Inch by inch and maybe backwards.....

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a pool in her backyard and we spent SO many summers there.  I loved everything about my Nana's house, but *especially* loved the pool.

There was this water slide in the deep end, one of those aqua blue fiberglass ones. It was supposed to have tubes that connected to the sides that would shoot out water to keep it slippery, but those hadn't worked for years, so we had to splash it with a bucket.

I was often the designated water splasher because I was afraid actually go down the slide myself.  I wanted SO badly to do it.  I watched everyone else summer after summer and it looked like so much fun.

From the ground, it wasn't particularly intimidating. Probably only six feet, if that, at the highest point.  It's not that I hadn't tried. Every once in awhile, I would climb the ladder,  slowly, slowly, and by the third or fourth rung, my heart would start to pound and my hands would sweat. I would make it to the top, swing my legs over, and look down.

From that vantage point, the pool, the backyard, and all the people seemed to disappear and, in that moment,  the slide felt like it was 20 feet high and straight down.  My parents, aunts, and uncles would encourage me but I just could never make myself do it. Inevitably, I would clamor back down, defeated, time and time again.

One summer, I got the idea to sit at the bottom of the slide and push myself up a little ways and slide down just a little. Every time I did it, I would inch myself back a little further and a little higher. It probably took an entire month, but eventually, I was basically going down from the top. I don't remember if I ever was able to go down the normal way, which is kind of funny, because I was still achieving the same result. I had figured out a way to approach it in a way that fit my comfort level, it just meant coming at it from a different direction as everyone else.

I feel like this piano journey is very much the same.  I've spent years watching everyone else, wanting more than anything to do it too, but being completely incapable of attacking it from the same direction as most other people.

But, I've realized, I can get there, eventually, on my own terms.  It most definitely won't be the traditional way and I might have to back into it slowly to trick my brain into not looking down, but I can get there! I've started doing a lesson once a month, which is HUGE for me. There's not a ton of playing going on there yet, but I'll get there soon.  :)

On that note (haha), I'm almost finished my February piece (yes, on January 31) so I'll post a video soon. I'm starting a new one too because that felt like cheating!

This blog has definitely taken a turn toward the psychological end of things. I'm not sure where it's headed, but I hope you'll stay with me on the adventure. :) 

Sometimes, fear wins....

I debated sharing this, but I want this blog to be an honest account of this journey that I'm positive is about so much more than learning to play 12 pieces on the piano.

So here we go....

I decided a week ago that I needed to deal with the physical manifestation of my performance anxiety (shaky hands) as quickly as possible. Not being able to effectively play through even the smallest parts of a piece in front of the teacher makes it a WHOLE lot harder for her to see what specifically I'm struggling with. (because it ALL sounds like a struggle when your fingers are suddenly not working)

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, try submerging your hands in ice water for five minutes and then doing anything with your fingers that requires dexterity....literally anything. Yeah, it doesn't work.

My plan to tackle it was to try playing snippets of my kids' pieces in front of the teacher, some DIY exposure therapy, if you will. I can sightread any of their pieces easily. I do it all the time so they can hear what they should sound like, so there would be no "I can't do this yet" component. I actually figured the whole exercise would be silly enough that my anxiety wouldn't even register that anything was happening.  It seemed like such a great idea!

Our teacher suggested trying just four measures at the tail-end of one of the kids' lessons. No problem! I even let my 9-year-old choose the four measures. (and he's just a little bit evil so he picked what he thought were the four hardest measures in his piece. LOL)

I was prepared. I was cool. I was even still laughing about it on the ride over.

And then we got there I was suddenly not feeling it.

Like,  AT ALL.

This little exercise should have been easy. It should have been fun.  I had even planned to play it up and bow like the kids do at their recitals. 😂

But I discovered I couldn't even move from my spot on the couch.  No force of will could push past the anxiety that had snuck up on me from behind when I wasn't looking.

Anxiety is a bully.  It sits on top of you and beats you up and tells you you'll never be good enough and you'll never win, no matter how hard you try.  I'm pretty pissed off at it right now, which I guess this is a good thing because it gives me the motivation I need to get up, throw it off my back, and try again another day.

And I will try again soon! It's a process.... a slow one... baby steps, some of them backwards, apparently. Hoping the next ones move me forward.

February's Piece

February's theme is "Piano Teacher's Pick".

The deal for this one is that our piano teacher chooses the piece and whatever it is, I have to learn it. (no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds!) 👀 

I'm generally not the kind of person who likes surprises, but this seemed like a safe, fun sort of surprise.  She does, after all, successfully choose music for my kids all year long and has given me suggestions before, almost ALL of which have been completely on the money.  I was confident I had good odds of getting a piece I enjoyed. 

