Old notions can be detrimental.

Way back in the dark ages when I was in High School, I remember my dad telling me, Son, the best way to build your credit is to charge your credit card to the max and then pay the monthly minimum. I adore my dad, and I took his advice to heart. Many years later, I complained to him about his good advice. He looked at me in absolute horror and said, I never said that!

Just the other day, I was working with a student on his bow hand. There was a breakthrough moment, something I live for as a teacher, when an old paradigm was broken. His comment to me was, I remember them teaching me to hold my bow hand this way back when I started. This is so much better! I am almost positive that whoever that original teacher was would be mortified to know that was what this student took away from that particular lesson.

Sometimes we base our beliefs on statements from people we respect and admire, only to find later that what we thought we heard was probably not what was actually said.

What we need in this life are solutions that work. We seek those solutions from folks that we respect and admire, and then we try to apply them in our own lives sometimes with hilarious, but unintended, results. We should always judge our beliefs by the standard of Does this work for me?, rather than just blindly hammering away at the nail with our screwdriver.

Even though our beliefs come from respected and revered persons in our lives, sometimes our perceptions (and theirs) are based on misunderstandings, misassumptions, and poor interpretations.

The bottom line is that if you keep doing something that isnt working for you, youre crazy too expect better results than youre getting right now. You may have, indeed, received poor advice or you may simply have misunderstood what was told to you. Either way, the only way to improve is to change.

Otherwise, youll be paying for your misunderstandings for the rest of your life. With interest.

Over a month ago, well before Halloween, I walked into Costco and heard Christmas music playing over the loudspeakers. It depressed me.

Now, a week before Thanksgiving, we are well and truly into the holiday season here in the United States. And that has me thinking about ornamentations.

Ornamentations in traditional music are the musical equivalent of adding spices to pumpkin pie. Without them, what you have is squash pie … not very appetizing. With them, you have a wonderful holiday treat. In other words, ornamentations are what give traditional tunes their distinctive flavor. Just as with pumpkin pie, however, too many ornamentations can ruin a perfectly good tune.

Take a look at it this way: We take a perfectly good tree, cut it down, and put it in a place of honor for Christmas. Is it a Christmas Tree yet? No. It becomes a Christmas Tree when you add ornaments to it; dress it up and make it more than just a tree. I’m sure you’ve seen folks who go overboard with their Christmas Trees, though. Gaudy creations with to many ornaments, excessive flocking, and fake icicles clumped on every available branch. Ugly things.

Traditional music is indeed spiced up with ornamentations, such as long- and short-rolls, cuts, bowed triplets, and slides. But it takes a discerning ear to know how much is enough.

It is also important to execute ornamentations precisely and cleanly. They should shimmer and float off the strings rather than be weighty and clumpy.

So this holiday season, as you are decorating your home for the holidays, lend an ear to your music. Practice the execution of your ornaments and get them quick and precise. Listen to recordings of respected masters in this genre and discover how they decorate their tunes, and then ornament your tunes similarly.

Just like Christmas Trees and pumpkin pies, your tunes should celebrate the essence of the genre … don’t weigh them down with too many or poorly executed ornamentations. There is no reason to depress your tunes as I was depressed that day in Costco.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog. If you are interested in similar writings, please visit my fiddleosophy page on my Trad Tune Learning website. Please share your comments so that we all can benefit from the shared wisdom of the universal mind. I wish you all a very happy, healthy, and fun holiday season. May you spend your time doing what you love with the people you love the most!

Proper practice requires focused attention on our weak spots. You need to view yourself with a keen critical eye (and ear!) and observe these weak spots, narrow them down, and start asking questions.

“Where is the place I am weakest?” Most human beings are more interested in getting through the entire tune, beginning to end, without stopping than they are in addressing their mistakes, or weak spots. They hurry through, ignoring the bumps, slow downs, poor technique, bad intonation, or sloppy execution. Playing through a tune from start to finish is an important part of practice, but you need to OBSERVE your performance and take note of the spots that need special attention. Then, when you are finished with your run-through, you go back to those spots and narrow them down. And ask more questions.

