5/03/2002 06:47:00 PM [ link ]
The other day while I was playing piano, michael decided that it would be a good idea to hit me every time I made a mistake. As "motivation", he said. (!) So naturally, I tried to think of something to play that would give me the greatest chance of avoiding pain. But there was nothing. I told myself that it's been a long time since I've played regularly. I shouldn't expect everything to be perfect yet. But then I started thinking... In high school, I played piano every day. Even then, there wasn't a piece that I knew for certain I could play without mistakes. I never focused my practicing efforts towards perfection. Instead, I aimed for beauty. Practicing in a way that would allow me to play a piece perfectly somehow takes the fun out of things. Everything begins to sound robotic, and stale. If a song was always perfect and always the same, I would start to hate it no matter how beautiful it was to begin with. I would rather make one or two mistakes and play with passion, than to play perfectly but coldly.
