I’ve got this electronic kit set up in the corner of my room for the summer, next to my desk, trying to put in the first few of what will hopefully become 10,000 hours on the drums. So far it’s been working like a charm: whenever I’m wanting to get away from the computer or waiting for a load of laundry or just in a procrastinating mood, I sit down and wail away to the iPod or the metronome for twenty minutes. It’s a great workout, playing drums—mentally as well as physically. Today it’s offbeats, always a weak spot of mine: maintaining a steady pattern that’s directly opposite the main pulse of the song. The -pah -pah of the oom-pah oom-pah. It’s driving me nuts. Keeping offbeats going on their own isn’t the hard part; it’s introducing other stuff that moves independently of that pattern, so that offbeats have to go on autopilot, motoring away no matter what irregular rhythms are going on around them.
Working on things like this reveals how connected the different parts of my body are by default, how sympathetic the left hand is to the right foot, how intuitively they just want to join forces on the same task. Everybody oom, forget the -pah! I’ve noticed the same phenomenon in dance (which I’m not good at either): why do my arms tense up when my legs are doing something difficult? They’re not supposed to be doing anything; they could stay relaxed until something was asked of them. But limbs have a kind of herd mentality, and the point of practicing—drums, at least—is to re-train them as independent spirits. Long process. It hurts my head in the best way.
Cleaned house last week and excavated this. My piano teacher in high school had me keep practice journals in blue spiral-bound notebooks; this one only had two entries in it.
I’ve carved out a music retreat of sorts for the next two weeks, and the resonance of thoughts rendered in sixteen-year-old handwriting could be either depressing or reassuring. I’m going with reassuring.
7 Feb 95
I’ve reached a point in time where I’m tired for no apparent reason. It’s not so much fatigue as lack of enthusiasm, but it frightens me. My ability to learn, my creativity, and my productivity all depend on enthusiasm. Somehow I need to find a way to get wholly interested in everything again. No one can do that for me.
In piano it’s a big wall of frustration that’s draining my enthusiasm. I’m at that phase where I’ve been studying things awhile but not much has advanced in terms of my composing ability. It’s compounded by a feeling of inadequacy, because I know I’ve been letting myself and others down lately. So there’s nothing and no one to blame but myself.
Enough negative stuff. That’s why I practiced long and hard on the Rachmaninoff today, tracing the melodic lines and getting a feel of the storyline as well as working through some hitches. It’s improved, but it’s a far cry from how I’d like it to be. Q: at this point, where technique and chord-reading are still a problem, should I start “hearing the perfect performance”—that is, working backwards from perfection?
Posted this in a Facebook thread (about those nifty online budget-balancing games, like the Washington Post’s game for DC’s budget and the New York Times’s Congressional budget interactive graphic), and thought I’d share it here. I was responding to a listener-turned-friend and mentor, who’s been involved in education, health care and public policy for many years.
We were born into a world in a state of emergency, so it’s true: that feels normal to us. We’ve learned to be a little bit worried about it all, and we try and do something about it once in a while—but we mostly to tune it out as background noise, at least until the consequences hit home in some form. It’s a natural thing, I think, to choose distraction over depression when we can, to avoid situations where we feel powerless. I’m in school to un-learn many of those habits. How to look at a crisis straight on, how to have conversations with frightened people, how to stay grounded and open and even joyful through the process: that’s what I’m after now.
A few people forwarded this article to me via Facebook, and though over a thousand people have posted comments in response already, I felt compelled to add to the pile.
Thankfully, my parents’ philosophy was pretty far from Amy Chua’s. There were plenty of SAT prep classes and high academic expectations, to be sure, and one tearful Christmas that I spent up to my ears in college application essays. But they also took great care to support our individual interests. I remember my dad taking me to a Grammy In The Schools event in high school, so I could meet real live record producers and songwriters; he drove me to my Berklee College of Music audition in 2001. All this, on top of years of twice-weekly commutes to piano lessons, despite his heavy misgivings about the music industry and fears that I’d someday try to make music for a living.
I really hope Chua had tongue planted in cheek when she wrote at least parts of this article, but I do know of parents who follow this regimen without exaggeration. There’s certainly merit in some of it: believing that kids can achieve great things, understanding that a lot of worthwhile pursuits aren’t fun at first, etc. But the iron fist seems wholly unnecessary to me, and even counterproductive, if the goal is to raise human beings who thrive and realize their full potential.
My folks could have insisted that I become a doctor, marry someone with an impeccable résumé at 27, and keep songwriting strictly a hobby. But they decided that I needed to choose my own path to success and a good life,* even if it didn’t look the way they imagined it when I was younger. I’m endlessly grateful for that freedom.
* Though they do insist that said good life ought to include retirement savings, a serious rainy-day fund, and proper health insurance. And continual intellectual development. And calling home once in a while.
Looking at my own life, I see only good fortune. Looking at the wider world, though, there’s a lot that inspires melancholy—and a strong sense that I need to *do* something.