“Why is this place weaker than the rest?” Is it a problem with rhythm? If so, do you understand the rhythm pattern here? If the weakness is intonation, ask yourself if you are using the best fingering. You could be holding the violin incorrectly, grabbing the neck with your hand, or even failing to support the violin properly with chin and shoulder. Is it a situation of sloppy execution? If so, ask yourself “why?” I have found that simply asking this question will sometimes alleviate the problem with little or nor further action required.

“What can I do to strengthen this weak spot?” This question is where you create a plan of action. Perhaps it is only a matter of slowing things down and “drilling” the spot repeatedly, and then gradually increasing the tempo. I think of this type of remedy as taking a small bite and chewing it up well before swallowing. Be sure that you’ve narrowed the weak spot down to it’s essentials. You wouldn’t try to eat a 16oz steak in one bite, would you? After you have applied your remedy, you are ready to ask the next question.

“Is this spot as strong as the rest of the tune?” This is when you insert your previously weak spot back into the tune and OBSERVE whether or not you still are having difficulties. If you are, then more attention to that spot is required. If the weak spot is now strong, then you move to the next weak spot and begin the process again.

SOME PROBLEMS WITH TYPICAL PRACTICE BEHAVIORS:

The first problem has to deal with the idea that we have to WORK HARD on a problem in order to solve it. That is never the case. You need to be SMART, look for the EASIEST WAY to solve the problem. The harder you WORK at a problem, the more large muscle groups you engage. That, in turn, gets in the way of you playing effortlessly and easily, and causes all sorts of problems in addition to the one you are ostensibly trying to solve. If you feel like you are WORKING HARD, you are doing it wrong. Let go, take a deep breath, and start asking questions. Be the teacher and the student.

The second problem is that most fixes require repetition, or “drilling“. While we are engaged in such activity, it is easy for our attention to wander. We can slip into a mental state that is akin to filling our heads with wool. Drilling requires constant attention to details, making sure that you are actually playing the section correctly more often than not. After a while, you will be able to play the section without thinking. One technique that will help you avoid woolen headedness is to take frequent breaks. Another is to play the section so slowly that it gives you time to think about it as you are drilling.

Another problem is that sometimes we identify the wrong thing as the weak spot. Once you have addressed the weak spot and reinserted it back into the tune, you still are having difficulties. This is very frustrating, and often we are tempted just to go back and drill the hell out of it until it gives up (see WORKING HARD above). Resist this impulse long enough to ask some more questions. You will most likely find that you missed something in your original observation.

The final problem I wish to address is this: When all else fails, ASK AN EXPERT. I tell all my students that their lesson money buys them more than just 60 minutes once a week. It buys them access to me and my knowledge and skills 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The problem is that most of my students never take advantage of this. They see it as an imposition, even though I’ve given them permission. They feel like they must wait until the next lesson to address their concerns. As a result, problems continue and are even reinforced through the days (daze?) of confusion between NOW and the NEXT LESSON. In this day and age of “Googling” the internet for information, I find this very frustrating. You wouldn’t wait a week to Google the traffic conditions before deciding the best route to take from work to home, so why would you wait to ask the expert you have hired to help you with your fiddle questions? If you have a question at 3:00am, you can always send me an e-mail. If you call me and I am not able to answer immediately, leave a voice message and I will get back to you at my earliest convenient opportunity. Don’t waste any time out of a misplaced respect for my time. You have a question you can’t answer on your own? ASK AN EXPERT to help you get immediate relief.

I am sure that you can see some parallels between PROPER PRACTICE with a musical instrument and your everyday life. Just approach everything as if you are both the TEACHER and the STUDENT. Remember to OBSERVE, NARROW DOWN, ASK QUESTIONS, EXECUTE YOUR PLAN, and REPEAT AS NECESSARY. And when all else fails, ASK AN EXPERT.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog on PROPER PRACTICE TECHNIQUE. Be sure to read my other related blogs at fiddleosophy on my Trad Tune Learning website. And please, be generous with your comments. I find them very helpful, and they provide even more insight to the topics I am blogging about.

