m going to practice today. It’s just not happening.
But this is why i get ahead.
I think there’s a lot of noise out there about daily practice. And yes, I said yesterday it’s stackable and cumulative. But I know music is a big priority, and it’s because I do it every day that I can skip some days.
There are a couple reasons I kind of give myself that permission. And I don’t want to sound too advice-y here. I’m just relating what works for me. This is not a wretched LinkedIn post after all.
There are two non-negotiables for me every day.
One is I do a blog post. Typically it’s an audio memo that’s transcribed, edited, and sent out to you, dear readers.
Two, I walk or bike every day. This has been going on for over six years. I don’t know how many days, but I haven’t missed one. Rain, sleet, snow, freeze, ice—we’re now seeeing it all in Central Texas.
But I think if you have a couple of non-negotiables, you can take it easy on the other stuff.
I play enough to know that I’m going to practice tomorrow. Missing one day isn’t a problem because I have these other non-negotiables.
Things come up. And naturally music is easily the first thing to go if you don’t think about it.
When COVID hit, there were so many people saying, “Can you imagine all the beautiful music that’s going to come out of this?”
If you know any songwriters, that prediction was 100% LOL.
The songwriters in my group… when I say the wheels came off, I can’t overstate it. The air just went out of everything.
I’ve spent a long time thinking about why that happened.
I think it’s a reps thing.
There’s that old adage of inspiration striking every morning at 9:00 a.m. if you schedule it.
Neil Gaiman—regardless of what you think about him these days—had it right when he said that when he goes down to write, he has two options: write, or do nothing.
Right now I have a studio office with no computer. I don’t have to trick myself into getting stuff done. It just makes it easier when you’re not sitting in front of a screen where you can get distracted.
Given an entire day, unshockingly, most musicians will not put aside time for their craft.
And I think there’s also a class—and maybe even a majority—of musicians who enjoy identifying as a musician more than actually being one.
I used to be that way.
I wanted to be a songwriter. I wanted to say I played in bands.
I don’t know what switch flipped, but one day I found myself wanting to be-doing.
It was the reps.