In Praise of Doing Things You're Terrible at (But Love)

Last night my husband made us a lovely dinner, which we ate in the living room, by the fire, with Dave Brubeck in the background and the children out of earshot downstairs.

After dinner, he put the kids to bed and I relaxed and finished my wine, then I wandered over to the piano and began to play.

Badly.

I’ve never taken a piano lesson in my life, and although I am fairly musical, my technique would make any legitimate pianist break down in tears. And my increasing arthritis in my right hand makes my fingering creative, to say the least. When asked if I play the piano, my response is generally, “Yes, badly, but with great enthusiasm.” I get most of the notes right, but there are often long pauses in the middle of a phrase as I struggle to find the right chord, or double check the key signature, or strain to reach that high E. My tempo tends to be too slow if it’s marked allegro or too fast if it’s marked largo. I have been known to play what a former conductor referred to as “approximaturas” of difficult (and occasionally, not that difficult) passages.

I don’t care.

Naturally, I would love to be able to play a note-perfect, up-to-tempo, emotional, flawless rendition of The Minute Waltz or The Moonlight Sonata or anything by Mendelssohn. I’d love to be able to immerse myself in the music and let it flow out of my fingers without having to think about the technical aspects of it while I’m playing. But that’s just not going to happen. Ever.

But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying it.

I understand that anyone within hearing distance probably isn’t enjoying it as much as I am. There may be cringing involved, and plugging up of ears. But I don’t play for other people’s enjoyment; I play for my own.

I think it’s healthy to do things you’re not very good at. For me, it reminds me that I don’t need external validation for everything I do. I tend to be the kind of person who seeks outside approval. I like – no, I need – to be told that I’m doing things well. I got satisfaction in school not from knowing the material, but from seeing a GPA that proved to others that I knew the material. At work, I gained more satisfaction from being told I was doing a good job than from getting a raise or a bonus (although those were both very nice, too). It makes me happier when my husband and kids tell me they enjoyed a meal that I made than when I enjoy it myself. So I think it’s healthy for me to do something where my satisfaction does not come from the opinion or judgment of others.

Also, it gives me something to strive at. At my age in life, I’m not often trying a lot of new things. I’ve figured out a system that works for me in terms of my day-to-day housekeeping chores; I’ve mastered most of the cooking skills that I’ll ever use; I’ve established a parenting and discipline strategy that seems to work well for my kids. But improving my piano skills is something I can do whenever I want, with no deadlines or timelines. I can drop it for a while, then come back when I’m in the mood and see if I can bump up that tempo just a hair, or hit that chord with a bit less hesitation, or figure out how to manage that page turn, or even memorize a passage or two.

And finally, it exercises my imagination. Because in my imagination, this is what I hear:

Even if everyone else hears this:

If You Must Sin, Sin Boldly

When I was in college, I performed in a symphonic band under a conductor who often told his players, “If you must sin, sin boldly.” We usually heard it while rehearsing a new piece, when a particular section or performer would make a tentative entrance, unsure of an unfamiliar melody or harmony or rhythm. We were inevitably scolded for being hesitant, whether the notes we were playing were right or wrong. The conductor preferred that we play a wrong note confidently than to sneak in, unnoticed, while playing the correct part.

I find that adage to be applicable to many creative endeavors. You might not be 100% sure of what you are doing, but it’s better to throw yourself into it, heart and soul, and fail, than it is to hold back, give less than your all, and kind-of-sort-of-succeed. Creativity by its nature involves risk. For every spectacular success there are dozens of spectacular failures. But what’s much worse is that for every spectacular success, there are hundreds of dull, hesitant, half-hearted, could-have-been successes.

Because of the fear of failure, I was often one of the players in the band sneaking in on my part, hoping to stay unnoticed. I was willing to pass up a chance to be noticed for my skill in favor of hiding my mistakes. That’s not the best way to express creativity. Fortunately, my son has apparently not inherited my fear of creative failure. He thinks outside the box in many ways. Possibly, being only 3, it’s because he’s not entirely aware of the box. But I love how unlimited his imagination is.

For example, he has a game made up of different colored, different length wooden blocks. There is a deck of cards showing various arrangements of the blocks, and the players try to copy each pattern. Sometimes he likes to find a card to copy, but more often than not, he makes up his own designs. He doesn’t limit himself to the square layout shown in all the cards, either. He makes oblongs and polygons and sometimes even 3-dimensional towers.

He thinks creatively about food, too. For lunch today, I offered him a choice of a peanut butter sandwich or a grilled cheese sandwich. He thought for a moment, then proposed, “How about a chicken sandwich?” OK, I have chicken, I can do that. Then he grinned and offered his topper: “How about a chicken AND APPLE sandwich?” Hmmm, that sounds kind of weird, but I have apples, so OK. And you know what? It was really good! If I had pooh-poohed his request because it was unusual and different, we would both have missed out on a really good treat. If he had hesitated to make his request because he thought it might be weird, we would have missed it, as well. But we both took a leap – boldly – and we were rewarded!