I’ve always had trouble with “goal setting”. Ever since I was a youngster, I’ve been told that setting goals was the “secret” to success in any endeavor. Just as with that other truism, “Practice makes perfect,” it was handed down to me as one of the Facts of Life.

Problem #1: Just how do you set goals?

I wanted to succeed, so obviously I needed to set goals. Aside from passing on the “secret”, nobody told me just how one goes about doing it. Let’s, see … I want to succeed. At what? Okay, I want to be a concert violinist, an international superstar. Now what?

Problem #2: How do you come up with the perfect goal?

I know when I was really young I wanted to be a firefighter. And then a policeman. And later, a scientist. Those are goals, right? How perfect are those?

Problem #3: Once I’ve “set” my goal, I’m stuck with it … right?

What happens when I decide that I really don’t want to be a firefighter? Or a policeman? Scientist? Or even an internationally famous concert violinist?

Since I was unable to come up with the answers to these questions on my own; and since nobody ever answered these questions for me … I was doomed to a life full of failure.

Okay, so perhaps that was a bit of hyperbole. However, for many years I felt like a failure because I didn’t understand “goal setting.”

One day (and numerous self-help recordings later), I heard of a concept that struck a chord in me. It went like this: READY, FIRE, AIM.

You may have heard of the “Ready, Aim, Fire” phrase before, but this concept flipped the last two commands. FIRE before AIM. There was more to the concept, of course.

Get READY means prepare yourself. Point yourself in the right direction. You don’t even need a clear picture of your target, just a general idea of where it’s at. FIRE, of course, means to take action, head towards the target and pull the trigger. Finally, AIM means to evaluate your first shot, see where it hit and make an adjustment. Then you repeat the process, refining your results until, as your target becomes clearer, you come closer and closer to it until you finally hit it.

There are no boundaries to this concept. You don’t limit yourself to timeframes or specific, fixed “goals”. These may be useful tools, but they are only part of what it takes to hit your target. When you have a general idea of what you want, point yourself in that general direction and pull the trigger. Don’t wait, just do it. Walk a bit farther in that direction and see where your shot takes you. You may have been aiming for a career as a concert violinist, but now you find that you want to be a bit more active on stage than your classical career will allow.

So how about fiddle music? Don’t know anything about that, but it seems interesting. Go buy a book. Listen to some recordings. Play table-to-table fiddle music in a themed restaurant. Do that for a while and then evaluate your shot.

Hmmm, I’m getting a bit closer now. Things feel like they’re clicking. But it’s still not quite right.

Country Western band, playing in bars? Sure, why not. Accept an invitation to play in a local band. So what if you’ve never played this type of music before. Crash course in learning the songs, the style. Do it. Play some gigs, make some money. Yeah, this is starting to feel like the right thing. And yet ….

Okay, perhaps being in a band is a really cool thing, but why limit myself to just playing fiddle? Look at that guitar player, he’s having a lot of fun singing while he’s picking. Go for it! Learn the words, pick out some harmonies, grab a mic. Yes! That’s definitely better.

Not perfect yet, but that’s okay. I’m not setting any goals here, so I don’t need perfection. Just a direction to point myself in, then BANG!

I want to sing lead vocals. I learn a few songs, the other guys “allow” me to sing them … I’m loving this! Unfortunately, though, I find an obstacle: The band already has a lead singer, and he doesn’t want to share anything but a small portion of that duty with me. What to do?

Start my own band. Wow, now I’m really in the deep end of the pool. Never done this before, there’s a lot more to running a band … and they didn’t teach me anything remotely like what I need to know when I was in the University. Hmmm. Re-create the wheel? Okay, give it your best shot, mate.

Yeah, that didn’t work out too well. I’m pissing off a lot of people I need to depend on, turning into a real asshole. Okay, perhaps maybe I should talk to other bandleaders, learn from them. Wouldn’t have been able to do that without making those mistakes on my own, though. Wouldn’t have known what questions to ask. Now I do.

Now I have my own Country Western band, and I’m loving life! Everything is going great, I have a circuit of clubs I play on a regular basis, and I have bandmates I can depend on. Well, I assume I can depend on them, until one of them causes me so much grief I need to fire him. Too bad I can’t replace him with someone immediately, not that many guitar players in my little pool that aren’t already committed to something. I can fire him, but then I’d have to cancel months of gigs until I can find his replacement. What now?

