I’d like you to envision the musician you’d like to be. Be bold, ambitious, un-self conscious with this imagining, even (or perhaps especially) if the qualities they embody seem remote.

Answer these questions to really hone in:

• What does this person feel like when they play with other people?
• What does this person think about themself in the context of their skill?
• How does this person handle being the most proficient player in an ensemble?
• How does this person handle being around players who have more experience or are virtuosic?
• How does playing feel physically?

After you’ve spent some time fleshing out this vision, go back through each question and ask:

How is this person different from who I currently am?

Taking stock in this way can be bracing, but of the things I know deeply in my soul, this rings absolutely true: you always go where you’re pointed.

Sometimes we don’t even know where we’re pointed, making the understandable error of assuming that diligent work on the music will get you to your goals. This way of thinking tends to create ever-shifting goalposts, especially if physical comfort and confidence are part of the vision you’re working towards.

If you don’t practice confidence, there is no level of proficiency where you will suddenly feel confident. The human mind comes up with all kinds of dastardly reasons why no, you are not allowed to feel assured or adequate. The unreasonable unkindness of the inner narrator is actually shocking sometimes. It’s been said before, but can you imagine speaking some of these things aloud to another person? And if you’d be okay with that in the name of “honesty” or “truth”, you misapprehend the nature of the learning process entirely.

Know also that inner narratives are messy and we are rarely good at cleaving the things that have made us successful from the superstitions, traumas, and fear-based beliefs that hold us back. Sometimes they even feel like one big thing, labeled how I am. But just as the body can have influence on the mind (yoga is a great example), our behaviors can start to change who we are inside. I’ve said it in many workshops: you do not need a tidy, optimistic, organized mind free of neuroses to get to where you want to be in music or in any other domain, for that matter. Good grief, can you imagine how small the humanities would be if that were the case?

As much as I lean into the inner game and that whole side of things, the main point I’m trying to drive home here is that becoming is a physical act. Your mind and system of beliefs will catch up with the evidence of experience, if you allow yourself to see it. Otherwise, you can get caught in a sort of progress dysphoria, where the idea of admitting success feels dangerous, as if it’s the fear and self loathing that is holding the whole enterprise together. I promise you that your work is moving ahead despite these things, never because of them.

So, if, for instance, you want to be the kind of person who has all of the notes ready at the second rehearsal, you have to aim there and then give yourself a reasonable amount of time to make up the ground between where you are and where you’re headed. What needs to change to become that person?

• tricky rhythms and tough passages are the first order of business, not what you’ll hope to have sorted out by the performance.
• knowing how the piece goes. the old saying “rehearsals are where you learn the other parts.” is accurate. listen to recordings, listen with your part on your lap, understand who you play with and in contrast to.
• complete honesty: would you bet your life on the accuracy of what you’re playing? if you’re not accurate in your practice, when things feel easier and a little less pressurized, you will certainly not be accurate in rehearsal and performance.
• don’t practice something until you get it right. practice until you can’t miss it.
• write in anything you need to avoid repeating mistakes: if I miss an accidental even once, I write it in. if I jump in on a rest once, I circle it, write WAIT, and listen to that passage until I don’t even need to count in order to come in correctly.

You’ll see these differences are just enriched variations of what you’re already doing. Every time you practice from this upgraded place, you’re writing a love letter to the player you’re becoming.

Dear Future Me,

This is how you’re going to practice now. This is how you’re going to absorb information in lessons. This is how you’re going to focus on technique, because technique is literally how you do this thing. This is how you’re going to set higher expectations and fulfill them. I am becoming you every day, and that motivates me to stay focused.

Love, Me

The last thing I’ll ask is difficult, but can be completely transformative: don’t come up with a retort or rejoinder, or some intellectual argument detailing why this will be too hard, or that it doesn’t apply to you, or…whatever. It’s a waste of time and is part of the teetering complex of bullshit keeping you from taking that step into this next level. There’s no such thing as getting ready. Just do it.

I believe in you.

xo, Em