She asked me if I wanted to see what she picked when I was there there week and I just couldn't resist.... so it came home with me. I had *every* intention to play through it once and then put it aside until February 1. I really REALLY did.  

I should have known that I am weak.  (see below)

Needless to say, February might end up being a two-piece month, which is okay with me. I'm making the rules here anyway! 

The piece is called On The Meadow and it's by Heinrich Lichner. It's fun and bouncy and includes a chromatic scale, which apparently our teacher had never seen me try before. No time like the present! 

So, you should know, there's a fun little feature of ADHD called hyper-focus. Sometimes we can't focus on anything for any length of time, other times, we can tune out the entire world (including an epic light saber battle being choreographed on the floor above us) and focus on nothing BUT one thing. Yesterday was one of those days for me. 

Here's a quick play of where the new piece is after a long weekend of hanging around the house with extended, hyper -focused pitstops at the piano between loads of laundry.   I blame Amazon. They were supposed to deliver my awesome new book about Octopus intelligence and they failed me. 

Finished!

I'm calling this one finished! I hit the goal, which was 55bpm and ultimately ended up getting it up to about 68-69bpm. I was hoping to hit 72, and I still might.... but I honestly really kind of need a break from playing this one for a few days. 

Plus, I have a shiny new piece to start that I'm really excited about! (and you other highly distractible people know how that goes) 

I should add, it's so funny (and also very annoying) that the other day when I tried to play even a few tiny measures of this at the piano studio, I could barely eek them out.  I hope someday my fingers work when I'm there. Adding that to my 2020 goals list. :)  I knew this project turn out to be about more than just the music!

So with that.... here you go!

What if you fly?

Most people who know me know I have a fear of flying.

I can't pinpoint how or when it started. I had flown a couple of times and thought absolutely nothing of it. Then, out of nowhere, right after I got married, a paralyzing fear of being in a metal tube in the sky hit me like surprise turbulence at 40,000 feet. 

We had a trip booked with my husband's family that I threatened to cancel numerous times. I did end up getting on the flight, but not before a sleepless night and being physically sick the entire morning, not to mention having a panic attack when the plane took off. My in-laws had no idea what to do with this sobbing weirdo next to them. In the row across from my husband and me,  my mother-in-law just kept flipping uncomfortably through cooking magazines. My father-in-law, bless his heart, tried in vain to make me feel better by explaining to me how airplanes work. 

I have now spent the last 19 years dealing with this fear.  In the very beginning, I spent lots of time in fear of flying groups on the internet because knowledge gives one a sense of control, and, as I've learned, a fear of flying, like most phobias, is, at its root, a fear of not being in control.  (It's possible I MAY have some tiny control issues.... just sayin'.)

So I set about learning all about the mechanics of flying and what every noise and bump on a plane means. I studied statistics about airplanes and plane crashes.  Intellectually, I completely understood the remote odds of a plane crashing and how safe flying is compared to driving. The fun thing about anxiety though is that it rarely responds to logic. 

I've continued to make myself fly at least once a year because I'm rational enough to know that the last thing I want is for fear to be in charge.  I don't have panic attacks anymore, though I'll never be able to completely relax on a plane. My whole body tenses during take off and the most I can focus on during a flight is scrolling mindlessly through Facebook or maybe working on a crossword puzzle. 

I live for those last five minutes or so as the plane quickly descends, and the houses, roads, and trees once again become life-size. It's only then that I get the pay-off for having faced my fear -- that magical moment of walking off the plane out of the jetway and breathing in the air of a whole new place with the promise of an exciting adventure. 

THAT is the part I focus on and the part that makes it all worth it. 

Today, I faced another fear that gives me the same feeling airplanes do. I spent an hour with my kids' patience-of-a-saint piano teacher and got some help with my piece. I got some pushes, the good kind, with some gentle encouragement and hand-holding to step onto the plane one foot at a time, so to speak. (We anxious people need that sometimes.)  I even managed to play a little bit of my piece. As I suspected might be the case, my hands didn't really work the way they do at home. That's ok though, because, as it turns out, failing spectacularly doesn't actually kill you. #adultlifelesson

I actually had fun! Like a lot of fun!  I think it will be easier next time and yes, I'm positive there will be a next time.

Just like flying, the last few minutes when the world slowly came back into view reminded me that the payoff of facing a fear is always, always, always worth it.  And just like flying, I stepped outside at the end to find myself in a whole new place with the promise of an exciting adventure ahead.  (and a brand new piece to work on for February!)

Moving the goal post.....

I had 20 minutes to kill today before I had to go on pickup duty after schools decided to close for the incoming snow, so I sat down (coat and all) and tackled a video at 184 (my original goal was 160). Only had a couple of hiccups! I really thought this piece might be impossible when I started it, so I'm pretty proud of myself for getting it this far!

