Happy New Year's 2020:
Published: Dec 26, 2019 | Category: Motivation
Happy New Year 2020—Let’s Make “Clear Intentions” for Successful Piano Progress!
At this time of year, many people are making resolutions towards changing things in their lives for the better. Making a resolution implies that one is coming from a place of hardship and struggle. That’s fine. However, many of us simply want to continue to develop something we started and to get better at it. In this light, I suggest we consider making the New 2020 Year one of setting “clear intentions” (or perfect 20/20 visions) for our piano progress.
Step One: Reflections
First, reflect on your creative efforts in learning the piano: what do you want to continue developing in the New Year, but with a deeper intensity, more habitual, and to become more rewarding?
Next, in considering your intentions and endeavours this past year, can you honestly reflect on what areas did you fall short? Do you think you need more focus or intention so that you won’t fall short? If you want to make stronger pathways to success with your piano progress, let’s explore ways that you might put more effort, intensity, and give a little bit more focus and energy.
Importantly, remember to give yourself credit for all of your hard work and progress so far. Be grateful for your creative projects, your accomplishments, the opportunities that helped lead you and your diligence to explore new vistas. See yourself in a positive light to continue in manifesting your new intentions.
Step Two: How do we set our “clear intentions” into motion?
Talk about them. Talk with your teacher and set some realistic yearly, monthly, and weekly goals, based on your intended practice schedule. Follow and complete the weekly assignments and you will find the next lesson goes brilliantly!
Talk with your family to gain their support in your progress. Enlist your family in helping you to set out your intended practise schedule, blocking time on the family calendar. That’s your time at the piano, so guard it well and revel in this time for you!
Talk to yourself -- write! Maybe this is a good time to start a new Practice Journal, a new book for a new year, in which to keep your weekly assignments and journal your progress. You may wish to note all of your practice sessions as a physical record of your investment. Consider reflecting on what worked, or what didn’t, at least exploring a monthly assessment of your progress towards your goals and intentions. Pause and reflect. This may be a way to find your strengths throughout the year.
Step Three: Clear Intentions unfolding into Clear Vistas -- see the positive changes!
Ready to set some positive intentions for more successful practice? Let’s explore what this might look like:
Set your practice schedule and stick to it: this is YOUR time.
Each of us works best at certain times of the day. You will progress best if you can schedule your practice during your peak time of productivity: morning, afternoon, or evening. For others, you may need to schedule practice time around work, school, or family responsibilities.
Determine what time works best for you to practice, clear your surroundings of any distractions, and make it a routine to sit down at the piano every day at that time. If you make practice a routine, you will soon see prosperous results in your musical progress.
Be thankful for your family’s support.
Be sure your family knows of your schedule and respects your need to be free of distractions, notably sharing the space. If you stick to your routine, your family will also adjust, regularly allowing you a free workspace. In turn, you will be less likely to procrastinate.
This New Year, keep your mind positive and focused on your intentions. Your music study is a privilege, be grateful for the opportunity, be thankful for the people and circumstances who are supporting you in this extraordinary journey.
Find ways to make your practice productive.
Acknowledge what you did accomplish at each practice session. Set a goal – write it down! – for the next day’s session and look forward to it. Focus on what you enjoyed the most in each session, too.
Pride yourself for your regular and concentrated efforts. Then, hunker down and focus: follow your teacher’s assignments. Test out the methods that you worked on in the lesson. Be objective about what works and what needs more attention. Practice is a way to achieve results as much as a way of self-discovery about which methods work best for you.
Fear of making a mistake, procrastination, and faulty methods are only some of the obstacles that stand between the musician and progress, sponging up hours of time and yet yielding fruitless results. Sometimes, results won't be apparent so be sure to find ways to stay positive and to stay on schedule: if you avoid your piano practice for long enough, you may develop a sense of guilt and frustration. Only one thing is certain: you won’t get your work done. Worse yet, the more you avoid practicing, the greater a void you create. Like Nietzsche’s abyss, this void may begin to stare back at you.
Clear Intentions Actualized
Once you have determined a routine practice schedule, develop productive ways to structure your sessions, based on clearly set out short- and long-term goals. Here are a few practical examples:
Each day, determine a daily goal that contributes towards your weekly goals and assignments. You may wish to begin with some “warm-up” technical exercises followed by some review of what you accomplished yesterday, then focus on a main task.
