How do you keep your edge?

[Bob]

on the edge of your abilities?  your ability to continue to work and develop and make progress?

[ted]

I don't think I take myself seriously enough to worry about it. I just seem to get a profusion of ideas whether I want to or not. I'm not competitive in any way, if that's what you mean.

[dinosaurtales]

I don't have an "edge"   

[BoliverAllmon]

on the edge of your abilities?  your ability to continue to work and develop and make progress?

stay fearless. do whatever it takes. that is what i do.

boliver

[lostinidlewonder]

Constantly absorb, memorise every single day, and get angry if a day passes and you haven't done this. When I was younger I was pretty competitive and said to myself, if i don't learn something today, the person over there will have caught up to me or gone ahead even further! So that inspired me to walk the path of consistiency. Now i am older i am not at all interested in other people (how they study and progress unless they are my students or ask for my opinion), but i am much more interested in just sound production as a whole.  The perfection of that art comes from memorising music I think. When I was younger I couldn't play as well as I do now, but I got to where I am today mostly through just adding to my memory and building my repetiore. I never got fussed about scales, arpeggios, technical excersises, just learning more and more pieces, because I was told very early on that all music is the same, you just have to know what elements are used all the time and then you crack it.

I didn't try to perfect music and play one piece over and over again for months and months and months, instead I let music perfect itself, eventually things sort themselves out, I just continually keep track on how much i memorise every day. The "neatening up" of what you play comes when you just watch your hands and enjoy your playing instead of watching the sheet and working on memory, that is how it has been for me all the time anyway and I see myself continually improving even up to today even though its slower nowadays the amount of improvement when i was younger there was big spurts of inspiration and revelation. Now things just are not so revolutionary rather refinement of approach. That how you keep the edge i reckon.