Anyone can get married. How do you stay married? Anyone can start making eating/lifestyle changes,  how do you stay? Anyone can feel some interest or fascination for learning some piano, or singing…what gets you to the finish line...and then beyond? 

You have goals: maybe it's to play with both hands doing separate parts on the piano, maybe it's just to get started on singing your first song from memory, maybe it's to develop more confidence in yourself, maybe it's to do something that is just for you, a positive outlet,  maybe it's to accomplish something you can feel proud of. 

And then here's the part many people expect: You have to work for it! 

And here’s why what happens in my studio is so very different: You have to play for it. 

And what is the definition of play? 

There’s many definitions, but here is a definition we’ll use for today: A way of experimenting that’s enjoyable. 

And why is that more important than work? Because the moment life throws a curveball at you, you’re now experimenting. Fridge broke and all your food went bad while you were on a business trip? Guess what: your diet is now an experiment again. Missed a note in your song? Guess what: now you're experimenting again. Do you stop the song completely and tell everyone you’re a terrible musician? Or do you experiment your way back to the melody? 

How do you stay fascinated long enough to not just have some impressive results (I got married! I lost weight! I can play this song!) but to create an ongoing relationship with learning music that makes your life forever better? And…makes YOU a better learner for life?  I mean that both ways, you become better in ways that better equip you for life’s challenges…and you become better at learning for the rest of your life. 

How do you stay curious when things don’t go as planned, (like that missed note or that 3rd donut) instead of being defeated? 

If you join voice or piano lessons or classes, my goal is not simply to have you get better. 

Why? Because my goals when I started were to get better or achieve something impressive…and it wasn’t enough. Goals only show you what to do, not how interesting each step along the way could be. 

What I actually had to do to get there, was become someone who enjoys learning music and keeps experimenting with my energy, attention and time until I know how to enjoy the process. When I had so many fun ways to learn my music, they came in handy when I needed to adjust to life and its curveballs, whether that’s my own missed note, or sickness or loss. 

Incredible musicians love learning music. That is primary. Amazing results are simply inevitable when you both learn how to do something and you learn how to make the process work for you. 

That’s exactly how I learned to stick to a workout schedule,  that I absolutely love. To have a long term relationship that I want to stay in, to let go of tension habits in singing and continue to, to get better at piano and feel excited about what’s next,  to eat better and not even feel like I’m restricting myself…and on and on...and how so many of my students have had success and a new relationship with music and with themselves in the process. 

Your greatest achievement and enjoyment only happen when you know how to stay in love with the process…and very, very VERY few students that walk into my studio have even CONSIDERED that reality! Much less know how to do that. 

And when you learn to fall in love with the process of learning music, you become a better learner, for life. 

The biggest mistake, by far, that most beginner musicians make and, if honest, many very experienced musicians make is: they pay attention more to what they’re achieving rather than what is making the process of getting there work for them. 

The art of process was one that took a very, very long time for me to understand and develop. I love that students get to skip 10 years of research, struggle and plateaus and jump right in to the good stuff. 

When you fall off your intentions for how you want to eat…do you find a way of experimenting with how you eat next time that’s enjoyable? Or do you punish yourself and shut down creative ways to stick to making eating healthy feel free-ing, instead of restricting? 

When you make a mistake playing, or singing, do you explore what kind of mistake it was? Was it too high, too low, too fast? What happens if you try all of them? Does it make it easier to find the right note, when framed by all the “wrong ones”? 

Music has a secret door: If you make mistakes and enjoy them,  you are now improvising…which is essentially experimenting. 

And only when you can both follow a plan and improvise, is your music life like real life…and your fling becomes a full on, life-long love affair. 

 Life will force you to learn to improvise when unexpected things happen. The challenge each of us face is: do we see things as mistakes…things that shouldn’t happen, or do we get curious about what we might be able to do next? 

I don’t know how I would have learned to work with obstacles I’ve faced in my life if I didn’t have music and the joyful practice ground for life. Music helped me feel what it's like to accomplish something and get better at the process and what it's like to let all of my worries go and not just make music, but become it. 

The biggest mistake, by far, that all levels of musicians make…is that they thought what they achieved was how they would measure themselves…but it's who you become in the process. You become someone who is a better learner.