By Mike Glenn The old joke asks the question, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer is, "Practice, practice, practice." Of course, that answer isn't what most of us want to hear. We want there to be some kind of magical answer. We want to become a great musician, capable of moving audiences to tears, but we don't want to practice for years and years. In fact, we don't want to practice at all.
Absolutely love this! As a fairly advanced piano/keyboard player, I’ve noticed the number of young people learning musical instruments to any high level has really diminished over decades. Not sure if anyone else sees this.
Discipline in habits seems not to be something encouraged as much these days.
I recently went to a prayer school which showed a model of prayer for ½ hr a day using various collects, creeds, lectionary readings, and free prayer on topics. I have to say after 40 years of following Jesus, it’s been life changing doing this practice daily. The teacher said to do it for 40 days with no evaluation- before altering it. Thank heavens I agreed to the challenge. It got me through the initial difficulty of questioning if I could do it, if I wanted to do it, if I needed to change it to suit me better, etc. I now see that habits just need to be DONE without much evaluation at first- to make them habits. As they become ‘natural’ you start to get the benefits.
Guess what!? There's a second verse to your song today, Scot. It's that even after achieving the desired proficiency, we lose it if we don't exercise it every day. I have a bachelor's degree in piano performance. Ha, Ha, Ha. I later traded that keyboard in for one on a computer and today I can't even sight-read, much less play, the music I played in public performances with gusto and joy. Does it make me sad? Oh yes. I'd love to be able to enjoy the thrill of playing a sonata or concerto again, but that skill is gone. I'm afraid the same thing happens to a prayer life or the study of Scripture. Developing the skill is great; keeping that skill through practice is essential if we don't want to lose it.
Absolutely love this! As a fairly advanced piano/keyboard player, I’ve noticed the number of young people learning musical instruments to any high level has really diminished over decades. Not sure if anyone else sees this.
Discipline in habits seems not to be something encouraged as much these days.
I recently went to a prayer school which showed a model of prayer for ½ hr a day using various collects, creeds, lectionary readings, and free prayer on topics. I have to say after 40 years of following Jesus, it’s been life changing doing this practice daily. The teacher said to do it for 40 days with no evaluation- before altering it. Thank heavens I agreed to the challenge. It got me through the initial difficulty of questioning if I could do it, if I wanted to do it, if I needed to change it to suit me better, etc. I now see that habits just need to be DONE without much evaluation at first- to make them habits. As they become ‘natural’ you start to get the benefits.
Guess what!? There's a second verse to your song today, Scot. It's that even after achieving the desired proficiency, we lose it if we don't exercise it every day. I have a bachelor's degree in piano performance. Ha, Ha, Ha. I later traded that keyboard in for one on a computer and today I can't even sight-read, much less play, the music I played in public performances with gusto and joy. Does it make me sad? Oh yes. I'd love to be able to enjoy the thrill of playing a sonata or concerto again, but that skill is gone. I'm afraid the same thing happens to a prayer life or the study of Scripture. Developing the skill is great; keeping that skill through practice is essential if we don't want to lose it.
Absolutely true