Best Music Gifts to Yourself for the New Year
How will you get inspired to practice (or do whatever you want) for this New Year?
Playing my instrument gives me great joy, but I haven’t been able to pick it up and play for enjoyment by myself like I used to. I have to figure out everything that is preventing me from doing this. What is preventing me? It is like the flautist, Shelley Binder, quoted in my book says to embrace your hardships and learn from the journey, also expressed on this note card. =================>>>>>>>>
Best Music Gifts to myself! - in addition to using this wonderful practice book, Passion For Practice, to guide my practice, how can I start being inspired to practice again?
I think being so alone and lonely has prevented me from doing a lot of my creative projects this past couple of years. I have spent some time adding new social activities to my calendar. Now I get out to interact with people that I like, doing things that I like on a regular basis. This has taken a bit of time, but I think I am ready to spend quality time alone again.
Getting significant exercise so that I am not restless doing my more sedentary artsy projects.
Being with close family is very calming. I finally visited with my distantly-living grown kids several times, and have more plans for that in the near future.
Having performance goals - I, like (I think) most people, am a goal oriented person. I have performances on my schedule for several different reasons at several venues. I have simple music which I can relax and enjoy at a casual performance with friends, and I have difficult music, giving me improvement goals. I will be performing both alone and with others.
And lastly, and this is a big one - making a designated time and place for my practice!!!! I don’t even have this in my book because I always thought that it was so obvious. Perhaps I should plan a humorous painting for this no brainer tip. If you think of illustration ideas - send me a note please! What makes this so hard for me may surprise you!!!!
With a wind instrument, I cannot sip on coffee while I practice. I can’t snack while I practice. I love to get up in the morning and have my coffee. But if I want to practice flute, I have to brush my teeth - and that prevents me from savoring my coffee or even the lingering coffee taste in my mouth!!
My solution - get up an hour earlier, and practice before coffee, and limit my practice to one hour. Since I am not a professional musician, and don’t have to do this, limiting my practice (I am never done in an hour!!!!) leaves me wanting to finish what I started! When I stop in one hour, I always hope I’ll get back to practice for another hour later in the day or in the evening, but I get busy with life; and I suppose I am getting old, because I am usually too tired in the evening. (It really doesn’t help that I have chronic insomnia.) Note that when I practiced as a child, I did not have this problem since I did not yet drink coffee.
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If I were a band or orchestra musician, even in a community group, there would be more goals. I would probably need longer practice time if I wanted to fit in my own music goals in too. Luckily and thankfully, I am part of a very relaxed community band that plays more for enjoyment than worrying about accuracy. Although, it feels good to play everything perfectly, it is a different kind of a challenge, to play as well as possible without putting in extra practice time.
Some of the best music gifts to inspire music practice in addition to the 2 practice books available on this site are shown below. The prints come as several size posters, on shirts, note cards and in the books.
All note cards come with blank insides, writing on the back of the cards and Euro style recycled paper envelopes.