Be sure to limit the time you spend on corrections of this work if you are a perfectionist given to over-practice. Avoid giving in to frustration that snowballs into tears if a mistake is not solved on the spot. When facing difficult technical challenges, it’s a good idea to break the music into smaller units, focusing only on one phrase or section of a piece.
You may wish to schedule one day of the week to do a general review, fine-tune passages, or to strengthen memory.
How much time to practise? The time it takes to get all of your weekly assignments completed!
A one-hour practice session, as a model, could be timed into three twenty-minute sections. It’s fine to break up your hour-long session with short breaks in-between sections, say, each 20-minute unit is followed by a five-minute break. In each of these short units, you can practice some technical exercises for five minutes, then work on goals in one piece or main section of a composition for ten minutes, followed by some review and fine-tuning for five minutes. Take a short break to stretch, relax, then come back and work on a second composition the same way.
What is important is that you persist in your practice routine and stick to your schedule, armed with various methods to address the challenges with a hearty attitude that you will succeed.
To begin is important: clear intentions build confidence
If you find yourself staring at the music on the page for several minutes, though you have not yet started to practice this music, do you continue to procrastinate? Certainly, it is preferable if you can begin practicing the most challenging music first, while you are most alert and rested, but if you feel stuck then simply move on to the next piece.
If you find yourself continuing to procrastinate with the next tasks, there are other musical activities that can restore your sense of musical joy and confidence: play some fun review pieces, work on your technique, practice aural skills, finish some theory, or practice performing a piece that you have memorized.
Take some time to listen to professional recordings of your music. It’s often fascinating to compare several pianist’s interpretations and can be quite inspiring to want to get to the piano in pursuit of your own successes.
Often, it is simply a matter of doing it, keeping a clear vision of your positive intentions, and turning off the negative voices. Just get going, a little at a time, and with a light spirit – as in sports -- some days we may need a ‘recovery’ session or time to pull back on our own high demands in order to maintain that sense of enjoyment. Find ways to invoke your musical creativity, a sense of expressing joy, and restore a sense of accomplishment, so that you can return to the more challenging tasks with grit and resolve.
Happy New Year and wishing you all clear vistas!
At this time of year, many people are making resolutions towards changing things in their lives for the better. Making a resolution implies that one is coming from a place of hardship and struggle. That’s fine. However, many of us simply want to continue to develop something we started and to get better at it. In this light, I suggest we consider making the New 2020 Year one of setting “clear intentions” (or perfect 20/20 visions) for our piano progress.
Step One: Reflections
First, reflect on your creative efforts in learning the piano: what do you want to continue developing in the New Year, but with a deeper intensity, more habitual, and to become more rewarding?
Next, in considering your intentions and endeavours this past year, can you honestly reflect on what areas did you fall short? Do you think you need more focus or intention so that you won’t fall short? If you want to make stronger pathways to success with your piano progress, let’s explore ways that you might put more effort, intensity, and give a little bit more focus and energy.
Importantly, remember to give yourself credit for all of your hard work and progress so far. Be grateful for your creative projects, your accomplishments, the opportunities that helped lead you and your diligence to explore new vistas. See yourself in a positive light to continue in manifesting your new intentions.
Step Two: How do we set our “clear intentions” into motion?
Talk about them. Talk with your teacher and set some realistic yearly, monthly, and weekly goals, based on your intended practice schedule. Follow and complete the weekly assignments and you will find the next lesson goes brilliantly!
Talk with your family to gain their support in your progress. Enlist your family in helping you to set out your intended practise schedule, blocking time on the family calendar. That’s your time at the piano, so guard it well and revel in this time for you!
Talk to yourself -- write! Maybe this is a good time to start a new Practice Journal, a new book for a new year, in which to keep your weekly assignments and journal your progress. You may wish to note all of your practice sessions as a physical record of your investment. Consider reflecting on what worked, or what didn’t, at least exploring a monthly assessment of your progress towards your goals and intentions. Pause and reflect. This may be a way to find your strengths throughout the year.
Step Three: Clear Intentions unfolding into Clear Vistas -- see the positive changes!
Ready to set some positive intentions for more successful practice? Let’s explore what this might look like:
Set your practice schedule and stick to it: this is YOUR time.