It’s obvious I need to go somewhere with more musicians, more choices. California has millions of people, and thousands of musicians. Don’t know any of them? Point, shoot … and then aim.

I find myself in Southern California, playing in somebody else’s band … a Chris LeDoux style band that plays a lot of rodeos and high-end Country Clubs. It seems like a step backwards, in some ways, because it’s not “my” band, and I’m not singing as much as I would like. However, I am now in a position to make connections with scores of musicians hungry for work. After a while, I make my selections, leave the rodeo band, and head out on my own again. Success!

… At least, for a while. It’s fun, I’m feeling more connected with my “purpose” (whatever that is), but I’m still not feeling like I’ve hit the target. Why? Well, perhaps it’s because the target has changed. It’s not in the same place anymore. Still in the general direction I was heading, but .. not .. quite .. right.

Then a friend invites me to play with him in an Irish band. I’ve never played Irish music in my life, never really paid any attention to it. But I let him talk me into faking my way through a gig in Newport Beach. Best damn time I’ve had in my life, musically speaking. The music speaks to me, I fall in love with it, want more. I dive in head first, playing in someone else’s band, learning the music, learning the patois. Finding other musicians who also love the music. Make my selections, create my own band, and …

So that is what the concept of READY, FIRE, AIM means. You are not stuck with your first choice, your first “goal”. It doesn’t have to be perfect before you start, and you can refine your target, even completely change your target! Every step along the way is success. And you don’t have to wait for a clear picture of your target before you take the first step towards it.

And as for that other truism? Practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes PERMANENT. But more on that in a later blog.

And that’s my ramble for today, folks. If you enjoyed this blog and are interested in other similar writings, please visit my fiddleosophy page on my Trad Tune Learning website. And please, share your comments with me. You’d be amazed at how much this old dog can learn from his fellow human travelers.

I’ve been struggling for a couple of months with a low-grade depression. A couple of months ago, the mother of my 21-month old daughter broke up with me … she said that life with me was just too hard. “We never really had it easy.”

Since that day, I have wondered at her statement. Why would anyone think that life should be easy? Why would anyone think that being in a committed relationship wouldn’t require work, effort, and dedication?

Granted, I came into the relationship with a lot of baggage. Several failed marriages and relationships, children from different women, and a financial mess worthy of a third world country (or the state of California). In my defense, however, she knew all of that going into the relationship. I made it a point to air all of my dirty laundry before we became a couple … in other words, she accepted me with all my spots before the relationship became intimate.

My hopes and dreams of finally having a real family I could grow old with and nourish and cherish seemed to be coming true. I had finally met the woman of my dreams: Beautiful, intelligent, talented, and loving.

Three years and one beautiful child later, I found out that I wasn’t worth fighting for. I was still good enough to be a “friend” and “provider”, but not good enough to be a boyfriend, lover, mate.

I thought that I had become fairly skilled at letting things go in my forty-seven years of life, but I am still reeling from that break-up.

A friend of mine asked me if I would take her back, should she change her mind and want to be with me again. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t think I am worth fighting for? I would have forgiven her for sleeping with another man, but this? She would rather spend the rest of her life struggling as a single mom living with her parents than try to make US work.

I have given up on my dreams of ever having a whole, unbroken family. It’s not like I have many choices at age forty-seven, so letting go of that dream is fairly easy, if painful.

The part I am having trouble letting go of is this feeling of being unworthy of love.

In my head, I know that this feeling is pure bunk. My heart, however, seems to wallow in the detritus of all my failures … most especially this latest one. All I have left, my heart tells me, is loss and emptiness and self-pity.

So I struggle against this insidious form of depression. I try to work, when all I’d rather do is sleep or play stupid online games. I try to focus, but my attention always wanders. Projects get started, but never finished. I go outdoors to get outside of myself, but all I want to do is ruminate. When I am in my studio, I look around for things I should be doing, and nothing gets done. My life is a mess, a testament to my failures, and there is nothing I can do to change.

