Lesson 13 - Practice Makes Perfect, Then What?
When I was a child I loved playing the piano. I played for years, up until I was 14. When I turned 14 I realized that to be cool, I needed to play the guitar.
My choice was simple, I could either continue playing the piano, which I loved, or I could learn a new instrument with the added goal of being cool. For the 14 year old me, it was a simple decision. Thus began my love of not just playing music, but of learning new instruments. Over the years I’ve switched from piano to guitar to violin to electric bass to upright bass to trumpet to saxophone and I am now learning how to be a scratch DJ. Other than with the piano, I’m completely self taught.
What I do is buy a cheap or used instrument and a book on how to play. I play until the novelty wears off and I move on.
A week ago a new neighbor moved into my apartment building. He is a drummer. We started talking and when I said I could play half a dozen instruments he got excited. He told me to come over with the trumpet and jam with him. I grabbed my keyboard (that was prominently displayed in my living room) and went to his apartment.
He started drumming away and I sat down in front of the keyboard. I played a couple of notes, ran through a couple scales, but within a couple of minutes it was clear that I couldn’t remember how to play anymore.
I was shocked. I knew that I hadn’t played the keyboard in a while, but I was playing complicated classical pieces when I was 12. I assumed that skill would stay with me forever. I was amazed to learn that I had forgotten what used to come so naturally to me.
Practice makes perfect is all well and good, but without constant practice and use, you’ll peak and then decline.
This is the point that Simpleology Lesson 13 is here to teach us. All these valuable and useful pieces of information that we are learning through Simpleology can’t just be read and ignored. They need to be practiced and used. The Simpleology Praxes are setup to keep your skills sharp and your efficiency high. Be sure to set 15 minutes aside every day to do the Praxes.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:14 am
dear Ben,
Good day… day after day you make a day a full of energy to go on .. to practice a goal that we want in life until it becomes perfect. Is like the journey to holiness .. a long process to make oneself holy.
Thank you again.
Rosa