Each of us works best at certain times of the day. You will progress best if you can schedule your practice during your peak time of productivity: morning, afternoon, or evening. For others, you may need to schedule practice time around work, school, or family responsibilities.
Determine what time works best for you to practice, clear your surroundings of any distractions, and make it a routine to sit down at the piano every day at that time. If you make practice a routine, you will soon see prosperous results in your musical progress.
Be thankful for your family’s support.
Be sure your family knows of your schedule and respects your need to be free of distractions, notably sharing the space. If you stick to your routine, your family will also adjust, regularly allowing you a free workspace. In turn, you will be less likely to procrastinate.
This New Year, keep your mind positive and focused on your intentions. Your music study is a privilege, be grateful for the opportunity, be thankful for the people and circumstances who are supporting you in this extraordinary journey.
Find ways to make your practice productive.
Acknowledge what you did accomplish at each practice session. Set a goal – write it down! – for the next day’s session and look forward to it. Focus on what you enjoyed the most in each session, too.
Pride yourself for your regular and concentrated efforts. Then, hunker down and focus: follow your teacher’s assignments. Test out the methods that you worked on in the lesson. Be objective about what works and what needs more attention. Practice is a way to achieve results as much as a way of self-discovery about which methods work best for you.
Fear of making a mistake, procrastination, and faulty methods are only some of the obstacles that stand between the musician and progress, sponging up hours of time and yet yielding fruitless results. Sometimes, results won't be apparent so be sure to find ways to stay positive and to stay on schedule: if you avoid your piano practice for long enough, you may develop a sense of guilt and frustration. Only one thing is certain: you won’t get your work done. Worse yet, the more you avoid practicing, the greater a void you create. Like Nietzsche’s abyss, this void may begin to stare back at you.
Clear Intentions Actualized
Once you have determined a routine practice schedule, develop productive ways to structure your sessions, based on clearly set out short- and long-term goals. Here are a few practical examples:
Each day, determine a daily goal that contributes towards your weekly goals and assignments. You may wish to begin with some “warm-up” technical exercises followed by some review of what you accomplished yesterday, then focus on a main task.
Be sure to limit the time you spend on corrections of this work if you are a perfectionist given to over-practice. Avoid giving in to frustration that snowballs into tears if a mistake is not solved on the spot. When facing difficult technical challenges, it’s a good idea to break the music into smaller units, focusing only on one phrase or section of a piece.
You may wish to schedule one day of the week to do a general review, fine-tune passages, or to strengthen memory.
How much time to practise? The time it takes to get all of your weekly assignments completed!
A one-hour practice session, as a model, could be timed into three twenty-minute sections. It’s fine to break up your hour-long session with short breaks in-between sections, say, each 20-minute unit is followed by a five-minute break. In each of these short units, you can practice some technical exercises for five minutes, then work on goals in one piece or main section of a composition for ten minutes, followed by some review and fine-tuning for five minutes. Take a short break to stretch, relax, then come back and work on a second composition the same way.
What is important is that you persist in your practice routine and stick to your schedule, armed with various methods to address the challenges with a hearty attitude that you will succeed.
To begin is important: clear intentions build confidence
If you find yourself staring at the music on the page for several minutes, though you have not yet started to practice this music, do you continue to procrastinate? Certainly, it is preferable if you can begin practicing the most challenging music first, while you are most alert and rested, but if you feel stuck then simply move on to the next piece.
If you find yourself continuing to procrastinate with the next tasks, there are other musical activities that can restore your sense of musical joy and confidence: play some fun review pieces, work on your technique, practice aural skills, finish some theory, or practice performing a piece that you have memorized.
Take some time to listen to professional recordings of your music. It’s often fascinating to compare several pianist’s interpretations and can be quite inspiring to want to get to the piano in pursuit of your own successes.
Often, it is simply a matter of doing it, keeping a clear vision of your positive intentions, and turning off the negative voices. Just get going, a little at a time, and with a light spirit – as in sports -- some days we may need a ‘recovery’ session or time to pull back on our own high demands in order to maintain that sense of enjoyment. Find ways to invoke your musical creativity, a sense of expressing joy, and restore a sense of accomplishment, so that you can return to the more challenging tasks with grit and resolve.
Happy New Year and wishing you all clear vistas!