There are parts of it that are just so incredibly fun to play that I've messed up several videos exclaiming, "Yes! I love that part!" as I successfully pass one of them. 😂

Also this image simultaneously runs through my head.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's where I am exactly one month into learning this piece. I want to smooth it out a bit more but might call it officially finished soon!

Progress....

I really wish I had kept track of the number of repetitions this took to finally solidify, because I feel like it was at least a billion since yesterday.  

Also, I found one performance of this where they switched up the second hands-crossed fingering and I used that instead. My apologies to Bach, but it seems to make more sense and work better for me, even if it doesn't look as fancy. 

Arpeggio jokes are hard to find....

I searched the internet far and wide and couldn't find anything to appropriately express how I'm feeling about this passage right here. I can play it without stumbling approximately 1 out of every 7 tries which is super frustrating because I would basically be home-free with this piece if I could just nail these three. stinking. measures.

It's my own fault too. I made up my own fingerings very early on and now I'm undoing that mess.  (see also: post about muscle memory 👀🙈 )

Yes, I was warned against this. 

No, I didn't listen.

I mean, I did for the other 90% of the piece but for some reason here, I lost my mind and thought I could wing it. 

Turns out, if I do the fingering as written, this passage is all very smooth and I don't have to close my eyes and pray that my pinky will land on G, it just does.  So I guess Bach knew what he was doing. Who'd have thought? 

What's especially ridiculous is the fact that I've sat at the piano practicing with my 12-year-old probably hundreds of times and explained to him why finger numbers matter.  He's the king of improvised finger placement and likes to dramatically exclaim things like, "Those numbers are stupid. Mine work better!" So it's really not like I don't understand this concept. 

And yet, here we are. Don't anyone tell my kid. 

Eggs, bread, milk.... F#

Science nerd time. 

Muscle memory is, as my 15-year-old would say, "Pretty rad".  It's one of those things we all use every single day and yet, never even give a second thought to how amazing it is that our brains do this.  I'm sure you have at least a vague notion of how muscle memory works, but I thought it would be useful to actually look at an explanation.

This is from Wikipedia:

"Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed with little to no conscious effort. This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems. Examples of muscle memory are found in many everyday activities that become automatic and improve with practice, such as riding a bicycle, typing on a keyboard, entering a PIN, playing a musical instrument,^[1] poker,^[2] martial arts or even dancing."

We have just started teaching the aforementioned 15-year-old how to drive, so these days when I drive around with him in the passenger seat, I find myself narrating every little thing I'm doing and why. You truly don't realize just how much of driving is 100% automatic until you're trying to teach someone else how to do it.  It's incredibly daunting to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has to actually think, "Now I put my foot on the brake, now I start the car, now I check my mirrors...."  And yet, an unmentionable number of years ago, these were all things I had to consciously think about. 

It's the same with piano. Every new piece is like learning to drive a car all over again (albeit with a basic knowledge of what all the buttons do). To be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with this beginning stage. Sitting at the piano in front of a brand new piece of music can feel like staring up from the bottom of an impossibly high mountain.  

The thing that keeps me coming back time and time again is knowing that if I keep at it, there will come a point where I'll be able to play it without giving a second thought where my fingers need to go. They'll just do it on their own!  For me, the moment that starts to happen feels like magic every single time. 

Now, here's the downside to muscle memory, especially for someone with a notoriously wandering brain. 

"This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems."

Yeah, so this is kind of problematic sometimes. Take this current piece for example. The first page, I have down cold. I can probably play it upside down and with eyes closed (note to self: This might make for an interesting challenge). The second page,  I'm still working on getting there. But right now,  I'm slowing down the whole thing so I can play through the entire piece at the same tempo.

My brain is on auto-pilot with the first page anyway, so between that and playing the piece slowly,  it's now completely free to wander about and think about any number of things other than what my fingers are doing. And a-wandering it goes. 

I was taking video two days ago and totally messed something easy up that derailed the whole piece because, no lie, I was MAKING A GROCERY LIST IN MY HEAD. 

Apparently a remedy for this is to force my brain to focus on other things about my playing. I've been trying this and also trying to tame my flyaway pinky with this extra brain-space that has become freed up. Unfortunately, every time I think about what that finger is up to, I crash the car again.  So, focusing on other things related to the piece and my playing is a work in progress for me. 

Here's an updated video of where I am with the Sinfonia right now. I'm practicing at the 160 goal-tempo, but still struggling with some fingerings and consistently playing through with no mistakes.  In this particular video, I got so giddy when I finally made it through the arpeggios on the second page, that I completely stumbled on a part I normally play right through. (wandering brain again!)