Storytelling

The last bit of self care for November is injecting more of yourself into your music.  

Like a lot of music, holiday music tells stories. And like other music, it can get trite pretty quickly, especially since you get to play it repeatedly but only for a few weeks.   

One of the easiest ways to infuse life into the music (to alleviate boredom) is to become a storyteller with the tunes.  Think about the words (what could be easier – they’re all right there to read!) -

• What is the mood?   
• Where does the story go? 
• Who is in the story? 
• What is the action? 

Decide the story you want to tell – and use the music to share that story with your listeners.  You have all sorts of tools to tell your story – tempo, dynamics, techniques (p.d.l.t, harmonics, damping, ornamentation, arpeggiated chords, etc.).

Modify your arrangement so that you and your story come shining through.  And each time through, the tune can be a different chapter of the story. 

Stuck? Not sure how to start?  Try this: Play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Now play it angrily.  Now play it playfully.  How about impishly?  What about as a march?  Now as a great tragedy. Finish it as a lullaby or as Wagnerianly as possible. 

Make yourself laugh…or cry… or feel pain! Relax and enjoy the story!

Thanksgiving 2017

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Practice Practice Practice (your selfcare)

It is all well and good to work on self care – you can get a (single) manicure or journal your practice once, but it is consistent practice of a self care routine that will bring you the most benefit.  So, yes, you must P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E your self care!  (stop – I see you thinking, “Oh great, something else she wants me to practice!”)

But self care that is only as frequent as a treat or something you only get when you occasionally remember isn’t self care at all.  So you will need to practice getting your self care into your schedule – and keeping it on the calendar.  That way you will not only develop the habit but will likely come to look forward to the time you will spend.

You already know how to get something onto your calendar. And you already know that you are more likely to honor an event, especially with yourself, if you actually place it on your calendar. So, get out your pen and get marking.  Select self care events that you can actually accomplish repeatedly.  Going to polish your nails?  Choose a day of the week to do it and schedule the 20 minutes it will take.  That way you are consistent and get it done.  Putting moisturizing lotion on the backs of your hands every day?  Write a reminder on your mirror (use dry erase marker!) so that you see it every day and you begin to build the habit.

As the time passes you’ll notice that choosing small self care events allows you to complete them without much angst and practicing that will build a habit that you can sustain.  A few of these little things will add up to a successful self care routine that fits into your everyday schedule – and that’s self care you can live with!

Thinking Time - Six ways to make more time

We are all busy.  We are often busy telling other people that we’re too busy.  We may have created a cult of business.

Of course we have plenty to do – work work, fun work, home work, house work, charitable work, good works.  Oh, and practice!  They all take up our time.

So that sometimes we have time for nothing more.

We don’t even have time to think.

You know what I mean – we have time to think, “Did I pull out something for dinner?” but we rarely have time to thing, “Am I on my best journey to a fulfilling life?”.

And that’s a shame.  A lot of our creativity is buried in those questions.  Of course, a lot of our humanity is buried in the time to think about those (and other) questions.

But having time is really an issue of priority and organization.  And working with you.  You have to add things like this into your life in ways that will actually work for you – not the way Marie or Brene or anyone else tells you to!

How do you get that thinking time in?  You most likely will have to schedule it.  Here are a couple of scheduling suggestions:

1. Take a slightly longer shower.  Don’t you find your best ideas come while in the shower?  Buy a grease pencil so you can write them down on the tiles (and you can wash them off later!).
2. There’s an app for that. Download a voice recorder app for your phone.  Then you can talk to yourself – and actually remember what you said!
3. Turn off the radio.  If you spend a lot of time in your car, you probably have the radio on – either to hear music you like or to hear unending talking heads expelling pointless (or pointed, depending on your thinking) drivel. Turn it off and use the quiet to think.  And if you have some good thoughts – you can record them on the handy-dandy voice recorder you’ve downloaded to your phone!
4. Turn off the television - need I say more?
5. Go for a walk.  Not only will you get some fresh air, sunlight and exercise, you will have a little time to clear your head and to think.
6. Get up fifteen minutes early.  I know, you already don’t get enough sleep.  But this will allow you to drink your coffee and have a little time to reflect. 

Simply deciding to make time to think will make it easier.  Do it for you.