Making Notes Taking Notes

I have been building.

Building on the possibility and the probability of a stable music practice in my life.

In my search to be an effective learner of music and other things I have found that frustration is the mother of invention. Continuously not returning to the work of practicing has been my constantly frustrating nemesis.

I now believe I understand my own nature enough that I am slowly and gently building towards the sustainability I so deeply crave. Though it gave me the fingerings and some technique school group flute lessons were largely a failure for me. The first time the instrument really felt alive in my hands was the day I somehow tumbled on the idea to put Nirvana’s Nevermind album played a single note on my flute and listened. Did it fit? If I felt it did I banked it in my memory and tried another. Before long for each song I had a small collection of notes I could choose between. I wasn’t strong enough to play by ear in the sense of following the melody but I could play stuff which certainly seemed to fit the music. Something deep musically had clicked. Before this day I didn’t really think of myself as that musical. I was the weakest flute player in my high-school group lessons. After this experience it was undeniable I was musical.

What of my recent breakthroughs?

I decided to go back to this beginning of my flute journey and again cracked open Nevermind.

It’s been multiple weeks. I’ve been sporadic. And yet. Stubbornly sporadic.

Tonight I shadowed the melody line of the first few songs the best I ever have. The notes of this album have been growing under my fingertips. Instinct has grown. I will always, I think, be blessedly sporadic.

But insight here has grown too.

The central trick of returning and returning again has always escaped me.

This year has been a year of learning about creating and building the scaffolding I need around me. Scaffolding for me must be gentle, invitational and as simple as possible while still being scaffolding.

I figured out something key.

key as in music get it!

I figured out the smallest possible unit of continuity is two days practrice in a row. And yet. If I thought every time I sat down to practice that I was obligated to practice tomorrow I’d flip out. How to make the experience gentle and invitational?

Through play.

My playfull practice log.

Play full full of play.

I had a notebook already. Earmarked for another project. The first page got written on for this project. I snaffled it anew. And ripped out the first page.

The insight came.

What if I treated the possibility of a two day streak as probable or not probable. How then would things be? The weight of probably feels way more honest then the iron weight of “I will”.

I decided on a little mechanism. For each exercise in a practice session I did I decided I would rate whether I thought I would repeat this exercise tomorrow. I did this with a 1 for probably and a 0 for not probably. (which is a reference to the binary numbers used by computers. For some reason doing it this way felt more in line with “probably” than a tick or a cross.) If I didn’t think I’d make it to practice the next day I could simply write 0 next to all exercises.

Do you know what was written on the book I had earmarked for a different project? “Taking Notes”. I have a name for this kind of coincidence. A Godincidence.

The log. The probably or not probably is what I would call playing with intention. Your 1s are you gently trying on the possibility that you will revisit tomorrow. Your 0s allow you to be honest which could include honest pessimism. But not defeatist pessimism.

You can play even when feeling a little stretched that you write down a 1 to see if you can gently stretch capacity by showing up the next day. You can select a 0 even though you are feeling quite good and skip the next day just for the heck of it.

So in summary I am now just a musician. I am a player of intention. For many years I berated myself. For not practicing. For not being enough. In a long booklet I wrote near the start of the year about my life and the free range study I then commenced which includes these musical undertakings it said “I am enough. My work ethic is enough. My rest ethic is enough.” It’s never been more true. And it continues.