The Dr. Is In

Dr. Seuss is quoted as saying,

"It's not about what it is, it's about what it can become."

What a great way to look at playing.  We have to remember that even when we play our best, we can only play our best for this day…and tomorrow will be another, different day on which we may play very differently.

Which means that each day, when we work at playing, we have the opportunity to play well, or to learn from our playing or both.  We also can learn so much that may (or may not) be directly tied to our harp playing. 

Some days it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere.  Other days, you make so much progress you wonder why you ever doubted.  And, of course, you have a day each time you practice.  So why is it that you only remember the days in which you had trouble?  You only recall the “bad” days!

To avoid falling down in the dumps about these bad days, keep a log.  Each day write down what you did, what when right, what gave you some difficulty.  You might want to develop a scheme for finding the good days (color the top corner green, fold the page over on the diagonal, keep good days at the front right side up and bad days at the back upside down) so you can remind yourself that you’re doing a great job and what you continue to struggle with.

Because you know that there will always be some things that are a struggle…but they don’t define you!  Just keep in mind what the good Dr. said.