Tonight I stopped by the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, about 6 minutes away from my 2-month home. I saw advertised in the Chamber of Commerce calendar a Vocal Forum, and I thought, well, that's a way to get some musical connections while I'm here. Turns out, most of the members were congregants at the church, which makes sense, and the classes were run by the director of music, a slender short young Hispanic male with an engaging smile.
I was a little disconcerted to realize that we weren't singing, much: it really was a class, and this particular class was about forming a habit of practise. While I could definitely use that habit, the various tools he shared were not inspiring. I've done lists and categories and schedules, and they do not work for me. The only way I can make myself practise is to have something specific for which I must practise, that is, a rehearsal or a performance. And even that doesn't totally work: CD and I would get together to play duets and we'd say, "oooh, we should work that up." But I never would. She was better than me, being a professional musician who was also taking lessons. I get by on my ability to sightread and to fake, and on my basic knowledge of the repertoire. After 42 years of playing orchestra repertoire and an equal amount of time playing chamber music, duets, trios, and quartets, I do have a number of pieces that I've faked my way through. Experience does help, even if you don't work at it.
In the course of the discussion, one of the gentlemen in the group mentioned the 10,000 Hour Rule: if you spend 10K hours working at something, you become an expert. I thought, huh. No wonder I'm not an expert at anything. And then I thought, wait a minute, I've spent at least that much time on a lot of things over the 58 years, 21,170 days, and 508,080 plus hours of my life. Why am I an expert in none? And, I've come to the conclusion, it's not the number of hours, it's the number of focused hours. (The article to which I link above verifies that conclusion.)
It's more than that, though. It's a lack of confidence, a lack of self-respect in the endeavor. I feel embarrassed to be caught working hard at something, I think that over. Yes, embarrassed is the word, but why? It's akin to stage fright. There's a sense that, if I am nonchalant, if I act like I'm not really trying, I don't really care, then the inevitable poor performance will not matter. It'll be bad because I didn't try, not because I am incompetent, untalented, a loser.
And that is truly embarrassing. Why would I feel that way at this point of my life? Why would it matter that the amount of work and time I put into something is not productive of something of comparable value? Who cares but me? If I'm going to do something, why cannot I do it with passion? Why cannot I respect the years, days, and hours of my life, and use them?
Well, maybe tomorrow I'll practise a bit, in addition to walking the dogs, swimming, and (new task) replacing the just-discovered burnt-out headlight. As Scarlett O'Hara says, tomorrow is another day!
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