common issues

Learning music is a rewarding but sometimes rocky path. Here are some of the issues that can crop up, and how I tend to respond to them.

This is too difficult - I can’t do it.

Yet. (It can take weeks to learn something new.)

I haven’t practiced this week…

As I’ve said elsewhere on this site, I’m not expecting a finished product every week. Life is a very busy place, and sometimes, of course, we can’t practice. That’s fine.

In this case it’s important not to worry, and to have the lesson anyway: we lose more by a cancelled lesson than an unprepared lesson. There is always something to work on; if nothing else, it’s excellent sight reading practice.

I get nervous playing for a teacher…

Making music is a very sensitive activity; the music we play is emotionally connected to us, so it’s very easy to get hurt. This is why we get quite so nervous playing for a teacher. I’ve had a student who worked exclusively in war zones, who was more nervous in lessons than at work.

So, again, don’t worry about it. We all get nervous playing on stage, and playing for a teacher.

I promise I don’t bite.

I don’t feel like it’s going well.

There are always times when playing feels negative. Of course - it would be miraculous if every day was a positive improvement. There are ups and downs.

It’s useful to remember this outburst from the greatest cellist of the 20th century, when he thought his hand was damaged for good:

We should be very patient. If practice isn’t going well, stop practicing for a bit. Sleep on it. It’s not such a big deal.

If playing persists in a negative headspace, we’ll talk about that in the next lesson.

I’m not naturally talented.

It’s worth remembering that we’ve inherited a lot of our ideas about music from Romanticism. For the Romantics, the arts were deeply personal: it was up to the creative genius, with an inborn good taste, to show us all the way.

Nobody, however, is born with a guitar.

Up until Romanticism, artistry was thought of as another craft - a skill to be improved with time and work. There’s a lot of truth behind this.

We may have personal attributes that help us to improve at music: to succeed we need to be patient, dedicated, and maybe a little reckless. But musical talent itself isn’t inborn: it’s acquired.

I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough…

There’s a world of difference between saying:
“I’m not good enough to play this right now.”
and:
“I’ll never be good enough to play this.”

It’s vitally important that we avoid the second statement.
The first one might be true, for now - but there’s a possibility of improvement. With effort, in time, we may be proficient enough to play something that’s very difficult.

Ironically, we often say that we’ll never be good enough out of a hope, too painful to admit to, that we might some day be good enough. Hope can be a terrible thing. But however terrible, it’s very important to leave that door open.