Bollocks. It’s pure bullshit, and I know it. I’m whining and whinging and complaining and rationalizing and justifying. In short, I am not letting go of the things that keep me mired in melancholy.

I have many friends, good friends, who are sympathetic and full of advice. One says, “Go to a bar, find a girl, have rebound sex and then get on with your life.” Another says, “Just keep yourself busy, and in time the pain will go away.” Several others remind me that I am not worthless, and that I am not undesirable.

I appreciate all their efforts to help me through this, but none of it is working for me. Time wounds all heels, I guess. Perhaps I am just a sap, after all.

But truly I do know the answer. The one thing that will allow me to change my life for the better and get back to being a happy, fulfilled human being. In addition to letting go, I have to have faith. Faith that change will occur, no matter how small, over time. All I must do is ONE THING. Kinda reminds me of the quote from the movie “City Slickers” about the ONE THING.

Do ONE THING. Then do the NEXT one thing. Put one foot in front of the other, REPEAT.

Why does this hurt so much this time around? I had risen far along the ladder of my happiness, close to achieving my dream of a loving, stable, and secure family. I got knocked off, and I fell a long way down. And now I want to be back up where I was. I look up from the depths of my despair and complain about all that lost and wasted effort.

When instead I should be putting my hand back on the ladder and climbing, one rung at a time.

Will I be happy again? Of course. Am I worth fighting for? Yes. So now I begin anew to fight for my happiness.

I have no animosity for my ex. She has her own ladder to climb, and no matter how much I wanted it to be otherwise, I was just too much excess baggage for her to hang onto. I wish her well, and I will continue to be her friend as much as I can … for my sake, as well as for hers.

I know that despite all of my mistakes, failures, and lost opportunities, I have been blessed to create beautiful children. Perhaps it is not my fate to enjoy them in a traditional manner, but I do love and cherish every one of them. I have spent good times with every woman I have been with, regardless of the outcome. I still cherish those times.

And now it is time to create more beautiful experiences.

It is time to create a new me.

It is time … to create.

ONE THING at a time.

Everything is going wrong on stage. Your band is not performing as tightly as it normally does, tempos are fluctuating wildly, mistakes are being made. Your guitar player looks to be in an ugly mood, and your drummer appears to be asleep on his throne. The audience is joining him in his siesta. You are flubbing passages that have been on automatic pilot for years, and you’re so distracted by the seeming chaos on stage that you can’t seem to regain control no matter how hard you try. What can you do to make everything right again?

Smile. I know, you don’t really feel like smiling at this moment … but do it anyway. Fake it. You’ve lost control, and no matter how hard you work to get it back, matters are just getting worse. So stop working so hard at trying to regain control. Let go and smile.

Chances are things aren’t as bad as you perceive them to be. I tend to record my performances, utilizing a little application that comes standard on my iPhone. After a particularly vexing set, I’ll go backstage and listen to it to find out what happened. I call it my “Performance Post Mortem”. What I’ve found by doing so is that things often don’t seem as catastrophic on the replay as they did while I was playing. Even when there are mistakes to be heard on the recording, they often don’t seem all that bad when listening to them offstage. And the things that can be fixed or corrected or improved can be addressed in simple communications with my band mates either backstage or during rehearsal.

That look you got from your guitar player? The one filled with anger and disgust? When you talk to him about it, you may find that he’s fighting a bad case of indigestion. Or maybe his back is hurting. Perhaps he’s just upset with himself for not playing up to his personal standards. What about the sleeping drummer? Well, if you talk to him, you may find out that he was just focusing on trying to keep things together. Whatever the reason may be, you can always talk to your band mates after the performance or between sets to find out if there truly is a problem … or if you just misperceived the situation.

Here’s the deal: If there is really something bad happening onstage that seems to be spiraling out of control despite your best efforts, then it is out of your control. There is nothing you can do to fix it while onstage. So you might as well smile and try to enjoy the ride.

I have found that when I do this, things tend to get better. It may not be a perfect fix, but it does seem to help. I can have a lot of fun laughing at myself onstage, and the mere act of doing so seems to liberate me from the angst of looming catastrophe.