So, as I often do, I will take a lesson from my son. A lesson to think outside the box. A lesson to not be limited by rules and past experience. A lesson to not fear spectacular failure, only to fear boring success. A lesson to go ahead and try a chicken and apple sandwich!

 

Guitarzan

One of Ryan’s latest objects of fascination is the guitar that sits on a stand in our living room. He stumbled across it one day as he was exploring, and ever since that discovery, he makes several trips every day to visit it.

As he does with everything else within reach, he loves to bang on it. But being a musical instrument, it has the added fascination of making music (not just noise) when he bangs it. The strings hum with sympathetic vibrations when he bangs on the side, and if he happens to bang on the strings themselves – or even better, if he brushes his hand across them – they ring out with a loud chord. He is absolutely astonished by the sounds it makes. He often bangs on it, then turns to me with an amazed grin, as if to say, “Do you HEAR that???” He’ll often move away after a few minutes but then suddenly make a U-turn and come right back, as if a magnet is pulling him back to it.

I love his fascination with sounds and especially with music. I hope it’s a precursor of musical appreciation and talent to come. Music was always a big part of my life, and it has given me confidence, discipline, and opportunities. I learned confidence from having a skill that not everyone has and from discovering something that I excel at. I learned discipline from practicing even when it wasn’t fun – and from seeing the results of that practicing. I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world and meet all kinds of new people because of my involvement with music.

Above and beyond confidence, discipline, and opportunity, it was through music that I met many of the friends I’ve had throughout my life. The friends from high school and college with whom I still keep in touch are nearly all ones I knew from band and chorus and musical theater. The majority of the friends I’ve made as an adult are those I’ve sung with, whether in church or in the theater or in a choral group. And I know I’m not alone in the long-lasting relationships I’ve developed through music. Just yesterday, my family had lunch with my in-laws and two of my father-in-law’s former music students – from literally over fifty years ago. His relationship with student Luke, who went on to become a professional musician himself, changed over time from student and teacher, to mentor and protégé, to colleagues and peers. But it endured through all those years because of its foundation in music.

I hope that Ryan gets the same benefits from music. Then maybe fifty or sixty years from now, he’ll be reminiscing with a former musical mentor that he has grown to count as a friend and colleague.

The Soundtrack of My Life

I grew up in a musical family, always surrounded by every kind of music imaginable: classical, folk, Broadway, movie soundtracks, children's songs, and hymns. My dad listened to the Limelighters and the Kingston Trio, my mom listened to Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, and they both listened to Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Loewe. And the whole family sang in the car: Found a Peanut, Amazing Grace, The Beer Barrel Polka, The Oscar Meyer Weiner Song. So it's not surprising that I usually have some song or another running through my head, and often coming out of my mouth as well.

It would be an interesting study to try to analyze what triggers a particular song for me. Sometimes it's obvious, especially with theater songs - a word or phrase in conversation echoes some lyric and I break into that tune. For example, if Herb says, "The trouble with the world today is that politicians don't listen to each other," I would naturally break into a chorus of, "The trouble with the world today is plain to see: it's coffee in a cardboard cup!" Or, to use a more well-known example, if he said, "The weatherman said the sun is supposed to come out tomorrow," I'd break into a chorus of - well, you all know what chorus I'd break into.  

Sometimes it's obvious if you know what I was listening to earlier in the day. Bits of commercial jingles from a few hours ago often slip into my thoughts, or a song I heard on the radio. So when we see the guy up the street walking his Newfie and Herb remarks, "That dog is just GIANT!", I might break into "One eight hundred fifty-four giant, done right, done fast!", or if he asks if I know a certain phone number, I sing, "Eight six seven five three oh ni-ee-eye-ine!" Even a bit of news can put a song in my head - after hearing of the death of actor Robert Culp yesterday, I found myself singing, "Believe it or not, I'm walkin' on air, I never thought I could feel so free. Flyin' away on a wing and a prayer - who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just me!" (That's the theme from "The Greatest American Hero", for those of you who missed the 1980s.) But sometimes, I just don't have the faintest idea where the music comes from.

Yesterday, when Ryan was so fussy, I was rocking him and singing every song that came into my head, trying to calm him. His favorites seem to be Papa's Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird, I'm a Little Teapot (although it must be sung in 3/4 time - and no, I have no idea why or how I even discovered that), and There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly (mostly for the "wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her" part, complete with wriggling, jiggling, and tickling). But when I've gone through those to no avail, I simply start singing whatever comes into my head. Yesterday, those three standbys were followed by The Itsy Bitsy Spider, There Were Three Little Ducks, and Old MacDonald (when I got to a verse about llamas, I knew it was time to move on - but believe me, Old MacDonald had QUITE the interesting farm yesterday!), all to no avail. But then, for no reason I can possibly fathom, I began humming the theme song to Mission: Impossible. Dum! Dum! Dah-dum! Dum! Dum! Dah-dum! Doo-doo daaaaahhhh, doo-doo daaaaahhh, doo-doo daaaaaahhhh, doo-doo! And it worked like a charm.

And come to think of it, considering how fussy Ryan had been all day long, that particular theme song was exceptionally appropriate. Jim Phelps might even have had to think twice about taking on a mission like that.