Mental Health

I feel I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up mental health, though it’s not really within the realm of this small book.

It is easy to approach playing, and practicing, as a competition, or as a distraction or cover-up from your real life difficulties.

I used to play to impress, to cover up my own insecurities, to overcome own deficits of personality. It’s still an issue for me now, sometimes! I catch myself trying to play faster, faster, more more … and then I’ll catch myself and ask what I’m doing it for. 1

If that resonates with you, here’s some material I’ve found helpful:

  • “With Your Own Two Hands”, by Seymour Bernstein

  • “Seymour: an Introduction”, a documentary by Ethan Hawke about Seymour Bernstein

  • “Effortless Mastery”, by Kenny Werner

Anything in which we invest a significant amount of our time, thought, and energy, can lead to frustration. There’s always so much stuff to do! And a list of practice techniques or suggestions like those in this book might leave some overwhelmed. If that is the case for you, I hope that you can reframe everything I’ve presented here so that it becomes part of your own dialogue with yourself, rather than as something foreign that’s been pushed upon you.

But thoughtful practicing and playing, continually aiming a bit beyond ourselves, can be a rewarding, integrating experience. I’ll leave with this quote from Seymour Bernstein. Though he’s a classical pianist, I feel it’s applicable to any genre.

Music study and performance is not simply an avocation or a pleasurable pastime; it is a way of life. One does not have to aspire to a career in music in order to be a devoted student of music and to perform on the highest level. The finest teaching encourages a dedication to practicing that leads toward self-realization. Motivated by a love of music and a clear understanding of the reasons for practicing, music students, regardless of their age or degree of accomplishment, can establish so deep an accord between their musical selves and their personal selves that eventually music and life interact in a never-ending cycle of fulfillment. What are the right reasons for studying music? I have tried to address this question in my book, “With Your Own Two Hands”. As I see it, devoted musicians serve music just as religious people serve God, namely, out of love and reverence. Devoted practicers are prepared to do whatever music requires of them, whatever the difficulties and however long it takes. Their reward transcends even the ability to master music on an instrument. For productive practicing can harmonize the person as well as the musician and actually lead toward the integration of the personality. Seymour Bernstein

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There’s no wrong answer … “because it’s cool” is cool if it’s true.