It’s much the same in life. Life is, after all, just a much bigger stage. Things go wrong, efforts misfire, family and friendships get a little rocky. No matter what you do to fix the situation, it just gets worse. So let go of your expectations for a perfect life at that moment, take a deep breath, smile, and settle down to enjoy the ride.

Nobody’s life goes completely according to script. Unless, of course, you are writing for a Soap Opera. Even then, life throws in a few surprises and cliff hangers that you didn’t necessarily plan. It makes for some interesting times. As a musician, it is also fodder for some very creative and poignant writing.

The solution to losing control over any situation is to give up, let go, and enjoy the ride. You can always try to fix things a bit later when your emotions are less pungent. But that is for later. Right now, all you can do is make the most of a bad situation by smiling and enjoying what you can. You’ll be amazed at how this can alleviate the pain and distress, and even in some cases make the problems magically disappear.

No one is ever fully in control of Life. But everyone can control how they deal with it. Decide to make the most of a bad situation and smile. It sure beats the alternative.

If you like this post and would like to read others like it, please visit www.fiddlin4you.com. Your comments and feedback are appreciated.

Everything is going wrong on stage. Your band is not performing as tightly as it normally does, tempos are fluctuating wildly, mistakes are being made. Your guitar player looks to be in an ugly mood, and your drummer appears to be asleep on his throne. The audience is joining him in his siesta. You are flubbing passages that have been on automatic pilot for years, and you’re so distracted by the seeming chaos on stage that you can’t seem to regain control no matter how hard you try. What can you do to make everything right again?

Smile. I know, you don’t really feel like smiling at this moment … but do it anyway. Fake it. You’ve lost control, and no matter how hard you work to get it back, matters are just getting worse. So stop working so hard at trying to regain control. Let go and smile.

Chances are things aren’t as bad as you perceive them to be. I tend to record my performances, utilizing a little application that comes standard on my iPhone. After a particularly vexing set, I’ll go backstage and listen to it to find out what happened. I call it my “Performance Post Mortem”. What I’ve found by doing so is that things often don’t seem as catastrophic on the replay as they did while I was playing. Even when there are mistakes to be heard on the recording, they often don’t seem all that bad when listening to them offstage. And the things that can be fixed or corrected or improved can be addressed in simple communications with my band mates either backstage or during rehearsal.

That look you got from your guitar player? The one filled with anger and disgust? When you talk to him about it, you may find that he’s fighting a bad case of indigestion. Or maybe his back is hurting. Perhaps he’s just upset with himself for not playing up to his personal standards. What about the sleeping drummer? Well, if you talk to him, you may find out that he was just focusing on trying to keep things together. Whatever the reason may be, you can always talk to your band mates after the performance or between sets to find out if there truly is a problem … or if you just misperceived the situation.

Here’s the deal: If there is really something bad happening onstage that seems to be spiraling out of control despite your best efforts, then it is out of your control. There is nothing you can do to fix it while onstage. So you might as well smile and try to enjoy the ride.

I have found that when I do this, things tend to get better. It may not be a perfect fix, but it does seem to help. I can have a lot of fun laughing at myself onstage, and the mere act of doing so seems to liberate me from the angst of looming catastrophe.

It’s much the same in life. Life is, after all, just a much bigger stage. Things go wrong, efforts misfire, family and friendships get a little rocky. No matter what you do to fix the situation, it just gets worse. So let go of your expectations for a perfect life at that moment, take a deep breath, smile, and settle down to enjoy the ride.

Nobody’s life goes completely according to script. Unless, of course, you are writing for a Soap Opera. Even then, life throws in a few surprises and cliff hangers that you didn’t necessarily plan. It makes for some interesting times. As a musician, it is also fodder for some very creative and poignant writing.

The solution to losing control over any situation is to give up, let go, and enjoy the ride. You can always try to fix things a bit later when your emotions are less pungent. But that is for later. Right now, all you can do is make the most of a bad situation by smiling and enjoying what you can. You’ll be amazed at how this can alleviate the pain and distress, and even in some cases make the problems magically disappear.

