Surf's up, why practise ?

[m1469]

Okay, I am sorry, but I am having a dilemma with myself.  The surf is up, the best it's been in months, and I think ... "wow, I should really be out there surfing right now"  .   I am not in the mood to perfect my music and drill through bedrock to get things accomplished with newer pieces (maybe 6 hours of practising).    

At the same time, I want to perform (honest work... yadda yadda).  I will never be Horowitz, and no matter how much I perfect, it will never actually be perfect. 

So, what's the point of practising ? 


m1469


ps-  I am going to do it anyway

[Ruro]

Setting yourself an unrealistic target :/ I don't mean that offensively, but it sounds like you are treating a few lessons will equate to great skill enhancements. Although you obviously don't mean that... just it seems to hint in such a way.

You say you will do it anyway, but it seems to me you will treat it (if not a fraction), like a chore. Perhaps there is some way you can spice it up to make it more enjoyable? Put christmas tinsel along your piano or something to create that jolly atmosphere (especially if you practise some Christmas pieces).

Apologies if I am missing the main point in your message, it's actually hard for me to decipher what "answer" you are trying to extract.

[m1469]

Apologies if I am missing the main point in your message, it's actually hard for me to decipher what "answer" you are trying to extract.

That's because I am feeling deep, life and purpose questions, exasperated by accute in-the-moment circumstances.

I am not sure to understand this here :

Setting yourself an unrealistic target :/ I don't mean that offensively, but it sounds like you are treating a few lessons will equate to great skill enhancements. Although you obviously don't mean that... just it seems to hint in such a way.

Anyway, I am not aiming to get a specfic response that I know of.  And, I guess sometimes it is a chore, isn't it ?  Probably I will end up enjoying it though (and I like your ideas and line of thinking).



Thanks for your response, Ruro 
m1469

[whynot]

Ruro, I like the tinsel idea!

m1469, how are the waves?

[m1469]

m1469, how are the waves?

Yeah, I am not sure because I am inside practising  :-.  But they sure look beautiful from where I am sitting  .  And, in my imaginations, I am riding them and they are great !

PLUS, I am enjoying my practising (in between postings), and having breakthroughs too 


Maybe I practise even when the surf is great for the same reasons I practise when the surf is not so great.


m1469

[pianistimo]

you have a stronger will than i do.  if i knew how to surf (and swim for that matter - beyond a few yards) i would be out there!  you can always practice at night, but you don't get sunlight always.  fresh air and sunlight help you with everything from how you feel, to how you look, to your piano playing, imo.  of course, overdoing it, you coiuld damage something and then be really mad at yourself (like i am now). 

what beach do you live near?? 

since i found sunless tanning bronzer, it's been easier to miss a bicycling incident or two.  but, now we have 6-8 inches of snow.  the kids made a lift-off on their sledding hill (with mound of snow) and ended up deflating their new inner tube ($15. so not too terrible) in the thorny branches that they landed in at the end of their ride.

[ted]

Just do whatever you want to do, m1469, it saves a lot of bother in the end. Instead of seeing the two activities as conflicting ("either/or"), view their combination as a unity ("and") and work toward a synthesis on a higher level of life experience.

[gruffalo]

It should be posting within practise breaks 

Try take one day off for some surfing. Or i dont generally play at night time,but when i did the results were great. practice at night is very meditating and you will find you have better concentration (or maybe its just me) but i cant do it often. it was just one day when my parents were both abroad.

[m1469]

Just do whatever you want to do, m1469, it saves a lot of bother in the end. Instead of seeing the two activities as conflicting ("either/or"), view their combination as a unity ("and") and work toward a synthesis on a higher level of life experience.

Yeah, on a deeper level I know how I want to be able to play and that's what I try to have as my navigator with regard to daily activity.  Sometimes though, in the moment-to-moment stuff, I get a little confused.   But yes, I often do think as you are suggesting regarding activity that is not actually sitting at the piano or with a music score.  It all works toward a synthesis on a higher level of experience.  But if that's all I ever did, and never sat at the piano (or never consistently), something would be missing  .

Thanks for all of your replies 


m1469

[jamie_liszt]

Horowitz Perfecting pieces ???HOROWITZ??

Horowitz hits so many wrong notes, i say go out and have fun, you will never hit as many wrong notes as horowitz.

[brewtality]

Horowitz Perfecting pieces ???HOROWITZ??

Horowitz hits so many wrong notes, i say go out and have fun, you will never hit as many wrong notes as horowitz.

You are a fool.

[Kassaa]

Horowitz Perfecting pieces ???HOROWITZ??

Horowitz hits so many wrong notes, i say go out and have fun, you will never hit as many wrong notes as horowitz.

Perfecting has absolutely nothing to do with hitting wrong notes. You are a very narrow minded pianist.

[ramseytheii]

It reminds me of a short Mishima story called "Sword," about a high-school fencing team.  The captain of the team is Jiro, a young fencing genius, who without the sport has zero personality, but is on the verge of mastery, and can inspire his younger teammates to great improvements.  Late in the story they all go to a temple on a mountain near the ocean for a summer training camp.   Jiro instructs them:

"'We may be near the sea here, but for you the sea doesn't exist.  If the sight of it bothers you, it means you still aren't putting enough into the training.'"

The students do eventually go off to swim, against the orders of the elder trainer, and Jiro takes the responsibility.  Later in the story he commits suicide.  But do not be discouraged.  Here is how Jiro is described earlier on:

"...he had finally put aside the ordinary, boyish qualities still lurking inside him.  Mental softness and impressionability - rebelling, scorning, lapsing occasionally into self-disgust - were to be discarded entirely.  A sense of shame was to be retained, but bashful hesitation was to go.
Any feelings of 'I want to' must be done away with, to be replaced, as a basic principle, by 'I should.'
Yes - that was what he would do.  He would focus the whole of his daily life on fencing.  The sword was a sharp-pointed crystal of concentrated, unsullied power, the natural form taken by the spirit and the flesh when they were honed into a single shaft of pure light... The rest was mere trivia."


Walter Ramsey

[jamie_liszt]

umm i was kind of jokin, no need to quote me

[gruffalo]

i liked that ramsey, very moving story.

[m1469]

It reminds me of a short Mishima story called "Sword," about a high-school fencing team.  The captain of the team is Jiro, a young fencing genius, who without the sport has zero personality, but is on the verge of mastery, and can inspire his younger teammates to great improvements.  Late in the story they all go to a temple on a mountain near the ocean for a summer training camp.   Jiro instructs them:

"'We may be near the sea here, but for you the sea doesn't exist.  If the sight of it bothers you, it means you still aren't putting enough into the training.'"

The students do eventually go off to swim, against the orders of the elder trainer, and Jiro takes the responsibility.  Later in the story he commits suicide.  But do not be discouraged.  Here is how Jiro is described earlier on:

"...he had finally put aside the ordinary, boyish qualities still lurking inside him.  Mental softness and impressionability - rebelling, scorning, lapsing occasionally into self-disgust - were to be discarded entirely.  A sense of shame was to be retained, but bashful hesitation was to go.
Any feelings of 'I want to' must be done away with, to be replaced, as a basic principle, by 'I should.'
Yes - that was what he would do.  He would focus the whole of his daily life on fencing.  The sword was a sharp-pointed crystal of concentrated, unsullied power, the natural form taken by the spirit and the flesh when they were honed into a single shaft of pure light... The rest was mere trivia."


Walter Ramsey

Your post is actually fairly cryptic and I am not sure what the lesson is exactly.