Organising your talent

Students and professional musicians often say, “If only I could get organised I could use my talents better!” We all need to create space in our lives and in our brains for the things that we really want to do. To do our best, and to enjoy it as well we need to be balanced and vital. We respect our talent by introducing moments of rest, nourishment, exercise and clarity.

Our first reaction to a challenge is to rush at it, and push ourselves to work at what seems like a great task with maximum energy and effort. It helps to know that this is how our brains are programmed since the stone-age. The initial reaction to work hard allowed us to survive in those days. However, if we allow ourselves to go into the “emergency” mode, then our brains and bodies will not be able to perform, or even experience, the subtle work of music making. Music does not live in the stress field of our brains.

The problem is that we kind of like to to feel stressed, as it makes us feel that we are working. Remember though that the goals of practicing is to make the difficult passage easy! In order to function on a higher level, we need to get off the adrenaline train, to take a look at what we are doing and how, and what the music requires.

True discipline, instead of knee-jerk strictness, means that you take time to assess what you want to do, your goal, and then identify how you are going to do it. Then, you can always change your mind as you go, as long as you stay in the calm state of mind that allows reflection and observation.

So, start your work session with a focussing your mind, or an orientation exercise. This clears your mind for new impulses and ideas. It makes you more creative in everything you do.

Then, define your goal for the coming hour of practice or work. After that, write down what you are going to do, the tasks that you set yourself, and after you do them, assess how it went, and reassign a new task based on your experience.

It is important to know the difference between a goal and a task.

A GOAL is plan that you have, something that you want to achieve.

A TASK is an act that can be carried out with success in a given (short) period of time.
In order to come to a task that can be carried out during a portion of your work hour, you may need to cut what you perceive as one task into many parts. Also, you may need to expand your idea of what a “task” is to include thinking without making sound!

If you learn to work like this, you will find that your talent will have gained enormous room to expand, inform and improve your work. You will have given yourself BRAIN SPACE.

Learn some tactics for organising your talent on the 2nd cup of coffee page.