If you want it to be easy, do it with ease.
This is what should be an easy concept, but turns out to be quite difficult in practice. This phenomenon does not limit itself to trumpet playing. You will find that the best players make it look easy, and indeed for them it is easier than it is for someone off lesser development Can we safely say that we want to be the type of player that plays with ease?
This was not the case for me when I was in school. I wanted trumpet to feel like I was lifting a huge weight over my head and doing a primal scream. I wanted it to feel like work.
Along the way I did have what should have been enough of those experiences where you play something only half trying and it works and it is way too easy. You think...ok, let's do that again. Then I would do it again and only be able to recreate the feat with much more effort. I should have been able to understand then that ease was the way to go, but I felt I could do it. I could get there on my own steam.
I seam to be one of those people with a great deal of drive. I suppose that can seem like a good thing, but I can tell you that it can lead to forcing to get your way - on the trumpet and off. I had to face several periods of trumpet problems before learning that if it is not easy it is not right. Even after I had learned that I fell back into the same thing. Now keep in mind, I have always looked like a player that was not forcing - we are all able to hide some of those things from others.
So when it comes down to it I suggest that we try things with ease even if that means that we don't get it right because of our ease. That is what "try again" is for. It is for doing it again until we get it right, while doing it with ease.
If we force and get it right, than we still have to learn to do it with ease...problem is you probably can't get there by that approach.
Perhaps, we get this idea from the folk wisdom that says "try harder." The reason we go with that is because it sort of works. It is quicker to force than to learn to do a thing with ease. Like so many things patience and perseverance is the key to good playing and not forcing. It means that we have to accept that we are really not as skilled as we think we are, and that is humbling. It also means that we are not on our time schedule of improvement, but, frankly put, on God's.
So, I guess I'm saying if you want to be a better player - humble yourself. Think not more highly of yourself and your skills than you ought. Then go to the practice room and make it easy - right will come in time.
All the best,
Gordon
This is what should be an easy concept, but turns out to be quite difficult in practice. This phenomenon does not limit itself to trumpet playing. You will find that the best players make it look easy, and indeed for them it is easier than it is for someone off lesser development Can we safely say that we want to be the type of player that plays with ease?
This was not the case for me when I was in school. I wanted trumpet to feel like I was lifting a huge weight over my head and doing a primal scream. I wanted it to feel like work.
Along the way I did have what should have been enough of those experiences where you play something only half trying and it works and it is way too easy. You think...ok, let's do that again. Then I would do it again and only be able to recreate the feat with much more effort. I should have been able to understand then that ease was the way to go, but I felt I could do it. I could get there on my own steam.
I seam to be one of those people with a great deal of drive. I suppose that can seem like a good thing, but I can tell you that it can lead to forcing to get your way - on the trumpet and off. I had to face several periods of trumpet problems before learning that if it is not easy it is not right. Even after I had learned that I fell back into the same thing. Now keep in mind, I have always looked like a player that was not forcing - we are all able to hide some of those things from others.
So when it comes down to it I suggest that we try things with ease even if that means that we don't get it right because of our ease. That is what "try again" is for. It is for doing it again until we get it right, while doing it with ease.
If we force and get it right, than we still have to learn to do it with ease...problem is you probably can't get there by that approach.
Perhaps, we get this idea from the folk wisdom that says "try harder." The reason we go with that is because it sort of works. It is quicker to force than to learn to do a thing with ease. Like so many things patience and perseverance is the key to good playing and not forcing. It means that we have to accept that we are really not as skilled as we think we are, and that is humbling. It also means that we are not on our time schedule of improvement, but, frankly put, on God's.
So, I guess I'm saying if you want to be a better player - humble yourself. Think not more highly of yourself and your skills than you ought. Then go to the practice room and make it easy - right will come in time.
All the best,
Gordon
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