No one is ever fully in control of Life. But everyone can control how they deal with it. Decide to make the most of a bad situation and smile. It sure beats the alternative.

If you like this post and would like to read others like it, please visit www.fiddlin4you.com. Your comments and feedback are appreciated.

Is there such a thing as practicing too much? Why not ask a painter if there is too much paint on the canvas?

Of course, I’m speaking about practicing a particular tune or piece of music, not practicing in general. But just as a painter needs to know when to stop painting, so does a musician need to know when to quit practicing a tune and start playing it.

My definition of practice is an activity designed to take weaker elements (techniques, tunes, parts of tunes), isolate them, understand them, and then work on them in a focused fashion until they are no longer weak. Therefore, if you have practiced a tune to the point that there are no weak spots, you have done enough.

Then it is time to let go of that focused attention and begin playing the music.

If you continue past a certain point in your practicing, you will become fixated on the mechanics of the section or tune you’re working on and miss out on the music inherent in the tune. In fact, you could even anticipate making a mistake there, and that momentary distraction can wreak havoc on your performance. (See my previous blog on “stage fright”.)

We never reach perfection in our pursuit of it, but we do attain higher levels of skill and musical taste. So, before you suck all the life out of the music and make it a mechanical monstrosity, stop practicing and PLAY!

Sometimes in life we work too hard at something, over and over again, and forget to balance that hard work with actually living our lives. Take the man who has devoted his entire life to earning as much money as he can so he and his family can enjoy a nice retirement. 40 or 50 years go by, and although his bank account is plush and his retirement fund healthy, he has lost the best years of his life to work.

What I am trying to convey in this blog is that a balance needs to be struck between practice and play. Once the work has been done, then enjoy the fruits of your labors! Don’t wait for the perfect time or place or performance …. Music is designed to bring joy into your life, but if you always keep a leash on it because you haven’t “practiced enough”, you will find yourself postponing that enjoyment and denying yourself the thoroughly enjoyable experience of sharing that music with the world.

The other aspect of this topic is that there is more to life than just practicing. You can only pay attention to something for a finite amount of time before your mind is saturated, you lose focus, and end up spinning your wheels. What a waste of time! Get out of the practice room, hang with your peeps, go surfing or skiing, take a walk … your practicing will be much improved because of the break.

I’d like to recommend Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for a more complete, in depth explanation of this idea.

Don’t stop practicing altogether, but know when enough is enough …. and then PLAY!

For this and other blogs like it, please visit www.fiddlin4you.com. Enjoy!

This subject comes up time and again, musicians wondering how they can “overcome” stage fright and perform flawlessly on stage. Let’s take a look at the last part of that statement first.

To begin with, there are no flawless performances. We never live up to our own expectations, which is why we strive so hard to improve ourselves. This is as true for the professional as it is for the beginner.

On the other hand, every performance can be flawless … at least from the audience’s point of view.

Now for the first part of my original statement. Stage fright is not something one can “overcome”, as if it were the enemy causing you to make mistakes and play out of control. Rather, it is a perspective that can be changed with a thought.

Too many musicians approach performance as a battle, something to overcome. I have found that when I approach performance as an opportunity to share, I am not afflicted with the nerves associated with stage fright. Instead, I find a connection with my audience that energizes and inspires me and fills me with joy. This is why I perform. I do not perform in order to show the world how perfectly I can play … because if I were to do that, I would be sorely disappointed every single time.

Try this for yourself and see if it works for you. And remember the reason why you started fiddling in the first place: For the joy of sharing music that you love.

This perspective applies equally well in all areas of life. The next time you are stressed about a project at work, or a situation at home, get outside of yourself and make the emotional connection that brings you joy and fulfillment in the activity. Let me know how this works for you!

If you enjoyed this blog and are interested in reading others like it, please visit my trad tune learning website fiddlin4you. While you’re there, be sure to stop in at the store for FREE downloadable tunes. These tunes are my arrangements of traditional Celtic tunes, each section recorded at slow, medium, and fast tempos. With the sound files, you will also receive a PDF and jPeg of the written music to help you learn the tunes more easily. Enjoy!